Richard Pressley

Richard Pressley was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He got his start in music playing with punk and rock bands in his early teens. He began his formal musical training at the University of Indianapolis, then transferred to Butler University to pursue formal composition lessons with Dr. Michael Schelle; graduating with his Bachelor's of Music in Theory and Composition two years later. He was then awarded the Davies Jackson Scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge. There, he continued his music studies with renowned composers and scholars, studying composition privately with Daniel Chua. After completing the Cambridge B.A., he attended the University of Minnesota for his Ph. D, studying with Dominick Argento, Judith Lang Zaimont, and Alex Lubet; also participating in masterclasses with Chen Yi and Philippe Manoury. While completing his thesis on a graduate school fellowship, he moved to Karlsruhe, Germany, where he attended the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule as a guest-student, studying composition privately and in classes with Wolfgang Rihm and Sandeep Bhagwati. The same summer he attended the 2002 Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music where he had private sessions with Tristan Murail, Johannes Kalitzke, Toshio Hosokawa, Robert H. P. Platz, Bernhard Lang, Isabel Mundry, and Jennifer Walshe. He has enjoyed performances of his works -- a number of which have been contest winning and/or requested new works -- in the U.S. and Europe.From Fall 2006 to Spring 2009, he was Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at The Master's College in Santa Clarita, California. In May 2009, he relocated to Indiana: from Fall 2009 to May 2010 he was Adjunct Professor of Music Theory at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana, and from Fall 2010 to Spring 2011 he was Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. Currently, he lives in Columbia, South Carolina, with his wife, Johanna, where he is a freelance composer as well as writer and researcher on music.