Colin Riley

Colin's work embraces the tension of complex and simple approaches, as well as those between the avant-garde and popular music. He is also a committed advocate of the emerging and up and coming in the new music scene. As well as being Senior Lecturer at Brunel University, Colin has been a mentor for the Making Music’s Adopt A Composer Scheme for the last eight years, director of the network for creative musicians, Music Orbit, and co-Artistic Director of the iF Festival. He is a very experienced and much sought after music-educator.

Research Overview

Composition /electronic music /song-writing /improvisation /collaboration

Teaching Activity

Composition

Colin Riley's work draws on elements of improvisation, new technologies, song-writing and large-scale classical form. His work is impossible to categorize, embodying a genuine integration of stylistic approaches. As an established, but ever-questioning figure within the contemporary music scene over the last 20 years he has cut an independent path through many layers of trends and styles.

His music is played by a wide range of performers and ensembles and he also regularly creates work for his own two groups, the Homemade Orchestra and MooV, where he is composer and performer/director. His own label, Squeaky Kate Music has released several critically acclaimed albums of his music and he has collaborated with many diverse artists in the last few years including an album with Bill Bruford, ‘Skin and Wire’ in 2009.

‘Riley likes to compose phrases or sequences in his music that rise and fall like waves and then reach a momentary silence. The result often recalls the work of singer/songwriter David Sylvian and to a lesser extent Robert Wyatt. Brian Eno has spoken of his approach as being like painting in sound and this will be something Riley will have much empathy with. We’re in for a real treat.’ (Jazzwise Magazine)

‘There are many intelligent musicians whose work defies casual categorization … the composer Colin Riley is one such musician.’ (Classicalsource)

‘Otherworldly electronics … hauntingly beautiful … transcending the contemporary classical realm … unequivocal beauty and genre-busting writing.’ (All About Jazz, 2009)

‘An ambient sound that can and does groove like hell at all times operates on a high level of musical interest.’ (Gabblegate Music Review, 2009)

‘Colin takes the sound-world, gestures and techniques from classical, rock and jazz, and makes no apologies for inhabiting the cracks between all three.’ (991 sleevenotes, 2009)

‘Something extraordinarily strange and beautiful.’ (Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC Radio 1, 2009)

Publications