Richie English
BTPM Classical Evening and Entering Music HostBorn and raised in Buffalo, New York, Richie English has worked extensively as a pianist, teacher, and composer since childhood. He began studying piano at ten years old with Frieda Manes, and within a year was the youngest piano teacher registered with Denton, Cottier & Daniels in state history. The recipient of five music scholarships, he continued studying piano under Stephen Manes at SUNY Buffalo and graduated Magna cum Laude with his performance degree in 2007. He performed twice for the Dalai Lama in 2006 during his visit to the university that year.
Richie received a master’s degree from SUNY Buffalo in music theory and went on to Western University in London, Ontario as a PhD candidate studying theory and composition in 2009. In 2012 he was hired by the Goo Goo Dolls to be composer-in-residence at GCR Audio, the studio owned and operated by the band’s bassist, Robby Takac. Since then, he has composed numerous orchestrations for world-renowned bands and artists including Goo Goo Dolls, Michael Franti, The Reign of Kindo, Cardiacs, and Jillette Johnson. His work with these artists has led to his being credited on numerous Billboard Top Ten songs and albums over the past six years. Moody Blues founder Denny Laine (who later joined Paul McCartney to form Wings) hired Richie to orchestrate his long-awaited stage work “Arctic Song”- a 16-song music theater piece that they debuted to great acclaim at Rosch Recital Hall in November, 2016.
in 2017, Richie was asked by Goo Goo Dolls to compose a new orchestration for the band’s record-breaking song “Iris,” and conduct the newly-scored song onstage with the band at Darien Lake to a crowd of 11,000. Richie is now a member of the WNED family, where he proudly co-created and co-hosts “Entering Music”. Richie is also the host for “From the Piano Bench” and Friday Late Night.
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Sometimes you meet someone who despite age and education just seems in sync with your wilder choices and enthusiasms. That’s what happened when Stratton met Richie for the very first time. The duo take time to remember their first encounter. -
When Shostakovich found himself in besieged Leningrad during WW II, he started to write his 7th Symphony. He wasn’t terrified because he had already written his 5th symphony with Stalin’s gun pointed at his head.
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The truth is that the number of people who regularly listen to classical music is very small. If we could get people to listen, they would make a place for classical music in their lives.
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There came a day not too long ago when Richie asked Stratton if he would listen to one of the greatest Rock albums ever recorded. How could Stratton refuse? The album turned out to be “Loveless” by the band, My Bloody Valentine. After Stratton had listened to “Loveless” Richie asked Stratton what he thought. Stratton replied, “I now know what it was like for listeners who were used to hearing Haydn’s Symphonies when they first heard Beethoven’s Third Symphony, the 'Eroica'. Nothing would ever sound the same again.”
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Stratton didn’t think he had heard Richie right. Richie had dropped the name of a long-forgotten pianist who was once the best-known and highest-paid pianist in the United States. Radio made him a star. His name was Oscar Levant. So, Stratton said, let’s talk about him.
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Stratton has often been asked if he and Richie ever disagree. His answer has been that, in musical matters, he can’t think of any disagreement, putting the emphasis on the adjective “musical”. Well, that was true enough until they decided to talk about opera by discussing the two greatest opera composers of the 19th century, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner.
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Composers are rarely happy people. How do we know this? Because a few composers have told us this in their memoirs. Two of the best are the Memoirs of Hector Berlioz and X-Ray.
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Stratton often tells Richie how lucky they are because they have available to their ears over one thousand years of music. That’s why Stratton encourages Richie to introduce him to the popular music he pointedly refused to take notice of.
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Richie can’t really believe that Stratton has spent so much of his time listening to classical music that he has no notion of who Frank Zappa is or who Van Dyke Parks might be. But Richie knows that Stratton, who has a soft spot for Olivier Messiaen and Michael Tippett, is just the kind of guy who’d like the wild music-making of Zappa and Parks.
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When a listener begins to concentrate on a single composer’s works, they often listen for the piece in which the composer has found his or her own voice, a voice that from then on will mark the music they write as their own.
