Richard Carrick


Richard David Carrick is an American composer, pianist and conductor. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition for 2015-16 while living in Kigali, Rwanda. His compositions are influenced by diverse sources including traditional Korean Gugak music, the flow concept of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Gnawa Music of Morocco, Jazz, experimental music, concepts of infinity, the works of Italo Calvino and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and his work as improviser.
He is co-founder/co-artistic director of the critically acclaimed experimental music ensemble Either/Or with whom he performs regularly as pianist and conductor.
Carrick is currently Chair of the Composition Department at Berklee College of Music. In 2011 and 2013 Carrick was Adjunct Associate Professor of Composition at Columbia University and taught composition and history at New York University 2009–2012. For a decade he trained young composers for the New York Philharmonic in New York City and internationally.
He has received numerous awards including a 2015–16 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2015 Gugak Fellowship for Korean Traditional Music, and a .
His music, described as “charming, with exoticism and sheer infectiousness” by Allan Kozinn of The New York Times, has been performed internationally by the New York Philharmonic, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, ISCM World Music Days-Switzerland], , , Merkin Hall, Nieuw Ensemble, JACK Quartet, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, soloists Tony Arnold, Marilyn Nonken, Magnus Andersson, Carin Levine, Rohan de Saram, David Shively, and others.

Education

He received his BA in Mathematics and Music from Columbia University with Mario Davidovsky, a Masters and Doctorate from the University of California-San Diego with Brian Ferneyhough, and pursued further studies at IRCAM and the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague.

Career

Recent works include the 2015 CD release, Cycles of Evolution, which incorporates pieces commissioned and performed by the NYPHIL BIENNIAL, Either/Or, Sweden’s Ensemble Son, Hotel Elefant, The String Orchestra of Brooklyn, and DZ4. Carrick conducts or performs on all works on this CD, including Namdaemun, Adagios, Dark Flow Double Quartet, and more. Carrick's improvisation-based disc Stone Guitars garnered critical attention in both the new music and guitar worlds. The hour-long Flow Cycle for Strings is regularly performed by soloists and duos/trios. Other recent works include String Quartet #2-Space:Time, Harmonixity for Saxophone Quartet and la touche sonore for solo piano. He also writes large-scale multi-media works combining video, electronics and live musicians, including the "operatically ambitious" Cosmicomics, based on stories by Italo Calvino and the "apocalyptic" Prisoner's Cinema.
Select recent works are published by .
As conductor and pianist, he has premiered numerous works by distinguished composers including Helmut Lachenmann, Chaya Czernowin, Jonny Greenwood, Karin Rehnqvist, George Lewis, Elliott Sharp, John Zorn, Anthony Coleman.
He also improvises on piano and occasionally on electric guitar. Works include a solo electric guitar CD in preparation, solo piano CD, as well as performances with Jin Hi Kim, Chris Cochrane, Annie Gosfield, David Wallace, and others.
He has given University masterclasses on his own compositions in Tokyo, Seoul, London, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Paris, Darmstadt, and New York City.

Selected works

;Orchestral
;Chamber music
;Piano
Electric Guitar Quartet
;Vocal