Terry Riley & Pandit Pran Nath

Interview with Terry Riley At Home 6/11/83

Charles Amirkhanian interviews composer Terry Riley at his home in Northern California on June 11, 1983. Riley describes his early childhood experiences with music, his life as a student in San Francisco and his first experimentation with serial and then minimal composition. He goes into great detail about the processes that led to his seminal work “In C”. Riley describes his early collaborations with others and his later tendency to work alone. Both Charles and Terry lament the fact that growing up in rural California there was little chance to be exposed to classical music. Riley also discusses his exploration of musical traditions from around the world, and in particular his affinity for Asian and Indian music and Eastern spiritual philosophies. Terry also discusses the influence that Pandit Pran Nath had on his life and music.

Part One:

Part Two: