Graham Eric Reynolds (born March 5, 1971) is an American composer, bandleader and improviser. Based in
Austin, Texas, he holds a
Creative Capital Award, an Independent Music Award, two Frederick R. Loewe Music Theatre Awards, nine Austin Critics Table Awards, the John Bustin Award, multiple
Austin Chronicle Best Composer wins and a B. Iden Payne Award.
Golden Arm Trio
Reynolds’ regular performance and recording vehicle,
Golden Arm Trio, is a band in name only, featuring Reynolds as the only consistent member.
Golden Arm Trio has performed all over the US and has released three CDs, in addition to featuring on the soundtrack of the
Warner Brothers’ film ''
A Scanner Darkly''.
Golden Hornet
In the early 1990s, some of Reynolds's most personal works in the realm of concert music struggled to line up with the right spaces, presenters, and funding. Alongside Peter Stopschinski, another composer-bandleader that was a part of the burgeoning rock and punk scene of Austin, Reynolds began to apply the collective creation and self-production methods of the rock scene to the world of classical music. Golden Hornet formed, starting with Six Pieces for String Quartet (1999), performed by Tosca String Quartet. Collaborations with Austin Lyric Opera, Glenn Kotche, local high school orchestras, and many others followed, ranging from percussion pieces to Shostakovich. Reynolds and Stopschinski produced, curated, and commissioned all of the works, including Mozart Requiem Undead (2014), resulting in over 150 artists performing, with contributions from
DJ Spooky
Paul Dennis Miller (born September 6, 1970), known professionally as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is an American electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics "illbient" or "trip hop". He is a turntabli ...
, Pulitzer Prize winning composer
Caroline Shaw, and many others.
In 2008, Golden Hornet received official 501(c)3 designation and has since grown in capacity, as well as become more clarified in mission: one of commissioning new music, fostering young and emerging composers, and presenting adventurous works in non-traditional settings.
Reynolds continues as Golden Hornet's Artistic Director today. The organization has reached over 1500 audience members, contracted over eighteen local musicians, commissioned work from seven celebrated composers, and fostered the commissioning of five new works. Upcoming endeavor The Sound of Science, features works from the likes of
Paola Prestini,
Yuka Honda, Maja S.K. Ratjke, Felipe Pérez Santiago, and
Foday Musa Suso
Foday Musa Suso (born 9 December 1953, in Sarre Hamadi, Wuli District, in the Upper River Division of The Gambia) is a Gambian musician and composer. He is a member of the Mandinka ethnic group, and is a griot. Griots are the oral historians a ...
.
Compositions
Reynolds' output includes five symphonies, two operas, string quartets, and numerous chamber music pieces, in addition to the work with Golden Arm Trio and in film, dance, and theater.
Film
After many experimental shorts and several live scores for silent films, Reynolds's first feature film score was ''The Journeyman'' (2001), a grim, Sergio Leone-inspired western featuring Willie Nelson. His relationship with iconic independent film director
Richard Linklater
Richard Stuart Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for films that revolve mainly around suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies '' ...
(''Slacker, Dazed and Confused, School of Rock)'', started with a simple piano score for the documentary short, “Live from Shiva’s Dance Floor” in 2003. Not long after, Linklater asked Reynolds to score
A Scanner Darkly (2006), which Linklater was adapting from the Philip K. Dick novel.
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Charles Reeves ( ; born September 2, 1964) is a Canadian actor. Born in Beirut and raised in Toronto, Reeves began acting in theatre productions and in television films before making his feature film debut in '' Youngblood'' (1986). ...
,
Robert Downey Jr.,
Woody Harrelson, and
Winona Ryder starred in the rotoscoped film. The score, which featured acoustic instruments and electric guitar processed through computer effects, was declared “Best Soundtrack of the Decade” by Cinema Retro Magazine. Completing and releasing A Scanner Darkly changed Reynolds's life, propelling his musical career forward. A consistent number of collaborations with Linklater have followed: Bernie (2011) starring
Jack Black
Thomas Jacob Black (born August 28, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for his acting roles in the films '' High Fidelity'' (2000), ''Shallow Hal'' (2001), ''Orange County'' (2002), '' School of Rock'' (2003), ''E ...
