Richard Horowitz
Encyclopedia
Richard Horowitz is a composer, producer, arranger, and musician (keyboard, ney
, and percussion).
He is best known for his work on The Sheltering Sky, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
, which was awarded the 1990 Golden Globe and LA Film Critics Music Awards; Any Given Sunday
, directed by Oliver Stone
, which was awarded the 2000 BMI Music Award; and Majoun an album released on Sony Classical in 1997, with Sussan Deyhim
. He performed his score for 1999 Three Seasons
, (directed by Toni Bui produced by Harvey Keitel
, Jacon Kliot and Joanna Vincente) live at the Sundance Film Festival
's 25th Anniversary Benefit in New York in 2006.
Horowitz is known for creating a unique sonic language by fusing together his roots in classical, jazz and electronic music with the intensity of the trance music he first experienced in Morocco
at the age of nineteen.
, before becoming a draft resistor in Paris and Morocco in 1969 during the Vietnam War. Horowitz became known for creating a unique sonic language by fusing together his roots in classical, jazz and electronic music with the intensity of the trance music he first experienced in Morocco at the age of nineteen. He plays keyboards, percussion and various woodwinds, including the ney
, an obliquely blown reed flute and one of the oldest human wind instruments. He combines a circular breathing technique he learned from snake charmers with the more melodic, classical system of quartertone modal music known as maquam. Since the late 1960s his compositions have been inspired by the ritual drama of ancient music and by the shadings, motifs and overtones of instruments and voices from the oldest cultures. His compositions morph ancient sources into the full spectrum resonance of surround-sound.
From 1968 to 1979, Horowitz lived in Paris and Morocco where he composed and studied Arabic, French, music and Eastern philosophy. He performed throughout Europe with his various ensembles including dates with Alan Silva˙s Celestial Communications Orchestra in 1971 where he had a chance to perform with Steve Lacey, Anthony Braxton and Robin Kenyatta and Bobby Few.
He wrote and directed a film The Fourth Person Singular and recorded Oblique Sequences/ Solo Ney Improvizations No. 1 at IRCAM (Boulez˙s computer music Lab in Paris) for Shandar Records. In 1974, he met Brion Gysin
and Paul Bowles
, both of whom became friends and mentors. In 1982, Bowles recommended Horowitz to the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the Goddard Lieberson
Composition Award.
In Morocco, from 1972 to 1979, he studied ney with Kassim Naccishabundi and Louis Soret. They formed the band Ibis Mummy with Abdellatif Kartuma and Gnawa master Brahim el Belkani. He took classes at the Andalusian Music Conservatory in Marrakech and also learned a great deal from ethnomusicologist Phillip Schuyler who was in Morocco recording Arabic and Berber Music for UNESCO and assisting on the Music in the World of Islam. Horowitz's daughter Tamara Alexa was born in Marrakech in 1977.
In 1980, he returned to the US. He was invited to work with Jan Mattox and Lauren Rush at CCRMA Stanford's computer music research lab where he became interested in resonant loop programs that allowed him to retune the overtones of any sound and place them in a three dimensional virtual space. While in SF he composed and recorded Out of Thin Air and Memoir with SF Symphony principal violinist Daniel Kobialka
. He also recorded Eros in Arabia and Never Tech No Foreign Answer on his label Ethnotech in 1982. He worked with SFX designer Frank Serafine
on the disc sound for Tron
and on Serafine's reel for Star Trek
. Another strong influence from that time was Jaron Lanier
who he met at a Harry Partch concert at Mills College in 1981. They have been working together on and off ever since (Chromataphoria and other duo projects).
He performed and recorded with Jon Hassell
from 1982 to 1987, playing mostly Prophet 5. At that point the band played mostly in Europe and Japan and included Michael Brook and J. A. Deane. He played on three of Hassell's albums including Powerspot and Surgeon of the Night Sky which were produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. He also performed on a David Byrne/Eno piece Blue Flame for Twyla Tharp's The Catherine Wheel Video and recorded with Suzanne Vega among others.
