Vito Ricci

   An artist who has been called "a composer of moody and elegant scores" by the Village Voice, "sensual and driving" by Other Stages and "elegant and snappy" by the New York Times, Vito Ricci has been on the leading edge of the downtown music scene since 1979.
During his twenty-year-plus career, Mr. Ricci has scored over fifty productions including concert music, theater, dance, performance, film and video. His collaborative works include partnerships with Bob Holman, Martin Goldray, Byard Lancaster, Jackie Curtis, Jacob Burkhardt, The Wooster Group, Neo Labos Co. Dance Theater, Adia & Alex Katz, John Zorn and The Creation Company (for which he served as music director for over ten years). Performances of his works have been produced at The Public Theater, Greenwich Music House, Cooper Union, Roulette, The Knitting Factory, St. Marks Church, The Performing Garage, the Walker Arts Center and the Southern Theater, both in Minneapolis, and the Sedgwick Cultural Center in Philadelphia.
   Mr. Ricci has been the recipient of grants from ASCAP, Meet The Composer and The National Endowment For The Arts. He has studied with Ursula Mamlok, Eleanor Cory and Ornette Coleman, and has released six CDs of solo piano music, electronic works, song cycles, improvisations and string quartets.
   Recent accomplishments include an electronic chamber opera, HELP, commissioned by the New York City Queens Council on the Arts; a song cycle, 60 Haiku written for and performed at the 2000 Philadelphia Fringe Festival; an electronic score for Jacob Burckhardt's silent film Hebron Holiday, which premiered at the Sedgwick Theater in Philadelphia in 2001; a score for Incomplete Directions (a poem written by Steve Dalachinsky, subsequently recorded and released on Knitting Factory Records); and a piece for bassoon, two theremins and wrench guitar, Dead of Winter, which was premiered at the American Festival of Microtonal Music in 1999. He has also scored stories from his book my little life, which focuses on his experiences as an AWOL Army recruit and a soldier in Vietnam in 1967-68.
   Vito Ricci's leading edge instinct and creativity have made him a vital and prolific composer of illuminating and compelling works. Infused with poignancy and honesty, his music has the power to linger in the listener's memory.