Richard Pressley (1970, USA ) has enjoyed performances of his music at festivals and concerts in the U.S., Europe, even Brazil and Australia, by such performers and ensembles as the JACK Quartet, the Minnesota Orchestra, Claire Edwardes, thingNY, Patrick Crossland, ensemble platypus, Concorde, Richard Ratliff, the dissonArt ensemble, the Moran Quintet, the Definiens Project, and counter)induction.

He began in music in his early teens, playing and touring with rock and punk bands. He attended the University of Indianapolis and Butler University for his B.M. Cambridge University for his Master’s, and the University of Minnesota for his PhD. He completed a post-doctoral study at the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule and Darmstadt in Germany. His composition instructors include Wolfgang Rihm, Sandeep Bhagwati, Dominick Argento, Judith Lang Zaimont, Alex Lubet, Daniel Chua, and Michael Schelle. He lives in Charleston, SC (USA) and teaches at the Horton School of Music at Charleston Southern University.

Patina – A patina communicates not only the passing of time and deterioration, it is also very often a coveted aspect imbuing an object with a particular and distinct beauty in decay. Patinas themselves are actually quite fragile. In this short work for solo glockenspiel, an opening, fragile song of quiet, sustained, rolled notes with ‘blossoming’ ornamental figures emerges in a ‘halo’ of sound resulting from the glockenspiel’s natural sustain. This song – perhaps poignant, with a touch of melancholy – slowly continues to unfold until a louder and spritely scherzando emerges with capricious figures, metric irregularity, and isolated notes and chords. This gives way to a return of the initial song aspect, though now transformed and ecstatic, adorned with glissandos. This ‘ecstasy’ ultimately gives way to isolated notes somewhat recalling the central dance, and then finally more muted pitches as it disappears.