Anthony De Ritis

Website:
www.deritis.com

Music technologist and composer Anthony Paul De Ritis was born on Long Island, New York on August 13, 1968. He arrived at Boston’s Northeastern University in 1998, where he is Chair of the Music Department and Director of the Multimedia Studies Program. Previously he taught Musical Acoustics at the San Francisco Conservatory as a Collegiate Professor.

De Ritis’ music has been called “cutting-edge,” “revolutionary,” “groundbreaking and earth-shattering,” “ultra-exotic,” and “really cool.” His works have been performed in Europe, North America, Asia and Russia. On June 11, 2002 he was presented as a composer and performer (violist) at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, and was called upon to fill in for maestro Lukas Foss who had taken ill. This performance included De Ritis’ composition Dust and Roses for narrator, viola and guitar, fourteen settings of poems by his father, Paul A. De Ritis, a concert that was reprised at the 2ème Festival de Musique de Sancerre, France, in a version for flute, harp and viola (August 2002).

De Ritis is perhaps best known for his work, Devolution, a Concerto for DJ and Symphony Orchestra, which has received significant press on both coasts, including a segment by Tech TV. It was premiered under the direction of Michael Morgan and the Oakland East Bay Symphony (March 2004) and followed by the east coast premiere under the baton of Jung-Ho Pak and the New Haven Symphony (Sept. 2004) – both performances featured Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid as the soloist.