About this Artist

MICHAEL RIESMAN is a composer, conductor, keyboardist, and record producer, and is the Music Director of the Philip Glass Ensemble. He has conducted many recordings of works by Glass, including Einstein on the Beach, Glassworks, The Photographer, Songs From Liquid Days, Dance Pieces, Music in 12 Parts, and Passages, and almost every Glass film soundtrack including Koyaanisqatsi, Mishima, Powaqqatsi, The Thin Blue Line, Anima Mundi, A Brief History of Time, Candyman, Kundun, The Truman Show, Naqoyqatsi, The Fog of War, Secret Window, Taking Lives, Undertow, Roving Mars, and The Illusionist. He was the pianist for the Academy Award-nominated soundtrack for The Hours, and has also recorded a solo piano arrangement of that score. He has received two Grammy nominations as conductor, for The Photographer and for Kundun. He has conducted and performed on albums by Paul Simon (Hearts and Bones), Scott Johnson (Patty Hearst), Mike Oldfield (Platinum), Ray Manzarek (Carmina Burana), David Bowie (BlackTie/White Noise), and Gavin Bryars (Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet). Riesman released an album, Formal Abandon, on the Rizzoli label, which originated from a commission by choreographer Lucinda Childs. His film scores include Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, Pleasantville (1976), and Christian Blackwood’s Signed: Lino Brocka. Riesman studied at Mannes College of Music and Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D., and has taught at Harvard and SUNY-Purchase. He has been Composer in Residence at the Marlboro Music Festival and at the Tanglewood Festival, where he conducted performances of his own works.