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Max Richter Announces New Album ‘While The Flood Rages’

Oscar-nominated composer&nbsp;Max Richter&nbsp;today announces his new album &lsquo;While The Flood Rages&rsquo;.
&lsquo;While The Flood Rages&rsquo; is a sweeping body of work drawn from Richter&rsquo;s latest collaboration with&nbsp;Wayne McGregor&nbsp;&lsquo;MaddAddam&rsquo;: a co-commission between the&nbsp;National Ballet Of Canada&nbsp;and the&nbsp;Royal Opera House&nbsp;inspired by&nbsp;Margaret Atwood&rsquo;s MaddAddam trilogy.
You can listen to the first single &lsquo;Now We Can Sing&rsquo;&nbsp;<a href="https://maxrichter.lnk.to/NowWeCanSing">HERE</a>.
&lsquo;While The Flood Rages&rsquo; is released on&nbsp;Friday&nbsp;16th October&nbsp;via&nbsp;Decca Records. You can pre-order &lsquo;While The Flood Rages&rsquo;&nbsp;<a href="https://maxrichter.lnk.to/WTFR">HERE</a>.
Years in the making, the project marks Richter and McGregor&rsquo;s third major collaboration, following Infra and Woolf Works. Originally developed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and delayed by its onset, the album now arrives with renewed urgency, engaging directly with themes of ecological crisis, technological acceleration, and human connection.
Rather than a direct soundtrack, &lsquo;While The Flood Rages&rsquo; functions as a standalone companion work.&nbsp;&ldquo;I took the material apart and created a trajectory that makes sense just through listening,&rdquo;&nbsp;Richter explains.&nbsp;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a different way to reach the same destination.&rdquo;
Structured across 15 tracks and three acts, the album unfolds as a continuous, evolving sonic landscape. Recorded at&nbsp;Studio Richter Mahr, it opens with &lsquo;Wave After Wave&rsquo;, where a processed recording of the ocean is transformed into a rhythmic, heartbeat-like pulse, setting the tone both physically and emotionally. From there, &lsquo;Eerie Music&rsquo; introduces a fractured electronic language, built using electromagnetic recordings of internal technological systems found around the studio, hinting at a world shaped as much by machinery as by nature.
At its core is the title track, &lsquo;While The Flood Rages&rsquo;, a quiet, intimate counterpoint to the surrounding chaos that keeps the focus on moments of human connection even as larger systems begin to break down. That tension builds through &lsquo;The City Was A Chaos&rsquo;,&nbsp; where dense, overlapping structures create a sense of overload, before easing into &lsquo;Quiet&rsquo;, which introduces a simple falling piano motif. That motif runs throughout the record, returning in different forms and offering brief moments of clarity within the noise.
The second act widens the emotional and sonic palette. &lsquo;Tell the Bees&rsquo; leans into something more pastoral, drawing on a softer, almost folk-like warmth, while &lsquo;Data Ballistics&rsquo; cuts through with percussive intensity, its rhythms constructed from manipulated gunfire. Across these tracks, traditional musical forms sit alongside fractured digital textures, reflecting the push and pull between older systems of belief and a more unstable, technologically driven present.
By the final act, pieces like &lsquo;Dawn&rsquo; and &lsquo;Background Radiation&rsquo; weave all the sonic elements together with choir, orchestra, and electronics folding into each other. The recurring piano motif returns again, more altered each time, suggesting not resolution so much as transformation.
The album&rsquo;s first single, &lsquo;Now We Can Sing&rsquo;, also closes the record, unfolding as a luminous final moment inspired directly by Atwood&rsquo;s text. Built from that same recurring piano motif that appears throughout the album, it opens out into a choral-led reflection on voice and connection, leaving the album not with a sense of resolution, but with something closer to quiet, collective endurance.
To celebrate the release of &lsquo;While The Flood Rages&rsquo;, Richter will be hosting the&nbsp;WTFR Global Listening Events - a worldwide network of intimate listening experiences. Inspired by the growing culture of listening bars in cities such as Tokyo, London, Seoul, Copenhagen, New York and Melbourne, the events will transform caf&eacute;s, wine bars and hi-fi venues into temporary listening rooms where guests disconnect from their devices and immerse themselves in the music. More information will be announced in the coming weeks.
One the most influential and acclaimed musicians of his generation, Max Richter is known for his ability to seamlessly blend traditional orchestrations with modern electronic elements. With his catalogue amassing over four billion streams and a dedicated global following, he is widely regarded as one of the defining voices in contemporary composition. Richter was recognised with a&nbsp;CBE&nbsp;and the&nbsp;Berlinale Camera for his contributions to both music and film earlier this year.
Beyond his solo endeavors, Richter is a prolific collaborator who has worked with esteemed creatives across multiple disciplines. Between Maison Margiela campaigns and scoring Dior shows to composing for ballets choreographed by Wayne McGregor and his contributions to the world of cinema &amp; TV, including his Oscar nominated score for Chlo&eacute; Zhao&rsquo;s critically acclaimed &lsquo;Hamnet&rsquo;, Richter&rsquo;s versatility knows no bounds.
Richter is co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr alongside his partner, visual artist Yulia Mahr. Located within 31 acres of woodland in Oxfordshire, the duo have a huge passion for using the land to farm and provide a sustainable working environment, serving as a space where both emerging and established creatives can come to develop their work.
&nbsp;
Pre-order the CD and vinyl editions in the&nbsp;<a href="https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/collections/max-richter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DG Store</a>

Max Richter releases his original soundtrack for ‘Hamnet’.

Max Richter today releases his original soundtrack for Chlo&eacute; Zhao&rsquo;s forthcoming acclaimed feature film &lsquo;Hamnet&rsquo;.
The original motion picture soundtrack is now available digitally and will be released on vinyl 9th January, 2026.
&nbsp;
From Academy Award&reg; winning writer/director Chlo&eacute; Zhao, Hamnet tells the powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare&rsquo;s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet. Featuring powerful performances from Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, the film has already earned widespread acclaim, taking home the People&rsquo;s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Discussing his work on the Hamnet soundtrack, Richter explained: &ldquo;In composing the score, I used the basic elements of Elizabethan music&mdash;period instrumentation, grammar, and sensibility&mdash;but applied them in ways that emerge directly from the story&rsquo;s psychology. Having read the script before shooting, I sketched ideas reflecting themes of familial love and loss, our place in the natural world, and Agnes&rsquo; inner journey. Chloe incorporated some of these during filming, and they also informed the edit, providing a foundation for the musical architecture.
Agnes is the film&rsquo;s fulcrum, and I developed a choral language for her that underpins much of the story. The women&rsquo;s voices are used in ways an Elizabethan composer would recognize, as well as purely for psychological and emotional color. It was a joy to work on this remarkable film with such an extraordinary creative team.&rdquo;
One of the most influential composers of his generation, Richter is known for blending traditional orchestration with modern electronic elements, a hallmark of the Hamnet score. His ability to translate profound human experiences into music has earned him a global following, with over three billion streams of his work. Hamnet is among more than 50 projects he has scored, following collaborations with directors including Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese, and Ari Folman.
Richter is co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr with his partner, visual artist Yulia Mahr. Set in the Oxfordshire countryside, they converted a former farmhouse into a multimedia studio powered by solar and heat-pump technology. Surrounded by 31 acres of woodland, the space supports sustainable farming and provides a creative environment for both emerging and established artists.
&nbsp;
&lsquo;Hamnet&rsquo; Official Soundtrack Tracklist:
&nbsp;
<ol>
<li>Of Agnes</li>
<li>Of Orpheus</li>
<li>See things that others don&rsquo;t</li>
<li>Look at me</li>
<li>In all my philosophy</li>
<li>Of earth and heaven</li>
<li>An abysm of time</li>
<li>Of the heart</li>
<li>Of remembrance</li>
<li>Of the sky</li>
<li>I was the more deceived</li>
<li>Inward</li>
<li>Who are you looking for?</li>
<li>The great globe itself</li>
<li>Of a ghost</li>
<li>On The Nature Of Daylight</li>
<li>My Robin to the greenwood did go</li>
<li>Of the undiscovered country</li>
</ol>

