We wanted to share with you a great article/interview with Christopher O'Riley about our album "Out of My Hands" from
Newcity Music. However, we will only be posting an excerpt here with a link to the entire
article. So please make sure to read on!
Hand to Hand: Christopher O’Riley gives pop some class
By Tom Lynch
So rarely does a musician truly bridge a gap between two entirely disparate forms of music that it seems likely any success in that regard would be met with confusion and skepticism. Classical pianist Christopher O’Riley has been doing it for years; his arrangements of Radiohead songs—performed entirely on a piano—have filled not one, but two records thus far, and he has dabbled with other artists’ work as well.
Raised in Evanston, O’Riley got his start in jazz, and moved on to classical once studying at the New England Conservatory of Music. A virtuoso pianist, O’Riley also hosts NPR’s classical radio program “From the Top.” It was on this program that he started fooling around with his Radiohead covers, playing them as time-fillers during breaks as supplements to pieces by Rachmaninoff and Debussy.
Admittedly, when I received O’Riley’s first pop-music record, “True Love Waits: Christopher O’Riley Plays Radiohead” (Sony), back in 2003, I scoffed and mocked it with rock-fan vigor. “Cashing in,” I’m sure I thought. After a week of staring at it I gave it a spin, and was blown away by its power...Click to continue reading at music.newcity.com
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