Todd Reynolds
Todd Reynolds, composer, conductor, arranger and violinist, is a longtime member of Bang On A Can, Steve Reich and Musicians and an early member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. His commitment to genre-bending and technology-driven innovation in music has produced innumerable collaborations with artists that regularly cross musical and disciplinary boundaries, regularly placing him in venues from clubs to concert halls around the world.
A forerunner in the expansion of the violin beyond its classical and ‘wood-bound’ tradition, Reynolds electrifies in concert, weaves together composed and improvised segments, and makes use of computer technology and digital loops to sculpt his sounds in real time, seamlessly integrating minimalist, pop, Jazz, Indian, African, Celtic and indigenous folk musics into his own sonic blend. As a cross-genre improviser and collaborator, he has appeared and/or recorded with such artists as Anthony Braxton, Uri Caine, John Cale, Steve Coleman, Joe Jackson, Dave Liebman, Yo-Yo Ma, Graham Nash, Greg Osby, Steve Reich, Marcus Roberts and Todd Rundgren, and has commissioned and premiered countless numbers of new works by America’s most compelling composers, including John King, Phil Kline, Michael Gordon, Neil Rolnick, Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Evan Ziporyn and Randall Wolff. His interdisciplinary work includes ongoing collaborations with SoundPainter Walter Thompson as well as media artists Bill Morrison and Luke DuBois and sound artist Jody Elff.
Reynolds is a founder of the band known as Ethel, a critically acclaimed amplified string quartet (represented by ICM Artists), with whom he wrote and toured internationally. He has also produced Still Life With Microphone, an ongoing theater piece which incorporates his own written and improvised music, compositions written for him, and elements of video and theatrical arts. Nuove Uova [new eggs], new works for violin and electricity, another Todd Reynolds production is a ‘new-music cabaret’ of sorts, having as its home Joe’s Pub in Manhattan. He is the recipient of ASCAP awards, an American Composers Forum Grant for Still Life with Mic and a 2003 Meet-the-Composer Commissioning Music/USA award.
Reynolds’ current string quartet featuring all-stars from New York’s new music scene is currently on tour with Meredith Monk’s Songs of Ascension and engaged in collaborations with composers and performers such as Kenny Werner, Neil Rolnick and Theo Bleckmann. Current commissions include music for dance, theater and orchestra, as well as a double CD to released on September 28th by the Innova label.