His main collaborator has been Sussan Deyhim
. They started recording in 1982 at Noise New York after Frank Eaton the owner of the studio heard their individual projects and introduced them. Frank handed them the keys to the studio and suggested they make a record. The release was in 1987 and has become a cult classic. Azax Attra: Desert Equations, was one of the pioneering efforts to create what would later become known as world music
, drum and bass
and trip-hop. High Performance Magazine
described the record as "An electro-ecstatic universe imbued with a sense of ritual and the unknown". The music was originally written for their first performance opera featuring a gigantic 10 feet (3 m) bass speaker in the shape of a datura
flower designed by Jack Weisberg and a three-sided 20 feet (6.1 m) revolving pyramid screen hung from the ceiling designed by Frederick Lahey. Two 16mm films were projected of Deyhim's dancing on top of the subway grids (filmed shooting up from the tunnel underneath at 79th street). Azax Attra: Desert Equations was the first in a series of pieces that opened in New York toured internationally. It was followed by The Ghost of Ibn Sabba in 1988, and other works including a ballet X-isle Isle-X for the Hong Kong City Contemporary Dance Company. The piece opened in 1989 Hong Kong, the week of Tiananmen Square
and featured Chinese Generals sodomizing Barbie dolls.
Horowitz and Deyhim also performed as a duo and with their band (original members included Steve Shehan, Jamie Hadad, Eric Sanko, Peter Freeman and Hassan Hakmoun). In the US, Europe, Japan, and North Africa, appearing at such venues as Town Hall, BAM, The Kitchen, The Knitting Factory, Central Park SummerStage, La Mama, Merkin Hall, and Carnegie Hall
, the Ravinia Festival, New Music America LA, Arts Electronica, among others.
In 1988, the duo was invited to perform with the Grateful Dead
at a special event for Joseph Campbell
. Mickey Hart
had heard Desert Equations and wanted to play pieces off the CD for the event. They also worked with Hart, ghost writing for Max Headroom .
After the success of The Sheltering Sky
, Horowitz traveled frequently to Los Angeles to work on film scores in the early 90s but eventually moved to London with Deyhim in 1993 to work on a CD for Sony Classical. The result was Majoun. "Deyhim's molten melismas focused by Horowitz's undulating and resonant instrumentation" (The Wire) Majoun was recorded in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Morocco and Bali. The string section was recorded in Morocco with players from the Moroccan National Radio and Television Orchestra. It featured eerie, hovering violin solos by Abdellah El Miry and the great Indian violinist Chandru. The cd also featured were Doug Wimbish and Jaron Lanier
, Byron Wallen, Steve Shehan , Reza Derakshani and Keith Le Blanc. The Majoun band toured mostly in Europe, with selected dates in the US.
One of Horowitz˙s most interesting projects was a commission by the Moroccan Royal Cabinet to produce, direct and perform in Ritmos del Futuro Maroc/Seville (the music for the Moroccan National Day at Seville Expo 1992). Horowitz invited ten "western" musicians, including Jon Hassell
, Loy Erlich, Steve Shehan and two hundred tribal musicians from ten different tribes of Morocco.
In 1990, Bill Laswell
contacted Horowitz wanting to make a CD in Morocco and asked what music he thought would be interesting to record there. Richard said that since he was a bass player the natural thing to do would be to record the Gnaoua (Gnawa) since their cello range sentir is one of the origins of the bass. They co-produced Night Spirit Masters in Marrakech for Axiom with liner notes by Bowles. Horowitz was also instrumental in the career of Gnawa musician Hassan Hakmoun during his first ten years in New York and he performed and recorded with Hassan on many CDs including Gift of the Gnawa with Don Cherry and Adam Rudolph. He also arranged and produced Hakmoun˙s piece Saade recorded by The Kronos Quartet on Pieces of Africa.
In 1997, he was the founding and artistic director for The Gnaoua Festival in Mogador (Essaouira), Morocco with Neila Tazi And Andre Azoulay. The festival attracts over five hundred thousand people a year and has helped raise the appreciation for Gnaoua both inside and out side Morocco. He first worked with Andre Azoulay in 1992 on a large performance in Mogador (Essaouira) for the European re-release Orson Welles
' Othello that was filmed in Mogador in 1948.