Max Richter - New Album Sleep Circle Is Out On 5 September  for 10th Anniversary

New album Sleep Circle marks 10th anniversary of landmark opus SLEEP
Richter makes a much-anticipated return with performances of SLEEP at London&rsquo;s Alexandra Palace on 5 &amp; 6 September
&nbsp;
Max Richter&rsquo;s new album, Sleep Circle, is released on Friday 5 September 2025. A 90‑minute distillation of his groundbreaking eight-and-a-half-hour composition SLEEP, it marks the 10th anniversary of this magnum opus. The original SLEEP has now surpassed 2 billion streams across all platforms, becoming the first classical record to do so, which cements its position as one of the most ambitious and culturally significant classical music projects of the 21st century.
Sleep Circle, issued via Deutsche Grammophon in all formats, including a deluxe vinyl edition, is a trip into the hypnagogic state &ndash; the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep in which dreams begin to take shape. The process of selecting its 24 tracks was informed by the insights Richter gained from performing an abridged version of SLEEP live, allowing him to reframe the material with a more intimate and focused architecture. Highlights such as &ldquo;Dream 11 / Moth-Like Stars&rdquo; and &ldquo;Non-Eternal&rdquo; are placed within a sequence that mirrors the natural 90-minute REM cycle. Recorded at Studio Richter Mahr in Oxfordshire, Sleep Circle showcases Richter&rsquo;s unique ability to translate profound human experience into music, offering listeners a space to slow down and reconnect with their inner selves.
The release coincides with the largest-ever SLEEP performances at London&rsquo;s Alexandra Palace on 5&nbsp;&amp;&nbsp;6 September 2025, Richter&rsquo;s first London SLEEP shows since 2017. These eight-and-a-half-hour overnight renditions, during which audiences can drift in and out of sleep, have become distinctive cultural events that blur the lines between concert and art installation.
Released in 2015 and co-conceived with creative partner Yulia Mahr, the original full-length version of SLEEP was created in collaboration with neuroscientist David Eagleman to explore how sound interacts with the sleeping mind. It was the first classical record to reach 1 billion streams, and its continued success reflects what Richter calls &ldquo;protest music&rdquo; &ndash; a counter-argument to our oversaturated, overstimulated world.
Max Richter is one of the most influential composers of his generation, whose catalogue has now amassed over 3.5&nbsp;billion streams. His work spans film scores for Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese and Ari Folman, fashion shows for Dior, and ballets choreographed by Wayne McGregor, demonstrating his versatility across multiple creative disciplines.

MAX RICHTER – THE BLUE NOTEBOOKS, 20TH-ANNIVERSARY EDITION 

The groundbreaking composer&rsquo;s landmark 2004 album is to be reissued digitally and as an exclusive vinyl edition
Richter is also setting out on his first ever world tour, performing The Blue Notebooks and his latest album, In A Landscape
&ldquo;It opens with On The Nature Of Daylight &hellip; a gorgeous slow-build of a composition &hellip; The rest of the set continues in the same mesmeric fashion &hellip; A sensational start to Saturday.&rdquo; The Guardian, reviewing Richter&rsquo;s performance of The Blue Notebooks at Glastonbury 2023
Max Richter had never even been to the Glastonbury Festival before he opened the Park Stage on Saturday 24 June 2023. He and his string ensemble were joined by Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton for a full-length performance of The Blue Notebooks, Richter&rsquo;s second album, originally released in 2004. Photos from the Glastonbury gig now feature in the 20th-anniversary vinyl edition of The Blue Notebooks soon to be issued by Deutsche Grammophon.
The set of 2 crystal-clear vinyl LPs is packaged in a newly-designed blue gatefold sleeve, with a six-page booklet and art card. Available exclusively from the DG store, it includes all the tracks from the expanded 2018 edition, together with the This Bitter Earth/On The Nature Of Daylight mash-up &ndash; appearing for the first time on vinyl &ndash; and a brand-new solo piano version of On The Nature Of Daylight. Also released as a digital deluxe version, the album comes out on 31 January 2025. On The Nature Of Daylight (Piano Version) is released for download and streaming on 8&nbsp;November 2024.
Its title inspired by The Blue Octavo Notebooks, a collection of writings by Franz Kafka, The Blue Notebooks was composed in 2003. Introducing it to the Glastonbury crowd last year, Max Richter said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of a protest record, a response to what was happening in politics around the build-up to the Iraq war where I was really struck with doubt about what was happening. And I thought about Kafka, who&rsquo;s the patron saint of doubt, and I thought about making a piece which expressed everything, and so we recorded this.&rdquo;
Written for strings and electronics, Richter&rsquo;s meditative tracks are structured around Tilda Swinton&rsquo;s readings from Kafka and the work of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz (whom the composer calls the &ldquo;anti-Kafka&rdquo;). Earlier this year, independent music blog Stereogum summed the album up as follows: &ldquo;The Blue Notebooks is uncertain, melancholy, aching for peace. And its genius was in avoiding a rallying cry altogether. Instead, it was a balm in recognizing the futility around us.&rdquo;
While Richter&rsquo;s first album, Memoryhouse, was unjustly overlooked on its original release, The Blue Notebooks garnered acclaim from the start. Its tracks have since appeared in countless TV and film soundtracks, including Waltz with Bashir, The Leftovers, Shutter Island, Arrival, The Handmaid&rsquo;s Tale and The Last of Us.
This season, Max Richter takes The Blue Notebooks on the road as he embarks on his first ever world tour, accompanied by hand-picked string ensembles. The concerts will also feature the music from Richter&rsquo;s newly-released ninth studio album, In A Landscape (&ldquo;elegiac and resigned yet quietly triumphant&rdquo; &ndash; Pitchfork). As he explains, his latest recording shares many of the concerns of The Blue Notebooks: &ldquo;In a way this record is another look at the themes of the earlier work, but from the perspective of our world and our lives in 2024.&rdquo;
&nbsp;
Max Richter: In a Landscape/The Blue Notebooks world tour dates: 
&nbsp;
2024
28 October Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow &middot; 30/31 October National Concert Hall, Dublin
4 November &nbsp;Bridgewater Hall, Manchester &middot; 5 November &nbsp;Symphony Hall, Birmingham,
6 November &nbsp;Beacon Hall, Bristol Beacon &middot; 8/9 November &nbsp;Royal Festival Hall, London
16 November (matinee &amp; evening perfs) &nbsp;Philharmonie, Paris &middot; 18/19 November &nbsp;Admiralspalast, Berlin
22 November &nbsp;Oslo Opera House &middot; 23 November &nbsp;Konserthuset, Stockholm
25 November &nbsp;DR Koncerthuset, Copenhagen &middot; 26 November &nbsp;Laeiszhalle, Hamburg
28 November &nbsp;Royal Theatre Carr&eacute;, Amsterdam &middot; 30 November &nbsp;Bozar, Brussels
1 December &nbsp;Queen Elisabeth Hall, Antwerp &middot; 2 December &nbsp;Kurhaus Wiesbaden
4 December &nbsp;Isarphilharmonie, Munich &middot; 5 December &nbsp;Philharmonie Luxembourg
&nbsp;
2025
10/11 February &nbsp;QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane &middot; 14/15 February &nbsp;Sydney Opera House
17/18 February &nbsp;Hamer Hall, Melbourne &middot; 20 February &nbsp;Town Hall, Adelaide
23 February &nbsp;Riverside Theatre, Perth &middot; 26 February &nbsp;Dubai Opera
26 April &nbsp;Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston &middot; 29 April &nbsp;Massey Hall, Toronto
2 May &nbsp;Kennedy Center, Washington, DC &middot; 3 May &nbsp;Brooklyn Academy of Music
4 May &nbsp;The Met Philadelphia &middot; 6 May &nbsp;Symphony Center, Chicago
8 May &nbsp;Fox Theater, Oakland &middot; 9 May &nbsp;Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles

The groundbreaking composer&rsquo;s landmark 2004 album is to be reissued digitally and as an exclusive vinyl edition
Richter is also setting out on his first ever world tour, performing The Blue Notebooks and his latest album, In A Landscape
&ldquo;It opens with On The Nature Of Daylight &hellip; a gorgeous slow-build of a composition &hellip; The rest of the set continues in the same mesmeric fashion &hellip; A sensational start to Saturday.&rdquo; The Guardian, reviewing Richter&rsquo;s performance of The Blue Notebooks at Glastonbury 2023
Max Richter had never even been to the Glastonbury Festival before he opened the Park Stage on Saturday 24 June 2023. He and his string ensemble were joined by Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton for a full-length performance of The Blue Notebooks, Richter&rsquo;s second album, originally released in 2004. Photos from the Glastonbury gig now feature in the 20th-anniversary vinyl edition of The Blue Notebooks soon to be issued by Deutsche Grammophon.
The set of 2 crystal-clear vinyl LPs is packaged in a newly-designed blue gatefold sleeve, with a six-page booklet and art card. Available exclusively from the DG store, it includes all the tracks from the expanded 2018 edition, together with the This Bitter Earth/On The Nature Of Daylight mash-up &ndash; appearing for the first time on vinyl &ndash; and a brand-new solo piano version of On The Nature Of Daylight. Also released as a digital deluxe version, the album comes out on 31 January 2025. On The Nature Of Daylight (Piano Version) is released for download and streaming on 8&nbsp;November 2024.
Its title inspired by The Blue Octavo Notebooks, a collection of writings by Franz Kafka, The Blue Notebooks was composed in 2003. Introducing it to the Glastonbury crowd last year, Max Richter said, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of a protest record, a response to what was happening in politics around the build-up to the Iraq war where I was really struck with doubt about what was happening. And I thought about Kafka, who&rsquo;s the patron saint of doubt, and I thought about making a piece which expressed everything, and so we recorded this.&rdquo;
Written for strings and electronics, Richter&rsquo;s meditative tracks are structured around Tilda Swinton&rsquo;s readings from Kafka and the work of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz (whom the composer calls the &ldquo;anti-Kafka&rdquo;). Earlier this year, independent music blog Stereogum summed the album up as follows: &ldquo;The Blue Notebooks is uncertain, melancholy, aching for peace. And its genius was in avoiding a rallying cry altogether. Instead, it was a balm in recognizing the futility around us.&rdquo;
While Richter&rsquo;s first album, Memoryhouse, was unjustly overlooked on its original release, The Blue Notebooks garnered acclaim from the start. Its tracks have since appeared in countless TV and film soundtracks, including Waltz with Bashir, The Leftovers, Shutter Island, Arrival, The Handmaid&rsquo;s Tale and The Last of Us.
This season, Max Richter takes The Blue Notebooks on the road as he embarks on his first ever world tour, accompanied by hand-picked string ensembles. The concerts will also feature the music from Richter&rsquo;s newly-released ninth studio album, In A Landscape (&ldquo;elegiac and resigned yet quietly triumphant&rdquo; &ndash; Pitchfork). As he explains, his latest recording shares many of the concerns of The Blue Notebooks: &ldquo;In a way this record is another look at the themes of the earlier work, but from the perspective of our world and our lives in 2024.&rdquo;
&nbsp;
Max Richter: In a Landscape/The Blue Notebooks world tour dates:&nbsp;&nbsp;
2024
28 October Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow &middot; 30/31 October National Concert Hall, Dublin
4 November &nbsp;Bridgewater Hall, Manchester &middot; 5 November &nbsp;Symphony Hall, Birmingham,
6 November &nbsp;Beacon Hall, Bristol Beacon &middot; 8/9 November &nbsp;Royal Festival Hall, London
16 November (matinee &amp; evening perfs) &nbsp;Philharmonie, Paris &middot; 18/19 November &nbsp;Admiralspalast, Berlin
22 November &nbsp;Oslo Opera House &middot; 23 November &nbsp;Konserthuset, Stockholm
25 November &nbsp;DR Koncerthuset, Copenhagen &middot; 26 November &nbsp;Laeiszhalle, Hamburg
28 November &nbsp;Royal Theatre Carr&eacute;, Amsterdam &middot; 30 November &nbsp;Bozar, Brussels
1 December &nbsp;Queen Elisabeth Hall, Antwerp &middot; 2 December &nbsp;Kurhaus Wiesbaden
4 December &nbsp;Isarphilharmonie, Munich &middot; 5 December &nbsp;Philharmonie Luxembourg
&nbsp;
2025
10/11 February &nbsp;QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane &middot; 14/15 February &nbsp;Sydney Opera House
17/18 February &nbsp;Hamer Hall, Melbourne &middot; 20 February &nbsp;Town Hall, Adelaide
23 February &nbsp;Riverside Theatre, Perth &middot; 26 February &nbsp;Dubai Opera
26 April &nbsp;Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston &middot; 29 April &nbsp;Massey Hall, Toronto
2 May &nbsp;Kennedy Center, Washington, DC &middot; 3 May &nbsp;Brooklyn Academy of Music
4 May &nbsp;The Met Philadelphia &middot; 6 May &nbsp;Symphony Center, Chicago
8 May &nbsp;Fox Theater, Oakland &middot; 9 May &nbsp;Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles

MAX RICHTER ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM ‘IN A LANDSCAPE’  AND FIRST EVER WORLD TOUR

Wednesday 29th May, London &ndash; Max Richter today announces his highly anticipated new album &lsquo;In A Landscape&rsquo; and his first ever world tour.
&lsquo;In A Landscape&rsquo;, Richter&rsquo;s ninth studio album, is released on Friday 6th September via Decca Records. You can pre-order the album and listen to the first single, &lsquo;Movement, Before All Flowers&rsquo;, <a href="https://maxrichter.lnk.to/InALandscapePR">HERE</a>.
The new album marks a significant evolution in Richter&rsquo;s musical journey, as he delves deeper into the themes of optimism and human emotion accompanied by an innovative exploration of electronic sounds and field recordings. It is a record about reconciling polarities, bringing together the electronic and the acoustic, the human and the natural world, the big questions of life and the quiet pleasures of living - a fleeting self-portrait of a musician in constant motion.
&lsquo;In A Landscape&rsquo; employs homogenous musical language to Richter&rsquo;s seminal album &lsquo;The Blue Notebooks&rsquo;, with the two albums in a way bookending this significant chapter of Richter&rsquo;s life and career. It is presented as an open conversation with the audience, asking them to consider the dualities in their own life, what personal stories come to mind while listening and, ultimately, serving as an invitation to imagination.
Max Richter says &ldquo;For me, the music on the record is about connecting or reconciling polarities. The electronics with the acoustic instruments, the natural world with the human world, and the big ideas of life with the personal and intimate. This is a dynamic I started to explore in my 2004 record The Blue Notebooks, and the new project shares many of that album&rsquo;s concerns; in a way this record is another look at the themes of the earlier work, but from the perspective of our world and our lives in 2024.&rdquo;
In support of &lsquo;In A Landscape&rsquo;, Richter has also announced details of his first ever world tour, marking a coming of age for the globally celebrated musician.
The newly announced tour dates will see Richter play across the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, Canada, Australia and Asia throughout 2024 and 2025, including shows at London&rsquo;s legendary Royal Festival Hall and the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Tickets are available via fan presale from Tuesday 4th June at 10am local, with tickets then on general sale on Thursday 6th June at 10am local. Fans can access the pre-sale by pre-ordering a copy of &lsquo;In A Landscape&rsquo; before 3pm BST on Monday 3rd June. You can find more information <a href="https://www.maxrichtermusic.com/">HERE</a>.
&lsquo;In A Landscape&rsquo; is Richter&rsquo;s first solo album recorded at Studio Richter Mahr, the minimalist, eco-conscious creative retreat designed and operated by Richter and his wife, visual artist Yulia Mahr. Shifting focus to Richter&rsquo;s immediate surroundings, &lsquo;In A Landscape&rsquo; marks out a psychic space in which to meditate on the present while recognising a lifetime of artistic influence, from Bach and Purcell to the poetry of Keats, Wordsworth and Anne Carson. Richter also found inspiration in a number of books which he was reading at the time of writing &lsquo;In A Landscape&rsquo;, with many of the track titles on the album named after lines from literature and some of his own treasured paperbacks pictured on the album cover.
Interspersing the studio compositions are nine &lsquo;Life Studies&rsquo; assembled from field recordings and the hubbub of the everyday: footsteps through the woods, eggs sizzling in the kitchen, a Hong Kong airport trolley, practicing Mozart on the piano. These simple acts of noticing from a zen-minded creative bring the &ldquo;landscape&rdquo; of the album&rsquo;s title into focus, calling back to the found sounds that distinguished Richter&rsquo;s breakthrough albums, 2002&rsquo;s &lsquo;Memoryhouse&rsquo; and 2004&rsquo;s &lsquo;The Blue Notebooks&rsquo;.
One the most influential and acclaimed composers of his generation, Richter is known for his ability to seamlessly blend traditional orchestrations with modern electronic elements. With a career spanning decades, Richter&rsquo;s impact on the music industry cannot be overstated. His unparalleled ability to translate profound human experiences into musical compositions has earned him a dedicated global following, with his catalogue amassing over three billion streams to date. Notably, his record-breaking album &lsquo;SLEEP&rsquo; stands as one of the most streamed classical albums of all time.
His seminal album &lsquo;The Blue Notebooks&rsquo; continues to reach new audiences even as it celebrates its twentieth anniversary in 2024. &lsquo;On The Nature of Daylight&rsquo;, the album&rsquo;s epic centerpiece, recently featured on HBO&rsquo;s acclaimed post-apocalyptic drama The Last Of Us, as well as appearing on numerous film and TV soundtracks over the years. Richter performed the album in full at Glastonbury Festival last year alongside Tilda Swinton, who joined Richter onstage to recite the spoken word pieces she contributed for the original recording.
Beyond his solo endeavors, Richter&rsquo;s is a prolific collaborator who has worked with esteemed creatives and visionaries across multiple disciplines. From scoring Dior shows for Kim Jones to composing for ballets choreographed by Wayne McGregor or his contributions to the world of cinema and TV with directors Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese, and Ari Folman, Richter&rsquo;s versatility knows no bounds.
Richter&rsquo;s collaborative partnership with Wayne McGregor goes from strength to strength, with the acclaimed composer contributing an original score for McGregor&rsquo;s next production Maddaddam at London&rsquo;s Royal Opera House in November; a visionary new ballet based on Margaret Atwood&rsquo;s dystopian epic of annihilation and survival. In addition, the pair&rsquo;s previous collaboration, Woolf Works, receives its New York premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House this June.
Richter is co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr alongside his partner, visual artist Yulia Mahr. Set in the English countryside in Oxfordshire, Max and Yulia built the multimedia production studio inside a former farmhouse and have powered it with cutting-edge solar and heat-pump technology. Located within 31 acres of woodland, the duo have a huge passion for using the land to farm and provide a sustainable working environment, serving as a space where both emerging and established creatives can come to develop their work.

Max Richter - SLEEP: Piano Edition

Max Richter has pared back sections of his best-selling 8.5-hour epic&nbsp;SLEEP to their basic structures to create three extended solo piano tracks for this new digital EP, out on World Sleep Day
&nbsp;
&ldquo;The piano is where I go to daydream, because composing, in a way, is daydreaming as well. It&rsquo;s trying to encounter other aspects of your mind, things maybe you&rsquo;re not so aware of consciously&rdquo;
Max Richter
&nbsp;
Max Richter&rsquo;s 2015 album SLEEP is a modern musical phenomenon, having garnered nearly 2 billion streams to date. Exploring new ways in which music and consciousness can interact, the original 8.5‑hour work has also sold out some of the world&rsquo;s most prestigious venues for full-length live performances. The SLEEP by Max Richter App, featuring exclusive new sequences from this award-winning composition, as well as other music from across Richter&rsquo;s repertoire, has had almost 440K downloads to date.
&nbsp;
&ldquo;SLEEP&nbsp;&hellip; grows into a piece of considerable emotional weight. It becomes a meditation upon our being alive, our continuing to breathe as the world rumbles continuously in our absence&rdquo;
The Quietus, reviewing the original album
&nbsp;
In 2023, Richter revisited some of the SLEEP material from an electronic perspective for SLEEP: Tranquility Base. For this new EP, SLEEP: Piano Edition, he has focused on his own instrument and created three extended reimagined tracks for solo piano. Featuring performances by Richter himself, the EP has been released&nbsp;on World Sleep Day, 15 March 2024, preceded by short edits of each of the three tracks -&nbsp;Dream 0, released on 2 February, followed by Non-Eternal on&nbsp;16&nbsp;February and Return&nbsp;2 on 12&nbsp;March.
To coincide with this, on the morning of Sunday 17 March, Max Richter will present a special audio-visual meditation &lsquo;90 Minutes of SLEEP&rsquo; at London&rsquo;s BFI IMAX Waterloo. It will be the first ever spatial presentation of music from his acclaimed SLEEP project, with visuals custom-made for the UK&rsquo;s largest cinema screen.&nbsp;
For Richter, the piano is a sketch pad &ndash; the starting point for new creative ventures, enabling subconscious ideas to float up to the surface as he begins composing. As he notes, the instrument also plays a key role in SLEEP: &ldquo;One of the two main themes is very slow-moving, pulsed piano music &ndash; the instrument is one of the main characters in the piece.&rdquo; It was therefore a natural choice to go back to the keyboard and strip certain sections of the larger work down to their basic structures.
Equally natural was the notion of revisiting an existing work and exploring what else it might have to say, to him and to others. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really believe in closed works of art,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very interested in the music remaining alive, not frozen, and in what the listeners bring to the piece. When we see a sculpture, we don't always see it the same way we walk around it. We see different angles, different aspects. And in a way, this is maybe revealing different aspects of SLEEP itself.&rdquo;
The first track to be seen from a new perspective on SLEEP: Piano Edition is Dream&nbsp;0. Based on what was originally vocal material, it&rsquo;s &ldquo;a straightforward piano arrangement, but for piano duet, so there are two parts&rdquo;. Meanwhile, &ldquo;what I&rsquo;ve done here,&rdquo; says Richter about Non-Eternal, &ldquo;is enlarged the colour palette of the piano by adding some tape delays and other things to it, to just shine a new light on it.&rdquo;
For the third and final track, Return 2, Richter has adapted some of the music he originally wrote for strings. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a piece I&rsquo;m very fond of,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;So I thought it would be nice just for me personally to play that material.&rdquo;
SLEEP: Piano Edition has the same spacious and immersive qualities as its epic parent work. Whether we listen to one track or the seamless flow of all three, the slow, steady rhythms, repetitions and subtle transformations offer a sense of familiarity and security.
&ldquo;SLEEP is a piece about finding a place to pause, a place to rest,&rdquo; concludes the composer. &ldquo;Because even though the world is very exciting, it&rsquo;s also now very exhausting, especially psychologically, with the advent of 24-hour news, social media, the internet completely saturating our lives. We&rsquo;re beset by ecological, social, political troubles. Obviously, the best way we can deal with these is to have a clear mind. In order to do that, we need to find ways to kind of settle our minds down. And SLEEP offers one such opportunity.&rdquo;
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Max Richter Introduces: SLEEP: Tranquility Base

