Max Richter

Contemporary composer Max Richter built his impressive career largely by making high-concept “post-Classical” use of sophisticated electronic dance music. Born in Germany in 1966 and raised in England, Richter studied at the University of Edinburgh and with Luciano Berio in Florence. He cofounded the contemporary-classical keyboard sextet Piano Circus in 1989 and released his solo debut, Memoryhouse, in 2002. It focused on the Kosovo conflict and introduced his ongoing enthusiasm for accessibly melodic forms of protest music with serious intellectual underpinnings. In 2004, The Blue Notebooks garnered acclaim for its electronics-augmented documentary approach and spilled over into TV and movie soundtracks. Richter explored musical miniatures on Songs from Before (2006) and 24 Postcards in Full Colour (2008), then waxed maximal on 2015’s eight-and-a-half-hour-long durational project Sleep. Four years after that, he surpassed a billion streams of his work. In 2022, Richter revisited his 2012 electronic-remix hit, Recomposed By Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons, with The New Four Seasons - Vivaldi Recomposed, a close approximation of his earlier rework, this time performed on original instruments. Richter hosts a radio show on Apple Music Chill, Songs of a Jumping Universe, where he explores unexpected connections in music.