Rhys Chatham

Early years

Chatham began his career as a piano tuner for La Monte Young and as a harpsichord tuner for Gustav Leonhardt, Rosalyn Tureck, and Glenn Gould. He studied flute under Sue Ann Kahn, where he first encountered contemporary classical music, and later studied under Morton Subotnick and La Monte Young.

He was a member of Young's Theatre of Eternal Music in the early seventies and played with Tony Conrad in an early version of The Dream Syndicate. In 1971, while still a teenager, he became the first music director at The Kitchen in Manhattan. His early work Two Gongs (1971) shows the influence of La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass.

Compositions from the late 1970s and early 1980s

By 1977, Chatham's music was heavily influenced by punk rock after seeing an early Ramones concert. He formed the No Wave groups Tone Death and The Gynecologists, influenced by the artists later labeled No Wave in 1978. That year, he began performing Guitar Trio with an ensemble including Glenn Branca and Nina Canal of Ut. He wrote several works for large guitar ensembles, including Drastic Classicism, a collaboration with dancer Karole Armitage.

Drastic Classicism first appeared on the 1982 compilation New Music from Antarctica and was also included on a 1987 album that featured his 1982 composition Die Donnergötter. In 1978, Artists Space hosted a five-night No Wave music festival organized by Michael Zwack and Robert Longo, featuring Chatham's The Gynecologists and Tone Death. Members of Band of Susans began their careers in Chatham's ensembles and later covered Guitar Trio on their 1991 album.

Chatham began playing trumpet in 1983, studying under Carmine Curuso and Andrew Crocker; his later works use loop and delay techniques for trumpet, heard on the album Outdoor Spell (2011) and a duo album with Charlemagne Palestine, Youuu + Mee = Weee (2014).

Recent activity

In 2002, Chatham experienced a resurgence after the release of the limited-edition 3 CD box set An Angel Moves Too Fast to See: Selected Works 1971-1989, with a 130-page booklet. The title comes from his 1989 composition for one hundred guitars. He has since toured with his one-hundred guitar orchestra in Europe. In 2005, the city of Paris commissioned A Crimson Grail for 400 electric guitars for the Nuit Blanche Festival; about 10,000 people attended, and 100,000 watched on live television.

A CD of excerpts was released in January 2007. Chatham toured the original 30-minute Guitar Trio, renamed G3, with six to ten electric guitars, electric bass, and drums. In February 2007, he completed the Guitar Trio (G3) Is My Life North America Tour, with a film by Robert Longo projected behind performances; local musicians from each city participated, including members of Sonic Youth, Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and others.

A three-CD box set of these performances was released in March 2008. He made his first American presentation of a composition for one-hundred guitar orchestra in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on May 23, 2008, with a new piece titled Les 100 Guitares: G100. The American premiere of A Crimson Grail was scheduled for August 8, 2008, at Damrosch Park Bandshell in New York City, but rain canceled the concert; precautions were taken for the 2009 premiere.