Returning to New York from London in the late 90s Horowitz and Deyhim were asked to compose 1998 The Gift of Love for Deepak Chopra
. It was a charity project for Mother Teresa
and featured an unusual combination of movie stars, poets and activists reading Rumi. Horowitz also worked on many other fund raising projects including the NRDC (National Resources Defense Council directed by Peter Rodger in 2001.
Also in the late 90's Horowitz was asked to produce a group of Finnish Karelian folk music singers known as Värttinä
for BMG. He was very interested in the group because they sang in the prose poem meter of an old Finnish dialect called Karelian – one of the languages that inspired Tolkien
to write The Lord of the Rings. The album, Vihma, released in 1998, was No. 1 in Japan.
After two and a half years in Hollywood, Horowitz returned to New York again in 2001 to begin a collaboration with Sussan Deyhim, Shirin Neshat and film maker Gausem E♭rahhamian on a multimedia opera. Logic of the Birds was co-produced by Lincoln Center, Art Angel in London, The Kitchen, The Walker Art Museum and, Change in Europe. It was based on Attar˙s 12th century text and starred Deyhim as the female heroine, a mystic bird known as the Simorg – highly unusual for that century. There was a film shot, and projected by three DVDs onto three large screens, with a cast of thirty human "birds" in the film as well as surrounding Deyhim on stage. The music was performed and mixed live in surround by Horowitz.
David & Layla (2006)
Return to Rajapur (2006)
Inshallah: Diary of an Afghan Woman (2002) (TV)
Amants de Mogador, Les (2002)
The Umbrella (The Points of Contact #1) (2001)
Skeleton Woman (2000)
Life Without Death (2000)
Any Given Sunday
(1999)
Choke (1999)
Three Seasons (1999)
... aka Ba mua (Vietnam)
Drowning on Dry Land (1999)
Ombre du pharaon, L' (1996)
Broken Trust (1995) (TV)
... aka Court of Honor
Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (1994) (TV)
Quattro bravi ragazzi (1993)
The Tower (1993) (TV)
Atlantide, L' (1992)
Thune, La (1991)
... aka Money
Horowitz has performed, produced or collaborated with:
Jon Hassell
Hassan Hakmoun
Branford Marsalis
Hector Zazu
Suzanne Vega
David Byrne
Bill Laswell
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Duncan Sheik
Rufus Wainwright
Marius Devries
Adam Rudolph
Anton Sanko
Erik Sanko
Peter Freeman
Loy Erlich
Nickie Skopilitis
Daniel Kobialka
Mickey Hart
Jerry Garcia
Naut Human
Alan Silva
Steve Lacy
Anthony Braxton
Lauren Rush
Jan Mattox
Frank Serafine
Adrian Sherwood
Jamie Haddad
Nizar Ismael
"An electro-ecstatic universe imbued with a sense of ritual and the unknown"
-High Performance Magazine
"Undulating and resonant instrumentation"
-The Wire
Ney
The ney is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Middle Eastern music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. It is a very ancient instrument, with depictions of ney players appearing in wall paintings in the Egyptian pyramids and actual neys being found...
, and percussion).
He is best known for his work on The Sheltering Sky, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
, which was awarded the 1990 Golden Globe and LA Film Critics Music Awards; Any Given Sunday
Any Given Sunday
Any Given Sunday is a 1999 American drama film directed by Oliver Stone depicting a fictional professional American football team. The film features an ensemble cast, consisting of Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid, Jamie Foxx, James Woods, LL Cool J, Matthew Modine, John C...
, directed by Oliver Stone
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, for which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. His work frequently focuses on...
, which was awarded the 2000 BMI Music Award; and Majoun an album released on Sony Classical in 1997, with Sussan Deyhim
Sussan Deyhim
Sussan Deyhim is an Iranian singer, composer and dancer.Born in Tehran, her career began as a dancer with Iran's Pars National Ballet company...
. He performed his score for 1999 Three Seasons
Three Seasons
Three Seasons is an American Vietnamese language movie filmed in Vietnam about the past, present, and future of Ho Chi Minh City in the early days of New Vietnam. It is a poetic film that tries to paint a picture of the urban culture undergoing westernization. The movie takes place in Ho Chi...