Max Richter presents SLEEP: Tranquility Base, a thirty-minute EP of new SLEEP music, released today on Deutsche Grammophon ahead of World Sleep Day on 17&nbsp;March. Remixes will come from electronic musician Kelly Lee Owens and German sound artist Alva Noto.
Richter returns to his celebrated eight-hour magnum opus SLEEP with this new EP which offers a glimpse into the original material from an electronic perspective. &ldquo;Tranquility Base&rdquo; is the site on the Moon where, in July 1969, humans landed and walked on a celestial body other than Earth for the first time. With this in mind, the EP functions as a vessel that disconnects and travels through the body of work, allowing art to provide something which resembles peace within ourselves.
Richter&rsquo;s SLEEP app to date has had over 350K downloads and today the FOCUS section of the app has been updated. The update includes added music from SLEEP: Tranquility Base and music from across Richter&rsquo;s repertoire. This is the first time material drawn from outside the SLEEP project has been included.
&ldquo;SLEEP is a kind of counter argument to what&rsquo;s going on in the world. Yulia and I have talked about it as protest music. It&rsquo;s a sort of alternative proposition to how things could be or how things are&hellip; towards the world we&rsquo;re living in and helps to shine a light on the things we can do better.
The original thing which made us want to make this piece was a sense of being oversaturated &ndash; with data, with information &ndash; overstimulated&hellip; All of that is just worse now, there&rsquo;s more of the same &ndash; much more of the same &ndash; and that makes the piece continually relevant.&rdquo; &ndash; Max Richter
Max Richter is renowned for his ability to translate profound human emotions into music. With his catalogue now surpassing 3 billion streams, he continues to set the standard for what is possible for composers in the 21st century. The original SLEEP record is the most streamed classical record of all time with The New Yorker stating that the music provides &ldquo;a wish that the human body might be transformed into sound&rdquo;, WSJ calling the record &ldquo;haunting&rdquo; and Crack saying that it&rsquo;s &ldquo;like fragments of half-remembered dreams&rdquo;.
The SLEEP app is the product of a close collaboration between Max Richter, Deutsche Grammophon and Universal Music Germany&rsquo;s Marketing Labs. The app was developed entirely in-house in Marketing Labs&rsquo; Consumer Development department.&nbsp;
Marketing Labs is Universal Music Germany&rsquo;s high-tech innovation and marketing department. It collaborates with labels, and services artists with products and campaigns with global scale and reach, as exemplified by the SLEEP app.

Max Richter Soundtracks The Finale Of Dior Show At Paris Fashion Week With New 'Spring 1' Remix

Acclaimed composer Max Richter has created a bespoke new remix of his popular work &lsquo;Spring 1&rsquo; for the finale of Dior&rsquo;s fashion show at Paris Fashion Week today, Friday 24 June. The single, &lsquo;Spring 1 (Levitation Mix)&rsquo;, is also released today on Deutsche Grammophon. It marks Max&rsquo;s third collaboration with designer Kim Jones.
Max took his place on the front row at the Dior show at Val-de-Gr&acirc;ce in Paris for the launch of the track, which is based on &lsquo;Spring 1&rsquo; from his latest recording, The New Four Seasons. The album was released earlier this month in collaboration with Chineke! Orchestra and violin soloist Elena Urioste &ndash; 10 years after Max&rsquo;s original Recomposed project, which saw him reinvent Vivaldi&rsquo;s famous work. This new remix provides a different musical colour through the use of classical instruments combined with deeper electronic elements.
Max says of the new remix: &ldquo;&lsquo;Spring 1&rsquo; is the first music the orchestra plays in Recomposed. It is all about beginnings and growth, of things starting simply but gradually coming together, and the idea that the collective adds up to more than the sum of its parts; we are at our best when we work together. This was the idea I wanted to push further in the remix. I replaced the original violin parts with 8 harps and anchored it around a simple but heavy low end track. &lsquo;Spring 1&rsquo; is joyful music, and I had fun remixing it.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Kim Jones, Artistic Director, Dior Men, comments: &ldquo;Max Richter is the composer of his generation. He speaks volumes to people in so many different ways. I am extremely honoured he recomposed and remixed &lsquo;Spring 1&rsquo; for this season&rsquo;s show. I know we both have an interest in the Bloomsbury Group and I felt his work would add to the emotion of a show celebrating Christian Dior&rsquo;s private life in the country and his love of the garden, feelings that were shared and inspired the Bloomsbury artist Duncan Grant, whose work is featured in the collection.&rdquo;
Max Richter has collaborated with designer Kim Jones twice before, for his Fendi Couture Spring/Summer 2021 and Autumn/Winter 2021 shows. His music was also used in a recent Dior Mother&rsquo;s Day advert.
Listen to the newly released 'Spring 1 (Levitation Mix)' here: <a title="DG.lnk.to/LevitationRmx" href="applewebdata://842F680F-98E5-4FBB-9C0B-C5D38F8FE827/DG.lnk.to/LevitationRmx">DG.lnk.to/LevitationRmx</a>

Max Richter Returns To Vivaldi's Masterpiece on 'The New Four Seasons'

