Ray Currier

Ray Currier – biography

I'm not a big fan of bios. The need for a detailed elaboration of the people you've studied under and performed with, places that you've premiered works, etc. seems secondary to me to how a specific piece of music/art, performer, or performance touches you. How it feels and tastes. Where it takes you.

However, for anyone interested in aspects of my life that have influenced my music and photography, here goes...

It all started with a fairly American-typical, early childhood foundation of piano and trumpet lessons, which broadened in high school to include baritone horn and tuba in classical and jazz settings. All the while, I voraciously ingested just about anything that included a deliberate arrangement of sound and silence. Throughout that time, cameras were my constant companions, capturing images in a “you must represent the image in excruciating detail” style. I no longer have much to do with that photographic aesthetic. My current photographic style has completely abandoned the need to represent anything accurately. Most of the time, I shoot images for what they can become through further manipulation vs. what they are.

At university, I started toward a computer engineering career, trading film and instrument practice for a scientific calculator and a lot of math homework. Music listening, however, continued unabated, and after two years of engineering slog and an educational placement with a major computer manufacturer, music courses took over much of my class schedule.

I finally transferred to Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, where I graduated with a degree in jazz composition. I can't say enough good things about Berklee. The time I spent there was, truly, one of the most rewarding periods of my life. Graduate school in composition swiftly followed.

At some point along the way, I picked up harmonica, guitar, and bass, and jettisoned manually scoring and copying parts in favor of music notation software.

I hold a deep appreciation for, and interest in, improvised and aleatoric music, and my current writing tends to include aspects of one or both, as well as frequent side-trips into atonalism. This work would most likely be stuck into the “jazz” and “contemporary classical” buckets. Occasionally, the “rock,” “blues,” “electronic,” or “noise” buckets. I’m not so fond of compartmentalizing things – life rarely fits cleanly into little boxes. Human beings certainly don’t, so why should their artistic endeavors?

I use music to explore, and bring awareness to, current social issues: a suite of contemporary classical chamber works focuses on homelessness, a musical fundraiser supported conflict relief efforts, and settings of my original poetry, composed for a typical “bar band,” explore life in a post-industrial American city. Current projects include a requiem for extended jazz orchestra and chorus, and an improvisational work for symphony orchestra.

I try to live as gently as possible, striving to minimize, as much as I can, the damage I do in the process of existing. Integral to this is avoiding causing physical pain or injury, but equally vital is avoiding inflicting psychological pain or injury. In pursuit of these goals, I try to think before I open my mouth, do something, or write something. I don't always succeed at this, and even the best intentions sometimes go awry; in these cases, I attempt to repair the damage as soon as possible.

Anyway, if you want a REAL bio – check out the images on this site and the music on my SoundCloud page. My whole life is there. It's all about how the work touches you. How it feels and tastes. Where it takes you...