, (directed by Toni Bui produced by Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
, Jacon Kliot and Joanna Vincente) live at the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
's 25th Anniversary Benefit in New York in 2006.
Horowitz is known for creating a unique sonic language by fusing together his roots in classical, jazz and electronic music with the intensity of the trance music he first experienced in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
at the age of nineteen.
Biography
Horowitz grew up in a musical family. His mother, Marian Morgan, sang on her own nationally broadcast radio show, and his father Harold was a violin-playing lawyer. He studied with Irving Shire, father of composer David ShireDavid Shire
David Lee Shire is an American songwriter and the composer of stage musicals, film and television scores. The soundtrack to the movie The Taking of Pelham 123 and parts of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack such as Night on Disco Mountain, an adaptation of Modest Mussorgsky's Night on Bald...
, before becoming a draft resistor in Paris and Morocco in 1969 during the Vietnam War. Horowitz became known for creating a unique sonic language by fusing together his roots in classical, jazz and electronic music with the intensity of the trance music he first experienced in Morocco at the age of nineteen. He plays keyboards, percussion and various woodwinds, including the ney
Ney
The ney is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Middle Eastern music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. It is a very ancient instrument, with depictions of ney players appearing in wall paintings in the Egyptian pyramids and actual neys being found...
, an obliquely blown reed flute and one of the oldest human wind instruments. He combines a circular breathing technique he learned from snake charmers with the more melodic, classical system of quartertone modal music known as maquam. Since the late 1960s his compositions have been inspired by the ritual drama of ancient music and by the shadings, motifs and overtones of instruments and voices from the oldest cultures. His compositions morph ancient sources into the full spectrum resonance of surround-sound.
From 1968 to 1979, Horowitz lived in Paris and Morocco where he composed and studied Arabic, French, music and Eastern philosophy. He performed throughout Europe with his various ensembles including dates with Alan Silva˙s Celestial Communications Orchestra in 1971 where he had a chance to perform with Steve Lacey, Anthony Braxton and Robin Kenyatta and Bobby Few.
He wrote and directed a film The Fourth Person Singular and recorded Oblique Sequences/ Solo Ney Improvizations No. 1 at IRCAM (Boulez˙s computer music Lab in Paris) for Shandar Records. In 1974, he met Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...
and Paul Bowles
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...
, both of whom became friends and mentors. In 1982, Bowles recommended Horowitz to the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the Goddard Lieberson
Goddard Lieberson
Goddard Lieberson was the president of Columbia Records from 1956 to 1971, and from 1973 to 1975. He was also a composer, and studied with George Frederick McKay, at the University of Washington, Seattle....
Composition Award.
In Morocco, from 1972 to 1979, he studied ney with Kassim Naccishabundi and Louis Soret. They formed the band Ibis Mummy with Abdellatif Kartuma and Gnawa master Brahim el Belkani. He took classes at the Andalusian Music Conservatory in Marrakech and also learned a great deal from ethnomusicologist Phillip Schuyler who was in Morocco recording Arabic and Berber Music for UNESCO and assisting on the Music in the World of Islam. Horowitz's daughter Tamara Alexa was born in Marrakech in 1977.
In 1980, he returned to the US. He was invited to work with Jan Mattox and Lauren Rush at CCRMA Stanford's computer music research lab where he became interested in resonant loop programs that allowed him to retune the overtones of any sound and place them in a three dimensional virtual space. While in SF he composed and recorded Out of Thin Air and Memoir with SF Symphony principal violinist Daniel Kobialka
Daniel Kobialka
Daniel Kobialka, founded LiSem Enterprises Inc., in 1985 and created Wonder of Sound in 2009. Inspired by his time performing with major symphonies such as The Boston Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony, and a desire to showcase violin music in a way it had not been...