A decade on from the release of his mesmerising Recomposed album, trailblazing composer Max Richter returns to the sound world of Vivaldi&rsquo;s Four Seasons. Recorded with violinist Elena Urioste and the musicians of Chineke! Orchestra, The New Four Seasons sees Richter create a new version of his Recomposed score for period instruments &ndash; using gut strings and vintage synthesisers to create a &ldquo;grittier, more punk rock sound&rdquo;. The new album will be released on 10 June 2022, preceded by taster tracks including &lsquo;Spring 1&rsquo; <a href="DG.lnk.to/recomposed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">which is out today</a>. Richter and Chineke! will also perform Recomposed together live for the first time on Thursday 16 June in an exclusive UK summer show <a href="https://www.liveatchelsea.com/max-richter">Live at Chelsea</a>, with tickets on sale now.
Released in summer 2012, Richter&rsquo;s genre-defining recomposition of a Baroque masterpiece topped the classical charts in 22 countries. Taking a work he had once loved but which he felt had lost its impact through overexposure, the composer embarked on what he has referred to as &ldquo;a personal salvage mission&rdquo; and wove Vivaldi&rsquo;s musical DNA into something fresh and exciting. His global best-seller has amassed over 450 million streams including 110 million streams for &lsquo;Spring 1&rsquo;, as Richter&rsquo;s overall career streams continue to grow to over 3 billion.
Recomposed continues to attract new listeners through its use in the soundtracks of hit TV series including Bridgerton and The Crown, which together saw streams for &lsquo;Spring 1&rsquo; triple after the shows aired. It has also been featured in My Brilliant Friend, Chef&rsquo;s Table, Orphan Black and The Current War. It is a frequent choice for concert repertoire in venues around the world, not to mention a favourite of dancers, ice skaters, actors, filmmakers, fashion designers and more. &lsquo;Spring 1&rsquo; is a personal favourite of Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty, as well as Christine &amp; The Queens who described it as &ldquo;the best song ever to fall in love to&rdquo; and Diddy who called it his &ldquo;theme music&rdquo;.
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Having performed Recomposed live many times in the last decade, Richter was inspired by a special rendition of the work on period instruments to take &ldquo;a new trip through the text using Vivaldi&rsquo;s own colours&rdquo;. The New Four Seasons applies a Baroque palette to the score in which he transforms or subverts fragments from the original four violin concertos by refracting them through different musical prisms, spinning them into different shapes and colours and enveloping them in completely different orchestral settings.
Richter has revisited the electronics too, here opting for Moog synths from the 70s &ndash; &ldquo;the equivalent of the Stradivarius&rdquo;. Asked about the difference in sound between modern and period strings, he laughs: &ldquo;I heard someone say it&rsquo;s the difference between smooth peanut butter and crunchy peanut butter, which encapsulates it really well!&rdquo;
Chineke! Orchestra collaborated with Richter on the album, having previously worked together on a performance of his score Waltz with Bashir in 2018. Founded by Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE in 2015, Chineke! is Europe&rsquo;s first majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. Chineke! champions change and celebrates diversity in classical music and has become, in Richter&rsquo;s words, &ldquo;a beacon, lighting the way within classical music for how an ensemble can reflect the reality of the world we&rsquo;re living in&rdquo;. Completing the team was young violinist Elena Urioste, who had played with Chineke! before and was quite simply, says Richter, &ldquo;an obvious fit&rdquo;.
Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE, Founder and Artistic &amp; Executive Director of Chineke! Foundation, says: &ldquo;For Max to go to a modern group and ask us to play on gut strings adds an extra dimension of curiosity, of adventure, of exploration.&rdquo; Unused to period instruments, Urioste and Chineke! prepared for the recording with workshops in London led by Nwanoku and Baroque specialists Bojan Čičić, David Bates and Davina Clarke. The musicians were taught how to wield the lighter Baroque bows and attach and wind on gut strings, as well as familiarising themselves with a different quality of sound.
The learning process continued at Richter&rsquo;s newly-built Oxfordshire studio complex founded by the composer and his partner, the artist Yulia Mahr. Composer and players worked in close collaboration, without a conductor, discussing all aspects of the music, from Baroque instrumental technique to the language and storytelling involved in Vivaldi&rsquo;s original. Richter&rsquo;s new version, explains Nwanoku, &ldquo;is still the same tale &ndash; it&rsquo;s just about bringing that 21st-century twist to it&rdquo;.
Delighted with the results of the first recording sessions in his new studio, Richter was full of admiration for the musicians. &ldquo;Chineke! is a young band and because of that you feel like you&rsquo;re working with the future,&rdquo; he says. As for Urioste, &ldquo;It was amazing watching her find her own way to make the music speak. She&rsquo;s absolutely brilliant.&rdquo;
Urioste herself summed up the spirit of the sessions: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s rare that a project with so many people involved has such an incredible level of commitment. And the music-making has felt just so organic and lovely and warm and all the things you hope for in a project.&rdquo;

The Politics of Sound

The music of progressive contemporary artistes such as British-German composer Max Richter, British post-electronic producer Clark, and Texan minimalist ensemble Balmohrea, can be enjoyed on a purely sonic or emotive level.

The music of progressive contemporary artistes such as British-German composer Max Richter, British post-electronic producer Clark, and Texan minimalist ensemble Balmohrea, can be enjoyed on a purely sonic or emotive level; after all, their works can be heard in an impressively wide range of contexts, as film and television scores, in concert halls and theatre venues, and even as part of video games and art installations.
But a series of summer releases from these composers shines new light on their political commitments. Richter is perhaps best known of them all for making sociopolitical statements, broaching controversial topics such as the Kosovo conflict (on his 2001 debut Memoryhouse), the 2003 Iraq invasion (The Blue Notebooks, 2004), and the 2005 London terrorist attacks (2010&rsquo;s Infra). He also worked on director Ari Folman&rsquo;s animated documentary about the Lebanon war, Waltz with Bashir, in 2008 and on last year Voices, took inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
His latest album, Exiles, is equally political: the title track that forms its centerpiece is based around a 33-minute ballet piece&mdash;composed for Sol Le&oacute;n and Paul Lightfoot&rsquo;s Singuli&egrave;re Odyss&eacute;e at the Nederlands Dans Theater&mdash;that was created as a direct response to the tragic 2015 sinking of an overcrowded migrant vessel off the coast of Libya; at least 700 migrants, including many children, perished.
The album serves as a kind of Richter retrospective, with many former works re-orchestrated alongside the Baltic Sea Philharmonie, an orchestra comprised of musicians from the Baltic countries; this also feels like a defiantly pro-European movie in the immediate post-Brexit era."I think if we&rsquo;re making a creative contribution to society, we&rsquo;re taking part in the conversation that is society, then we are engaging in political action, just by default," Richter told Second Inversion in 2018. "I&rsquo;m not against the idea that art should have a kind of a social use, a kind of a utility. It&rsquo;s&nbsp;for&nbsp;something. Music is for dancing, it&rsquo;s for getting married, it&rsquo;s for being buried, it&rsquo;s for all sorts of activities. And it can also be a tool for thinking, and for engaging with the issues of society."
One of the big topics not yet tackled by Richter &ndash; climate change &ndash; has meanwhile been adroitly tackled by his labelmate Clark. While Clark&rsquo;s sonic aesthetics have traditionally been driven by the relationship between man and machine, he also shied away from larger political topics: "Un UK" on 2017&rsquo;s Death Peak, for example, was a defiantly angry take on Brexit.
Clark&rsquo;s latest studio album&nbsp;Playground In A Lake, his ninth, is informed by two philosophical texts &ndash; Eugene Thacker&rsquo;s Infinite Resignation, and Ernest Becker&rsquo;s&nbsp;The Denial Of Death &ndash; both chosen for their thematic relation to global warming and its potential apocalyptic nature. The album, says Clark, "is about the last human on earth, the betrayal of an innocent child and becoming a grown‑up; growing a shell over our lost young selves. It&rsquo;s the playground we bury and a drowned planet; an extinction myth."&nbsp;
The album sees the producer move away from his usual electronic escapades to embrace classical instrumentation and a range of compositional styles from piano suites, evocative strings and droning power synths. While certain songs and elements are as bleak as its concept suggests, there&rsquo;s also a great deal of warmth, tranquility and even optimism scattered through the record.
Likewise with the dozen or so tracks that comprise Balmorhea&rsquo;s latest,&nbsp;The Wind, which are inspired by meditations on the natural world and its fragility. Inspired by an ancient tale about a saint who carried the wind to an airless French valley, as well as the pioneering activism of Greta Thunberg ("La Vagabonde" is named after the catamaran Thunberg used to cross the Atlantic ocean), the Texan ensemble&mdash;founded in 2006 by Rob Lowe and Michael Muller&mdash;have created an enigmatic tapestry of guitar, piano, organ, cello and various vocal performances.
Recorded at Nil Frahm&rsquo;s studio in Berlin&rsquo;s Funkhaus, it effortlessly joins the dots between post-rock, ambient and modern classical, and its delicate, cerebral nature makes it an ideal soundtrack for reflection. Indeed, all these works are ideal for rumination, offering disquiet and hope in equal measure in relation to some of the biggest topics of our day. Or, of course, you can simply enjoy them sonically.
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Paul Sullivan

Max Richter unveils new music video for ‘Flowers Of Herself’

