Gyan Riley
photo by Dmitrij Matvejev
CoPAC and the Shaking Ray Levi Society will present Gyan Riley in concert Tuesday, April 3, at 7:30 p.m. The concert will be at Barking Legs Theater, 1307 Dodds Ave. Tickets are $15 in advance and at the door and $10 for students at the door.
Review for Gyan Riley:
The celebrated contemporary classical guitarist Gyan Riley has earned universal acclaim for his technical prowess, nimble dexterity and unbridled creativity as a composer.
Gyan Riley won his first guitar in a raffle when he was 12 years old. Shortly after learning all of the songs in his cassette collection by ear, he became the first full-scholarship graduate guitar student at the San Francisco Conservatory. Gyan's diverse work now focuses on his own compositions, improvisation, and contemporary classical repertoire. Gyan has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, New Music USA, the Carnegie Hall Corporation, the American Composers Forum, and the New York Guitar Festival. He has performed with Zakir Hussain, Lou Reed, John Zorn, the Kronos Quartet, Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth), Iva Bittova, Julian Lage, the Bang-On-A-Can All-Stars, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, Secret Chiefs 3, the San Francisco Symphony, the Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, and his father, the composer/pianist/vocalist Terry Riley.
Various tours have taken him throughout Europe, Canada, Latin America, Asia, and the U.S., both as a soloist and in various ensembles. Gyan resides in New York City and frequently performs with the duo Probosci, the trio Eviyan, the electric guitar quartet Dither, guitarist Julian Lage, and his father Terry Riley. Terry and Gyan recently scored a new film by writer/director Francois Girard (The Red Violin) entitled "Hochelaga, Terre des Âmes" that premiered at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival and was recently selected as Canada's pick for best foreign language film category at the 2018 Oscars.
Gyan has five solo CD titles and many ensemble/collaborative recordings, most recently released on National Sawdust Tracks and Tzadik Records in New York. Gyan's latest solo album, "Sprig," will be released on March 30, and one tree will be planted per physical copy sold, through the conservation organization American Forests.
For more information on Gyan visit http://gyanriley.com/ or https://gyanriley.bandcamp.com
For more information on the concert visit the Facebook page.