. He also recorded Eros in Arabia and Never Tech No Foreign Answer on his label Ethnotech in 1982. He worked with SFX designer Frank Serafine
Frank Serafine
Frank Serafine is an award-winning American sound effects designer, sound supervisor, composer, and sound editor who created the sounds for hundreds of movies including Poltergeist II: The Other Side, Tron, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and The Hunt for Red October which won an Academy Award for...
on the disc sound for Tron
Tron
-Film:*Tron , a franchise that began in 1982 with the Walt Disney Pictures film Tron** Tron , a 1982 science fiction film by Disney, starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, Dan Shor and David Warner...
and on Serafine's reel for Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
. Another strong influence from that time was Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier
Jaron Zepel Lanier is an American computer scientist, best known for popularizing the term virtual reality .A pioneer in the field of VR, Lanier and Thomas G. Zimmerman left Atari in 1985 to found VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves...
who he met at a Harry Partch concert at Mills College in 1981. They have been working together on and off ever since (Chromataphoria and other duo projects).
He performed and recorded with Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.-Life and career:...
from 1982 to 1987, playing mostly Prophet 5. At that point the band played mostly in Europe and Japan and included Michael Brook and J. A. Deane. He played on three of Hassell's albums including Powerspot and Surgeon of the Night Sky which were produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. He also performed on a David Byrne/Eno piece Blue Flame for Twyla Tharp's The Catherine Wheel Video and recorded with Suzanne Vega among others.
His main collaborator has been Sussan Deyhim
Sussan Deyhim
Sussan Deyhim is an Iranian singer, composer and dancer.Born in Tehran, her career began as a dancer with Iran's Pars National Ballet company...
. They started recording in 1982 at Noise New York after Frank Eaton the owner of the studio heard their individual projects and introduced them. Frank handed them the keys to the studio and suggested they make a record. The release was in 1987 and has become a cult classic. Azax Attra: Desert Equations, was one of the pioneering efforts to create what would later become known as world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, drum and bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...
and trip-hop. High Performance Magazine
High Performance Magazine
High Performance was a quarterly arts magazine founded in 1978 and published until 1997. Its editorial mission was to provide support and a critical context for new, innovative and unrecognized work in the arts....
described the record as "An electro-ecstatic universe imbued with a sense of ritual and the unknown". The music was originally written for their first performance opera featuring a gigantic 10 feet (3 m) bass speaker in the shape of a datura
Datura
Datura is a genus of nine species of vespertine flowering plants belonging to the family Solanaceae. Its precise and natural distribution is uncertain, owing to its extensive cultivation and naturalization throughout the temperate and tropical regions of the globe...
flower designed by Jack Weisberg and a three-sided 20 feet (6.1 m) revolving pyramid screen hung from the ceiling designed by Frederick Lahey. Two 16mm films were projected of Deyhim's dancing on top of the subway grids (filmed shooting up from the tunnel underneath at 79th street). Azax Attra: Desert Equations was the first in a series of pieces that opened in New York toured internationally. It was followed by The Ghost of Ibn Sabba in 1988, and other works including a ballet X-isle Isle-X for the Hong Kong City Contemporary Dance Company. The piece opened in 1989 Hong Kong, the week of Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...
and featured Chinese Generals sodomizing Barbie dolls.
Horowitz and Deyhim also performed as a duo and with their band (original members included Steve Shehan, Jamie Hadad, Eric Sanko, Peter Freeman and Hassan Hakmoun). In the US, Europe, Japan, and North Africa, appearing at such venues as Town Hall, BAM, The Kitchen, The Knitting Factory, Central Park SummerStage, La Mama, Merkin Hall, and Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
, the Ravinia Festival, New Music America LA, Arts Electronica, among others.
In 1988, the duo was invited to perform with the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
at a special event for Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
. Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995...
had heard Desert Equations and wanted to play pieces off the CD for the event. They also worked with Hart, ghost writing for Max Headroom .
After the success of The Sheltering Sky
The Sheltering Sky (film)
The Sheltering Sky is a 1990 British-Italian drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich. The film is based on the 1949 novel by Paul Bowles about a couple who journey to northern Africa in the hopes of rekindling their marriage but soon fall prey to the...