, which required totally different music - hymns, strings, country;
Up to Speed (2012), starring Speed Levitch and broadcast by Hulu; Before Midnight (2013), the third of Linklater's romantic trilogy featuring
Julie Delpy
Julie Delpy (; born 21 December 1969) is a French-American actress, film director, screenwriter, and singer-songwriter. She studied filmmaking at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and has directed, written, and acted in more than 30 films, includi ...
and
Ethan Hawke, which premiered at Sundance. Reynolds has also continued work with a variety of other collaborators apart from Linklater, including
The Diplomat (2015) for HBO and Rooster Teeth's series
Day 5
''Day 5'' is an American post-apocalyptic drama web series created by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Josh Flanagan, and Chris Demarais. It premiered on Rooster Teeth's website on June 19, 2016. New episodes premiered exclusively on Rooster Teeth site v ...
(2016-2017). Beyond his scoring work with major collaborators, Reynolds has composed and performed several live scores for silent films, including
Battleship Potemkin(1925),
Nosferatu (1922), Wings (1927), Metropolis (1927) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger (1927).
Theater
Much in the same way as his collaborations in dance, Reynolds has narrowed in on two consistent key partners in theatre. While his theatre work began with lighting in high school, and expanded into various work throughout Austin, his first collaboration with Rude Mechanicals (Rude Mechs) was In The House of Moles (2000), a relationship which blossomed into his current company membership with them, since 2003. He composed the original score and designed sound for the Creative Capital Award Winning The Method Gun (2007), The Lincoln Center commission Stop Hitting Yourself (2014), and the Yale Repertory commission Field Guide (2017). In total, the relationship has resulted in ten complete works. Simultaneously, his relationship with Salvage Vanguard Theater also developed, from Cry Pitch Carrolls (1999), the first in a series of collaborations with Ruth Margraff, and
The Intergalactic Nemesis (2000), which split off from the company and had nearly a decade of international touring, deepening the network and connections with presenters.
Dance
In the early stages of his career, Reynolds's work in the world of dance started with short experimental collaborations with the Ellen Bartel Dance Collective, which then grew into several projects with Andrea Ariel. He has since worked consistently with two key partners. With choreographer
Stephen Mills
Stephen Mills (born August 18, 1960 in Morganfield, Kentucky) is an American dancer and choreographer and is currently the Artistic Director/Choreographer at Ballet Austin. Under his tenure, Ballet Austin has been invited on four occasions to pe ...
of
Ballet Austin
Ballet Austin is the 12th largest classical ballet company in the US, and also operates the largest combined training facility associated with a professional ballet company in the United States. Each year the Ballet Austin company performs ball ...
, he has scored, through both recorded and live performance methods, six large scale works, including: Cult of Color, a collaboration with visual artist
Trenton Doyle Hancock
Trenton Doyle Hancock (born 1974) is an American artist working with Printmaking, prints, drawings, and collaged-felt paintings. Through his work, Hancock mainly aims to tell the story of the Mounds, mystical creatures that are part of the artist ...
, Belle Redux, and Bounce, which toured through seventeen cities across China. His collaborations with Allison Orr of Forklift Danceworks started in 2009, with The Trash Project; the documentary directed by Andy Garrison following the project took the work national, while other projects, such as Play Ball Kyoto, have traveled internationally. Most recently, Reynolds provided live scoring for the MAP Award Winning, and NEA funded My Park, My Pool, My City series as well as Served, each building on Orr's socially-engaged practices. Music for dance is a realm of passion for Reynolds, resulting from the life-long influence of several of the Diaghilev commissioned ballets; works that lived beyond their initial intent but continue to tell a story.
Collaborations
Reynolds has collaborated with different artists and filmmakers including
Richard Linklater
Richard Stuart Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for films that revolve mainly around suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies '' ...
,
Rooster Teeth,
Ballet Austin
Ballet Austin is the 12th largest classical ballet company in the US, and also operates the largest combined training facility associated with a professional ballet company in the United States. Each year the Ballet Austin company performs ball ...
, Forklift Danceworks, Rude Mechs, Salvage Vangard Theater, Dionysium and more.
Community work involvement
Golden Hornet, City of Austin Music Commission,
Austin Chamber Music Center
References
External links
Graham Reynolds Interview and Feature ArticleGraham Reynolds' official site*
Interviews on Outsight Radio Hours''Austin Chronicle'' articles by Graham ReynoldsGraham Reynolds at Fire Records
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, Graham
1971 births
Living people
American classical pianists
American film score composers
American television composers
American musical theatre composers
American classical composers
Fire Records (UK) artists