To mark the release of&nbsp;Max Richter&rsquo;s&nbsp;latest album&nbsp;EXILES, the celebrated composer and&nbsp;&ldquo;musician of the moment&rdquo;&nbsp;(Financial Times) is releasing a new music video for the opening track&nbsp;&lsquo;Flowers Of Herself&rsquo;. Originally written for the critically-acclaimed&nbsp;Virginia Woolf-inspired ballet&nbsp;Woolf Works&nbsp;(Wayne McGregor&rsquo;s ballet triptych created for The Royal Ballet in 2015),&nbsp;this rhythmically complex piece&nbsp;was heard earlier this year soundtracking&nbsp; Fendi&rsquo;s&nbsp;spring/summer 2021&nbsp;fashion&nbsp;show in Paris, with&nbsp;Kate Moss, Demi Moore, Naomi Campbell&nbsp;and&nbsp;Cara Delevingne among the supermodels on the runway.
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&lsquo;Flowers of Herself&rsquo; soundtracks the opening 5 pages from Virginia Woolf&rsquo;s 1925 opus Mrs Dalloway.&nbsp;&nbsp;Max Richter said, &ldquo;&lsquo;Flowers of Herself&rsquo; is about the energy of going through a bustling city. The piece has this perpetual motion a little bit like if you&rsquo;re walking down the street, you&rsquo;ll see a bus then you&rsquo;ll see another bus in a different space so there&rsquo;s a shifting of perspective. &lsquo;Flowers for Herself&rsquo; is a celebration of London, the orchestra emulates a busy, vibrant city, fuelled by excitement and pace.&rdquo;&nbsp;
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For the video,&nbsp;Studio Richter Mahr&nbsp;challenged three young filmmakers to follow in Mrs Dalloway&rsquo;s footsteps across London to &lsquo;buy the flowers herself&rsquo; from Westminster across St James&rsquo;s Park and onto Bond Street. Samuel Recko shot London streets in Super-8 on a skateboard, Annick Wolfers paints the city as colourful and ethereal and Sebastien Rabas takes a documentary style approach in black and white.
Flowers of Herself,&nbsp;composed for large orchestra with electronics, is featured&nbsp;alongside expanded versions of other beloved Richter tracks: &lsquo;The Haunted Ocean&rsquo; from&nbsp;Waltz with Bashir; &lsquo;Infra 5&rsquo; from&nbsp;Infra; &lsquo;On the Nature of Daylight&rsquo; from&nbsp;The Blue Notebooks; and &lsquo;Sunlight&rsquo; from&nbsp;Songs from Before&nbsp;&ndash; an album which&nbsp;David Bowie&nbsp;described as having&nbsp;&ldquo;the power to produce tears when listened to in the right setting&rdquo;.
Central to the new album is the title track,&nbsp;Exiles&nbsp;&ndash; a&nbsp;world premiere recording&nbsp;of Richter&rsquo;s&nbsp;33-minute work&nbsp;composed for&nbsp;Nederlands Dans Theater&nbsp;and&nbsp;choreographers&nbsp;Sol Le&oacute;n&nbsp;and&nbsp;Paul Lightfoot. Profoundly moved by the tragedy of the migrant crisis, Richter explains the inspiration for the piece:&nbsp;&ldquo;Reflecting on contemporary society, I decided to make a work on the universal subject of journeys. Many of us are lucky enough to be able to influence where we are going, but for an increasing number there are very few choices: the physical journey is a necessity in order for the journey forward through time to continue at all.&rdquo;
The album was recorded in Tallinn with conductor&nbsp;Kristjan J&auml;rvi&nbsp;and the&nbsp;Baltic Sea Philharmonic&nbsp;&ndash; an orchestra that prides itself on fostering cross-border unity and artistic innovation.

Max Richter announces his new orchestral album 'Exiles'

We announce a new album from the prolific and pioneering composer Max Richter. Exiles features expansive reimaginings of tracks composed by Richter for a Virginia Woolf-inspired ballet, Fendi fashion runways, Hollywood blockbusters, Golden Globe-winning documentaries, and a record loved by David Bowie, as well as Richter&rsquo;s 33-minute work also named Exiles.
Profoundly moved by the tragedy of the migrant crisis, Richter chose to channel his compassion into a piece for Nederlands Dans Theater. His ballet score Exiles grew from a conversation with the Dutch company&rsquo;s resident choreographers Sol Le&oacute;n and Paul Lightfoot.
The album is set to be released 6 August 2021. Listen to the first pre-release track Exiles &ndash; Short Edit now.
&ldquo;Composing is a way to talk about the things I care about, so when Paul and Sol asked me to write a new ballet for them I immediately began to think about subject matter; what exactly should a new work made in Europe in 2017 talk about?&rdquo; recalls Richter. &ldquo;Reflecting on contemporary society, I decided to make a work on the universal subject of journeys &hellip; Many of us are lucky enough to be able to influence where we are going, but for an increasing number there are very few choices: the physical journey is a necessity in order for the journey forward through time to continue at all.&rdquo;
The world premiere recording of Richter&rsquo;s composition is central to his latest album, EXILES. Also comprising brand-new orchestral versions of some of his best-known earlier works, the album was recorded in Tallinn in 2019 by Kristjan J&auml;rvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic, an orchestra that prides itself on fostering cross-border unity and artistic innovation.
Richter said, &ldquo;The Baltic Sea Philharmonic is a really interesting orchestra, it&rsquo;s of young players from all the nations around the Baltic Sea so that obviously includes former Western European countries, former Eastern European countries, so it&rsquo;s a little bit of a social project. It has this &lsquo;peacemaking&rsquo; function, people being able to talk to each other in a creative way. It struck me that it would be nice to have that orchestra play music that matched that theme.&rdquo;
Three of the newly orchestrated tracks are, like Exiles, what Richter refers to as &ldquo;activist music&rdquo;. On the Nature of Daylight, arguably his most famous composition, began life in 2003 as part of his second album, The Blue Notebooks, a heartfelt and emotional response to the outbreak of the Iraq War. On the Nature of Daylight has inspired artists of many different disciplines and Richter has endorsed its use in select films and TV shows including Arrival, The Handmaid&rsquo;s Tale and Shutter Island.
These recordings offer new trips through existing material with large orchestral versions of chamber music, and some smaller formation recordings. Max Richter said, &ldquo;On the Nature of Daylight was originally five strings and now it&rsquo;s over 65 strings so it has a different texture, a different energy, a different kind of sonic fingerprint. The orchestral version is a different emotional register, it&rsquo;s a bigger canvas. In the quintet you really feel that someone is speaking quietly just to you, but with the orchestra it&rsquo;s a broader dialogue.&rdquo;
The Haunted Ocean is a hypnotic work from the soundtrack score to Waltz with Bashir (2008), which deals with writer and director Ari Folman&rsquo;s traumatic recollections of his military service during the 1982 Lebanon War; and Infra 5, originally for five strings, is a mantra-like meditation on the July 2005 terrorist bombings in London. Sunlight, meanwhile, is one of Richter&rsquo;s favourite works, from his 2006 album Songs from Before (one of David Bowie&rsquo;s favourite albums), and its yearning quality sings out in the new orchestral version.
EXILES opens with the previously unreleased Flowers of Herself from Woolf Works (the critically-acclaimed Virginia Woolf-inspired ballet), which was heard earlier this year soundtracking the likes of Kate Moss and Demi Moore at Fendi&rsquo;s S/S21 couture show in Paris. Inspired by the portrait of a bustling London at the start of Mrs Dalloway, this rhythmically complex piece is all about constant movement and acts as an effective mirror to the title work &ndash; the light to its shade. Exiles itself is notable for its repeated melodic motif, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a very simple idea,&rdquo; explains Richter, &ldquo;but I wanted to put this notion of exile, of walking, of movement, into the heart of the music in a technical sense as well as metaphorical.&rdquo; His score evokes a journey through a soundscape of subtle textures and tonal colours, growing in intensity and gaining momentum as it unfolds, before concluding with a quiet coda. As he notes, &ldquo;Exiles ends on a question: &lsquo;What if&hellip;?&rsquo; That question is far from settled.&rdquo;
Art for art&rsquo;s sake is not for Richter. Music, he says, plays an intrinsic role in culture. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s part of the conversation about how we should live. That&rsquo;s what creativity is. When you make something, you&rsquo;re trying to explore a question, or look at some aspect of our world and comment on it, or elicit thinking or debate. It&rsquo;s like Nina Simone said: &lsquo;An artist&rsquo;s duty &hellip; is to reflect the times.&rsquo;&rdquo;
The composer has done just that throughout his career, conveying thought-provoking messages in music of depth and beauty, and garnering praise for both aspects. The recent Voices (2020), for example, a work inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and co-created with Richter&rsquo;s long-term artistic partner Yulia Mahr, was hailed by one reviewer not only for &ldquo;its velvety shimmer, post-Glassian circling phrases, and paradisal vocals&rdquo;, but also for employing music &ldquo;as a forum for activism, spreading sentiments of unity, tolerance and compassion&rdquo; (PopMatters).
Mahr is the artist behind the poignant EXILES cover image created from her painting &ldquo;Maman, 1950&rdquo; (Yulia Mahr, 2017), a print of which is included with the limited clear-vinyl edition of the album, which will also be available digitally, on CD and on 180g black vinyl. Three e-singles are set to prepare the way for its release: a short edit of Exiles (June 18th), Sunlight (July 9th) and Infra 5 (July&nbsp;23rd).

