Christopher O’Riley article in Tulsa World

Posted on June 9th, 2004.

Tulsa World (Oklahoma) published an article on Christopher O’Riley:

Most piano recital programs are filled with titles like “Sonata in E-flat,” “Etude No. 1″ and “Variations on a Theme by So-and-So.” When Christopher O’Riley plays a recital, however, the program is likely to list titles like “Fake Plastic Trees,” “Karma Police” and “Subterranean Homesick Alien.” Last year, O’Riley released a product that was what the pianist himself has called an “obsession” — “True Love Waits: Christopher O’Riley Plays Radiohead.”

For those who aren’t up on what David Letterman likes to call “the rock and roll,” Radiohead is an English band more praised than played. The group had its first hit a decade ago with a song titled “Creep,” and its third album, 1997’s “OK Computer,” was one of the most critically lauded rock albums of the decade. The band’s music has been called everything from austere and angst-ridden to aggressive and atmospheric — and that’s just the adjectives starting with the letter A.

But it is the obvious craftsmanship in the band’s songwriting, serving as the foundation for its mix of crunching guitars and dreamy electronica, that has attracted the attention of musicians like O’Riley. For those who don’t pay attention to the world of classical music, Christopher O’Riley is one of the superstars, a musical dynamo whose career is divided equally among the concert stage, the recording booth and the radio station.

O’Riley has always pursued wide-ranging musical styles, performing solo piano music by everyone from Beethoven to P.D.Q. Bach. He’s been a soloist with major orchestras throughout the world. Locally, he’s been a guest twice at the OK Mozart International Festival in Bartlesville, and he performed with the Tulsa Philharmonic in 1997.

He’s also been an advocate for contemporary music, and for bringing classically trained skills to non-classical forms, from tango to jazz. And he hosts a nationally syndicated public radio program called “From the Top,” that features performances by, and O’Riley’s conversations with, up and coming artists.

Creating his own solo piano transcriptions of other music is something O’Riley has done often in his career. And even the idea of melding classical and rock music is not new to him. The composer Aaron Jay Kernis wrote a piece for O’Riley called “Superstar Etude No. 1,” based on the piano playing style of pioneer rocker Jerry Lee Lewis.

In an interview with the Tulsa World in 1997, O’Riley said he used to play rock ‘n’ roll piano as a youngster. “Classical music was always in my life,” he said at that time. “But playing rock music was a way of my turning being the least popular kid in my class, who was always locked away playing music, to my advantage.

“Rock was a type of music that was easy to catch on to, and it helped get through those rough years of adolescence.” But his attachment to the music of Radiohead goes much deeper than trying to earn acceptance through some kind of crossover production. “I connect with Radiohead’s music for the same reason I connect with most of the music I play,” O’Riley said last year in an interview with the Boston Herald.

“I’m always listening for interesting textures and colors and harmonies, and those are hallmarks of Radiohead’s style. I wouldn’t call anyone in the band a virtuoso guitarist, but you have potentially three guitarists contributing a specific building block in a way that is much more contrapuntal than you find in most popular music. As a classical player, that makes my ears perk up.

“I think by playing Radiohead I am revitalizing an activity that’s been going on for hundreds of years,” he said. “If Beethoven could be cajoled to sit down at a party and play piano, he didn’t trot out his Fifth Symphony. He’d improvise on the popular songs of his day.

“Lizst took Hungarian folk songs and made them into grand piano fantasies. Bartok recorded hundreds of folk songs, which became the building blocks of his classical compositions.

“People are right to be skeptical of crossover. When Pat Boone does ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ it’s calculated, not sincere. But I don’t think of ‘True Love Waits’ as being a crossover record. I think it’s like Lizst’s ‘Hungarian Rhapsodies.’ Only this is O’Rileys ‘Radiohead Rhapsodies.’ ” [thanks Alex]