, Horowitz traveled frequently to Los Angeles to work on film scores in the early 90s but eventually moved to London with Deyhim in 1993 to work on a CD for Sony Classical. The result was Majoun. "Deyhim's molten melismas focused by Horowitz's undulating and resonant instrumentation" (The Wire) Majoun was recorded in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Morocco and Bali. The string section was recorded in Morocco with players from the Moroccan National Radio and Television Orchestra. It featured eerie, hovering violin solos by Abdellah El Miry and the great Indian violinist Chandru. The cd also featured were Doug Wimbish and Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier
Jaron Zepel Lanier is an American computer scientist, best known for popularizing the term virtual reality .A pioneer in the field of VR, Lanier and Thomas G. Zimmerman left Atari in 1985 to found VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves...
, Byron Wallen, Steve Shehan , Reza Derakshani and Keith Le Blanc. The Majoun band toured mostly in Europe, with selected dates in the US.
One of Horowitz˙s most interesting projects was a commission by the Moroccan Royal Cabinet to produce, direct and perform in Ritmos del Futuro Maroc/Seville (the music for the Moroccan National Day at Seville Expo 1992). Horowitz invited ten "western" musicians, including Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.-Life and career:...
, Loy Erlich, Steve Shehan and two hundred tribal musicians from ten different tribes of Morocco.
In 1990, Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
contacted Horowitz wanting to make a CD in Morocco and asked what music he thought would be interesting to record there. Richard said that since he was a bass player the natural thing to do would be to record the Gnaoua (Gnawa) since their cello range sentir is one of the origins of the bass. They co-produced Night Spirit Masters in Marrakech for Axiom with liner notes by Bowles. Horowitz was also instrumental in the career of Gnawa musician Hassan Hakmoun during his first ten years in New York and he performed and recorded with Hassan on many CDs including Gift of the Gnawa with Don Cherry and Adam Rudolph. He also arranged and produced Hakmoun˙s piece Saade recorded by The Kronos Quartet on Pieces of Africa.
In 1997, he was the founding and artistic director for The Gnaoua Festival in Mogador (Essaouira), Morocco with Neila Tazi And Andre Azoulay. The festival attracts over five hundred thousand people a year and has helped raise the appreciation for Gnaoua both inside and out side Morocco. He first worked with Andre Azoulay in 1992 on a large performance in Mogador (Essaouira) for the European re-release Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
' Othello that was filmed in Mogador in 1948.
Returning to New York from London in the late 90s Horowitz and Deyhim were asked to compose 1998 The Gift of Love for Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra
Deepak Chopra is an Indian medical doctor, public speaker, and writer on subjects such as spirituality, Ayurveda and mind-body medicine. Chopra began his career as an endocrinologist and later shifted his focus to alternative medicine. Chopra now runs his own medical center, with a focus on...
. It was a charity project for Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa , born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu , was a Roman Catholic nun of Albanian ethnicity and Indian citizenship, who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950...
and featured an unusual combination of movie stars, poets and activists reading Rumi. Horowitz also worked on many other fund raising projects including the NRDC (National Resources Defense Council directed by Peter Rodger in 2001.
Also in the late 90's Horowitz was asked to produce a group of Finnish Karelian folk music singers known as Värttinä
Värttinä
Värttinä is a Finnish folk music band which was started as a project by Sari and Mari Kaasinen back in 1983 in the village of Rääkkylä, in Karelia, the southeastern region of Finland. Many transformations have taken place in the band since then...
for BMG. He was very interested in the group because they sang in the prose poem meter of an old Finnish dialect called Karelian – one of the languages that inspired Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
to write The Lord of the Rings. The album, Vihma, released in 1998, was No. 1 in Japan.
After two and a half years in Hollywood, Horowitz returned to New York again in 2001 to begin a collaboration with Sussan Deyhim, Shirin Neshat and film maker Gausem E♭rahhamian on a multimedia opera. Logic of the Birds was co-produced by Lincoln Center, Art Angel in London, The Kitchen, The Walker Art Museum and, Change in Europe. It was based on Attar˙s 12th century text and starred Deyhim as the female heroine, a mystic bird known as the Simorg – highly unusual for that century. There was a film shot, and projected by three DVDs onto three large screens, with a cast of thirty human "birds" in the film as well as surrounding Deyhim on stage. The music was performed and mixed live in surround by Horowitz.
