Anthony De Ritis

“With artists like Busoni, or what someone like Russolo was trying to do with “The Art of Noises,” there’s this whole issue of thinking about why composition needs renewal. I think that’s what Anthony is thinking about.”
- Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, in BPM Culture magazine, “Magna Cum Loud” (6-24-2004)

“De Ritis is widening the palette of the orchestral tradition, imbuing it with a new kind of hall-of-mirrors logic that could pave the way to a submersion of the orchestra in a world of technology.”
- Kyle Gann, The Village Voice (10-12-2004)

“De Ritis has helped construct the bridge between musical worlds.”
- Andrew Gilbert, San Jose Mercury News (3-18-2004)

“…an audio alchemist’s wet dream”
- East Bay Express (Berkeley, CA) in “Spooky 7th, Back that Classical Up” (3-17-2004)

Composer Anthony Paul De Ritis, born on Long Island, New York, is currently Professor and Chair of the Music Department at Northeastern University in Boston.

De Ritis’ music has been described as having “absorbing play of texture, exciting use of color” (San Francisco Chronicle); “…intriguingly beautiful… cutting-edge” (Tech TV); “… brash, rhythmic, propulsive and completely engaging” (Contra Costa Times) and sounding “like a rich tapestry in the spirit of Charles Ives” (The Boston Globe).

He has received performances nationally and internationally, including at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Harvard’s Sanders Theatre as part of the Bank of America Celebrity Series, Taipei’s Zhong Shan Hall, and UNESCO headquarters in Paris, where his Melody for Peace was premiered by the Prague Philharmonic.

De Ritis’ Devolution, a Concerto for DJ and Symphony Orchestra, features Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid as the soloist. Performances include the Oakland East Bay, New Haven, and Alabama Symphonies, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. His compositions for the pipa, a Chinese traditional instrument, includes commissions from pipa virtuosi Min Xiao-Fen and Wu Man. Reviews of his compositions and performances have appeared in national and international publications, including the New York Times, Village Voice, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Boston Globe, New Haven Register, Symphony magazine, Classical Guitar (England), La Nouveau Rèpublique (France) and Le Nazione (Italy).

De Ritis completed his Ph.D. in Music Composition at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied with Richard Felciano and Jorge Liderman, and worked with David Wessel at Berkeley’s Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) (1992-1997). He received his M.M. in Electronic Music Composition from Ohio University under Mark Phillips (1990-1992) and his B.A. in Music with a concentration in Business Administration from Bucknell University, studying composition under William Duckworth, Jackson Hill and Kyle Gann, and philosophy with Richard Fleming (1986-1990). De Ritis engaged in summer study at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France under Phillipe Manoury, Tristan Murail, and Gilbert Amy (1991, 1992), the University of Southern California (1990) and New York University (1989). De Ritis also holds a certificate in Internet Technologies and a Masters in Business Administration with an emphasis in high-tech. In 2006 De Ritis was named the Alumnus of the Year for the College of Fine Arts at Ohio University.

As a graduate student De Ritis contracted and managed 112 musicians for the American premiere of John Cage’s Ocean 1-95 with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and scored the music for the Macintosh computer game, Step On It, which won the 1997 MacWorld Arcade Game of the Year. He is the founder and lead developer of the Online Conservatory, a collaboration between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Northeastern University, which has been featured in the New York Times, the Chronicle for Higher Education, Newsweek, Symphony magazine and the Boston Globe. The Online Conservatory allows viewers to explore BSO programs in-depth before their performances; in 2005 it was declared a “best practice” in “integrated” or “left-brain” marketing by Forrester Research. www.bso.org/conservatory

Since 2007, De Ritis has participated in a number of activities related to Music and Cultural Diplomacy; established the Boston GuitarFest collaboration between the New England Conservatory and Northeastern University (which also premiered his work Jeu de Paume for pipa and guitar featuring Wu Man and Eliot Fisk); received a 3-year one-million dollar grant for the Fusion Arts Exchange program in music composition and performance from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and led Northeastern’s Creative Industries initiative, which exists at the intersection of digital media, information technology and business entrepreneurship.
www.deritis.com