Audrey Riley is an English cellist and string arranger, based in the UK.
Riley trained at the Guildhall School of Music with Leonard Stehn. She was a cellist for Virginia Astley from 1983 to 1986 and a one-time auxiliary member of The Family Cat.
She has been a member of the post-minimalist band Icebreaker since 1989, [1] and a frequent indie session artist. [2]
During 2002/03, Riley embarked on her own project, entitled 'A Change of Light', a collaboration between musicians, composers and visual artist Philip Riley, with Andrew Zolinsky (piano), James Woodrow (guitar), Nick Allum (The Fatima Mansions, The Apartments, Cathal Coughlan) and Rob Allum (High Llamas, Turin Brakes) both on drums, to present music for cello in an expanded recital. New works have been written by composers Gavin Bryars, David Lang, Steve Hillier (Dubstar), Mark Brydon (Moloko), Emma Anderson (Lush), Cathal Coughlan, Piet Goddaer (Ozark Henry), David Gavurin, Harriet Wheeler (The Sundays) and Damian le Gassick. After many performances in art galleries and venues in the UK, the project was recorded in 2003/04 for a combined CD/DVD release, with a second series being subsequently developed. [3]
She took part in the first performance of a new work "Views", music by Cage, performing with the experimental Japanese violinist Takahisa Kosugi and the composer Christian Wolff, which toured throughout Europe in 2005–6.
In 2014, Riley has joined London music college The Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, as the tutor for the arrangements classes. [4]
As an arranger and improvising session cellist she has recorded for two decades with numerous groups including The Style Council (A Stones Throw Away), The Smiths ( Stop Me ), Nick Cave (on Tender Prey ), Dubstar, The Cure, The Go-Betweens, The Sundays, Lush, [5] the Smashing Pumpkins (for whom she conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra strings) and Dave Matthews (for whom she conducted the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in eight of her arrangements for the album Some Devil ), as well as live and television appearances with many others. Most recently she has contributed her playing and arrangements to new albums by Foo Fighters ( Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace ), Coldplay ( A Rush of Blood to the Head and X&Y ), Feeder ( Yesterday Went Too Soon , Comfort in Sound and Pushing the Senses ), Muse ( Absolution , Black Holes & Revelations , The Resistance and Drones ), Moloko ( Statues ) and Fightstar ( Be Human ).
She has worked extensively with dance companies including Siobhan Davies, Royal Scottish Ballet and Random Dance. Since 2001 she has toured with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company performing Gavin Bryars Bi-ped and the solo work for cello, One8 by John Cage, in Paris, Mullhouse, Berlin, Dublin, Reykjavik, Bergen, Hong Kong, Brazil and at The Barbican, London.
Richard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, avant-garde, and experimental music.
Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme.
Sir Granville Ransome Bantock was a British composer of classical music.
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Cathal Coughlan was an Irish singer and songwriter from Cork, best known as the frontman of the band Microdisney, formed with Sean O'Hagan in 1980. Their second album The Clock Comes Down the Stairs reached number one in the UK Indie Chart. They developed cult followings in the Irish and UK indie music scenes before breaking up in 1988.
Things to Make and Do is the third album by the electronic/dance duo Moloko, released in the UK by Echo Records in 2000. It was a sonic departure for Moloko, with the tracks being less reliant on electronics and more on live musicians. In addition to the change in musical styles, the lead singer, Róisín Murphy, had changed her lyrical style. At time of release, Murphy summed up the previous style of her lyrics, saying, "I was nineteen when I made Tight Sweater, and I knew I was pretending, but if I tried not to, I'd still be pretending. Now, I know myself better," and her lyrics on this album are described as, "Roisin's most direct and emotionally honest lyrics [so far]."
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Icebreaker is a UK-based new music ensemble founded by James Poke and John Godfrey. They interpret new music, specialising in a post-minimal and "totalist" repertoire. Icebreaker always play amplified and have a reputation for playing, by classical standards, "seriously loud". They have expanded their repertoire to include non-classical material, particularly in their version of the Brian Eno album Apollo, a project based on the music of Kraftwerk, and music by Scott Walker.
Shauna Rolston is a Canadian cellist.
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Andrew Zolinsky is a British pianist.
Maya Beiser is an American musician, cellist, performing artist and producer who lives in New York City. Beiser was raised on a kibbutz in Israel by her French mother and Argentine father, and graduated from Yale University School of Music. She has been described by the Boston Globe as "a force of nature", "a cello goddess" by The New Yorker and "the reigning queen of the avant-garde cello" by The Washington Post. Beiser is a 2015 United States Artists Distinguished Music Fellow and the Inaugural Mellon Distinguished Visiting Artist at the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology.
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Tina Guo is a Chinese-born American cellist and erhuist from San Diego. Her international career as a cellist, electric cellist, erhuist, and composer is characterized by videos featuring theatrical backdrops and elaborate costumes, a range of genres, and an improvisatory style in film, television, and video game scores.
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Song of Co-Aklan is the sixth and final solo album by the Irish singer / songwriter Cathal Coughlan. It was recorded in London just before the COVID-19 pandemic and released to critical acclaim in 2021. The album was preceded by a limited edition cover of Van Morrisson's "Come Here My Love."