Filmography
Meeting Resistance (2007)David & Layla (2006)
Return to Rajapur (2006)
Inshallah: Diary of an Afghan Woman (2002) (TV)
Amants de Mogador, Les (2002)
The Umbrella (The Points of Contact #1) (2001)
Skeleton Woman (2000)
Life Without Death (2000)
Any Given Sunday
Any Given Sunday
Any Given Sunday is a 1999 American drama film directed by Oliver Stone depicting a fictional professional American football team. The film features an ensemble cast, consisting of Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid, Jamie Foxx, James Woods, LL Cool J, Matthew Modine, John C...
(1999)
Choke (1999)
Three Seasons (1999)
... aka Ba mua (Vietnam)
Drowning on Dry Land (1999)
Ombre du pharaon, L' (1996)
Broken Trust (1995) (TV)
... aka Court of Honor
Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee (1994) (TV)
Quattro bravi ragazzi (1993)
The Tower (1993) (TV)
Atlantide, L' (1992)
Thune, La (1991)
... aka Money
Collaborations
Horowitz has collaborated with Jaron Lanier on many projects including Virtual Motion Music the duo performed at MIDEM in Cannes in 1999.Horowitz has performed, produced or collaborated with:
Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell is an American trumpet player and composer. He is known for his influence in the world music scene and his unusual electronic manipulation of the trumpet sound.-Life and career:...
Hassan Hakmoun
Hassan Hakmoun
Hassan Hakmoun is a Los Angeles-based Moroccan Gnawa musician.-Early life:Hakmoun was born to a family of musicians who introduced him to the musical world of the Gnawa. By age four, he performed alongside snake charmers and fire-breathers on Marrakech streets. His mother is known throughout the...
Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque.-Biography:Marsalis was born...
Hector Zazu
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American songwriter and singer known for her eclectic folk-inspired music.Two of Vega's songs reached the top 10 of various international chart listings: "Luka" and "Tom's Diner"...
David Byrne
David Byrne (musician)
David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...
Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Ryuichi Sakamoto
After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...
Duncan Sheik
Duncan Sheik
Duncan Scott Sheik is an American singer-songwriter and composer. Sheik initially found success as a singer, most notably for his 1996 debut single "Barely Breathing". He later expanded his work to include compositions for motion pictures and the Broadway stage, leading him to involvement in the...
Rufus Wainwright
Rufus Wainwright
Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...
Marius Devries
Adam Rudolph
Adam Rudolph
Adam Rudolph is a jazz composer and percussionist performing in the post bop and world fusion media, probably most notable to date for his work with Yusef Lateef...
Anton Sanko
Erik Sanko
Erik Sanko
Erik Sanko is a bass player from New York who has played in The Lounge Lizards and currently active in Skeleton Key.-Biography:In the past he also worked with notable musicians like Marc Ribot, John Cale, Yoko Ono, Jim Carroll, Gavin Friday, They Might Be Giants, The Melvins, James Chance and the...
Peter Freeman
Loy Erlich
Nickie Skopilitis
Daniel Kobialka
Daniel Kobialka
Daniel Kobialka, founded LiSem Enterprises Inc., in 1985 and created Wonder of Sound in 2009. Inspired by his time performing with major symphonies such as The Boston Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony, and a desire to showcase violin music in a way it had not been...
Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995...
Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
Naut Human
Alan Silva
Alan Silva
Alan Silva is an American free jazz double bassist and keyboard player.-Biography:...
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy , born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone....
Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...
Lauren Rush
Jan Mattox
Frank Serafine
Frank Serafine
Frank Serafine is an award-winning American sound effects designer, sound supervisor, composer, and sound editor who created the sounds for hundreds of movies including Poltergeist II: The Other Side, Tron, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and The Hunt for Red October which won an Academy Award for...
Adrian Sherwood
Adrian Sherwood
Adrian Sherwood is an English record producer best known for his work with dub music as well as for remixing a number of popular acts such as Coldcut, Depeche Mode, The Woodentops, Primal Scream, Pop Will Eat Itself, Sinéad O'Connor, and Skinny Puppy...
Jamie Haddad
Nizar Ismael
Quotes
Richard Horowitz's music has been described as:"An electro-ecstatic universe imbued with a sense of ritual and the unknown"
-High Performance Magazine
"Undulating and resonant instrumentation"
-The Wire