Check out our "Rock Star" Pianist

We just had to share this wonderful write-up of Christopher O'Riley by the Des Moines Register.

Pianist Christopher O'Riley is a sort of rock star classical artist.

"I had been in a rock band in my junior high years while still focusing on classical piano studies, and played jazz professionally in my high school years," O'Riley said in an interview over a three-week span with the Register. The "talk" took place on Facebook, a social networking site the Chicago native is active on.

O'Riley's repertoire includes Ravel, Scriabin and Chopin. But he has also performed pieces by Tori Amos, Nick Drake and Radiohead.

His 2003 "True Love Waits" album, featuring transcriptions of Radiohead's experimental rock songs, reached No. 3 on the Billboard Top Classical Crossover chart...Click to Reda more at the Des Moines Register

Find the full Des Moines Register interview with Mr. O'Riley on his Facebook Page, and make sure to read all of his answers!

Christopher O'Riley Interview for Out of My Hands Tour

Since we shared the information here about Christopher O'Riley's upcoming concert featuring music from our recent release "Out Of My Hands" we thought it would be interesting to share a recent interview on how he got started doing "pop" transcriptions.

A classical show with pop
By Jeremy Eichler
The Boston Globe Staff / February 6, 2010

The popular public radio show, “From the Top,’’ is in its 10th anniversary season of spotlighting kids, mostly teenagers, who are passionately devoted to classical music. The show returns this evening to its home in Jordan Hall for a performance taping that will feature several individual Boston-area students as well as 60 members of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra performing Mozart. Hosting the show as always will be concert pianist Christopher O’Riley, now well-known in the classical world for his piano transcriptions of pop songs, a repertoire he’ll dip into for an upcoming solo recital (Feb. 27) at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Speaking with the Globe from Sagamore Hills, Ohio, O’Riley explained that his pop transcriptions actually began on “From the Top.’’

Q. How did the radio show originate?

A. The show was the brainchild of our executive producers, Jerry Slavet and Jennifer Hurley-Wales, who thought, “Wouldn’t it be neat to have a radio show housed in Jordan Hall?’’ Jerry had toured with the NEC preparatory division and was so astonished by how hard the kids were working. He found it deserving of wider recognition, like what we typically accord high school athletes. He also thought it could be a great way for audiences to get inside the music.

Q. And how did you begin playing the pop transcriptions as part of the show?

A. It was Jerry’s original idea to have all kinds of music on the programs. In the first season we’d have a classical violinist and then the LaGuardia High School jazz ensemble. But the [classical] radio constituency said, “Look, you play one minute of jazz and you’re off.’’ That was narrow-minded but I guess we thought of it as a necessary evil. As a little bit of thumbing the nose at the stations that didn’t want us playing jazz, I started playing these break pieces, which I could do because I was the classical player. And then when it was announced that the piece I had just played was “Karma Police’’ by Radiohead, we’d start getting these e-mails saying “Who is this Mr. Head, and where can I find more of his beautiful music?’’...

Click to read the full interview between Christopher O'Riley and The Boston Globe.

Christopher O'Riley talks about "Out of My Hands"

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