Max Richter's Tribute To Beethoven: Opus 2020

Max Richter is paying homage to ground-breaking composer Ludwig van Beethoven on the occasion of his 250th anniversary on 17th December. Max Richter&rsquo;s new work "Opus 2020" will consist of two musical components: for one, a subtle and soothing piano solo 'Andante Loops'. For another, Max gifts his audience with the orchestral piece 'Opus 2020' to complete his work of "Opus 2020" and thereby his contribution to our Beethoven anniversary year.
Today his single 'Andante Loops' is released, this week exclusively on Apple Music. Just before Beethoven&rsquo;s birthday, on 16 December, the World Premiere Performance of "Opus 2020" will take place in collaboration with the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn during the BeethovenNacht in Bonn presented by DEUTSCHE TELEKOM. On 17 December, the full digital EP is released exclusively on Apple Music, one day later on all other streaming partners.
"Opus 2020", recorded in November 2020 with pianist Elisabeth Brau&szlig;, the Beethoven Orchester Bonn and conductor Dirk Kaftan,&nbsp;embodies Max Richter&rsquo;s creative dialogue with the music of Beethoven. It also embraces the spirit of an earlier tribute piece, Karlheinz Stockhausen&rsquo;s 'Opus 1970', made to mark Beethoven&rsquo;s bicentenary fifty years ago.&nbsp;
'Opus 2020' captures the multi-layered strands of Richter&rsquo;s score. The 18-minute work includes fragments of Beethoven&rsquo;s music treated as overlapping sound collages. &ldquo;When I started thinking about Opus 2020, I decided to bring some elements of Beethoven&rsquo;s and Stockhausen&rsquo;s practice into the present in new ways,&rdquo; recalls Richter. &ldquo;This intertextuality is typical of my work; whatever else a piece might be about, it is also, at some level, about other music.&rdquo;
Stockhausen&rsquo;s 'Opus 1970' reworks ideas from his earlier Kurzwellen for shortwave radios. The piece imagines that the radio sets, replaced in 'Opus 1970' by tape recorders, are all tuned to programmes playing Beethoven, over and around which Stockhausen reads excerpts from the heart-breaking 'Heiligenstadt Testament', the document written by Beethoven in 1802 as he was struggling to come to terms with progressive hearing loss. His sense of isolation and despair are eloquently expressed in its text, with a spark of hope evident in his decision to live on for the sake of his art, despite the toll life was then taking on him.&nbsp;
Max Richter set out to compose an orchestral work that treated Beethoven fragments like &ldquo;tape loops&rdquo;, but played by instrumentalists rather than on machines. 'Opus 2020' grew from that initial thought. &ldquo;In order to realise this idea I have had to rethink how the orchestra works, and it has resulted in a very challenging, though seemingly simple score,&rdquo; he comments.
Composing 'Opus 2020' involved integrating and overlapping fragments of different lengths and tempos and transforming the orchestra, usually governed by hierarchies of instruments, into what Richter calls a &ldquo;democratic community&rdquo; of ensembles. &ldquo;A kind of ideal orchestral society emerges from this, embedding Beethoven&rsquo;s humanistic vision in the process,&rdquo; he observes. &ldquo;The orchestral hierarchy is flattened out in favour of a democratic space. Echoing Beethoven&rsquo;s vision, I too believe passionately in the elevating effect of creative works on individuals and society.&rdquo;

Max Richter’s ‘SLEEP’ reinvented as new iOS and android mobile app

Users can create personalised musical sessions for a chosen time period, with planetary animations programmed according to SLEEP&rsquo;s musical themes.

Following on from such trailblazing recordings as Memoryhouse (2002), The Blue Notebooks (2004), Infra (2010) and Recomposed: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons (2012), SLEEP, released in 2015, continues to be an international phenomenon thanks to Richter&rsquo;s astonishing ability to connect with music-lovers around the world in new and innovative ways. Last year saw the release of a documentary, Max Richter&rsquo;s Sleep, premiered at Sundance Film Festival, exploring his remarkable artistic process and the unique challenges of putting on overnight performances &ndash; with audiences in beds, not seats. Now SLEEP&rsquo;s latest incarnation sees the 8-hour work transformed into a new app of the same name.
Available as iOS and Android versions in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, users can create personalised musical sessions for a chosen time period, with planetary animations programmed according to SLEEP&rsquo;s musical themes. Each of the sessions &ndash; Sleep, Meditate and Focus &ndash; has its own musical sequence, developed in collaboration with Max Richter. And he has even composed a new wake-up alarm sound especially for the app!
Max Richter says of the app: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m happy that the SLEEP app is finally with us; it has been a labour of love for all involved and it has turned out beautifully. The way that the app allows listeners to make a unique and personal journey through the landscape of SLEEP is remarkable and conveys the spirit of the music in a completely new way.&rdquo;
<a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/id1509084936" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SLEEP iOS app</a>
<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.umusic.sleep" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SLEEP android app</a>&nbsp;

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Title

WHILE THE FLOOD RAGES Max Richter

While The Flood Rages

Oscar-nominated composer Max Richter's new album While The Flood Rages, drawn from Richter's latest collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor, MaddAddam, inspired by Margaret Atwood's trilogy.
Across 15 tracks split into three acts, Richter blends orchestral writing, electronics, processed field recordings, choir and piano to create an immersive sonic journey.
Themes of ecological collapse, technological acceleration and resilience run throughout, with recurring piano motifs providing moments of reflection amid dense, cinematic soundscapes.

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Oscar-nominated composer Max Richter's new album While The Flood Rages, drawn from Richter's latest collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor, MaddAddam, inspired by Margaret Atwood's trilogy.
Across 15 tracks split into three acts, Richter blends orchestral writing, electronics, processed field recordings, choir and piano to create an immersive sonic journey.
Themes of ecological collapse, technological acceleration and resilience run throughout, with recurring piano motifs providing moments of reflection amid dense, cinematic soundscapes.&nbsp;
Format: Black 2-LP with etching on side D.

Max Richter - News | Deutsche Grammophon

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