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Max Richter
Max Richter (/ˈrɪxtər/; German: [ˈʁɪçtɐ]; born 22 March 1966) is a British composer and pianist. He works within postminimalist and contemporary classical styles. Richter is classically trained, having graduated in composition from the University of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Music in London, and studied with Luciano Berio in Italy.
Richter arranges, performs, and composes music for stage, opera, ballet, and screen. He has collaborated with other musicians, as well as with performance, installation, and media artists. He has recorded eight solo albums, and his music is widely used in cinema. As of December 2019, Richter has passed one billion streams and one million album sales.
Richter has been called a "major figure of contemporary music" and his work has been described as "transcending genres" by the former controller of BBC Radio 3, Alan Davey. In 2026, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the soundtrack of Hamnet.
Richter was born in Hamelin, Lower Saxony, West Germany. He grew up in Bedford, England, United Kingdom, and his education was at Bedford Modern School and Mander College of Further Education.
He had piano lessons and music classes, and at 12 or 13, heard a BBC documentary using the opening to Kraftwerk's Autobahn, inspiring him to research how to build synthesizers, and led on to listening to artists like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Vangelis. At around the same time, the local milkman introduced him to minimalist music by the likes of Terry Riley, Philip Glass and John Cage.
Richter studied composition and piano at the University of Edinburgh and at the Royal Academy of Music, though he had some reservations about the syllabus being focused on a Polish School modernist canon to the detriment of other minimalist works. This led him to study with Luciano Berio in Florence which struck him as "opening a door" to "music which was more various".
Richter became involved in performing minimal and post-minimal music, and co-founded the contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus. He stayed with the group for ten years, commissioning and performing works by minimalist musicians such as Arvo Pärt, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe, and Steve Reich. The ensemble was signed to Decca/Argo, producing five albums.
In 1996, Richter collaborated with Future Sound of London on the album Dead Cities, first as a pianist, but ultimately working on several tracks and co-writing the track "Max". He worked with the band for two years, also contributing to the albums The Isness and The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness. In 2000, Richter worked with Mercury Prize winner Roni Size on the Reprazent album In the Mode. Additionally, he produced Vashti Bunyan's 2005 album Lookaftering and Kelli Ali's 2008 album Rocking Horse.
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Max Richter
Max Richter (/ˈrɪxtər/; German: [ˈʁɪçtɐ]; born 22 March 1966) is a British composer and pianist. He works within postminimalist and contemporary classical styles. Richter is classically trained, having graduated in composition from the University of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Music in London, and studied with Luciano Berio in Italy.
Richter arranges, performs, and composes music for stage, opera, ballet, and screen. He has collaborated with other musicians, as well as with performance, installation, and media artists. He has recorded eight solo albums, and his music is widely used in cinema. As of December 2019, Richter has passed one billion streams and one million album sales.
Richter has been called a "major figure of contemporary music" and his work has been described as "transcending genres" by the former controller of BBC Radio 3, Alan Davey. In 2026, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the soundtrack of Hamnet.
Richter was born in Hamelin, Lower Saxony, West Germany. He grew up in Bedford, England, United Kingdom, and his education was at Bedford Modern School and Mander College of Further Education.
He had piano lessons and music classes, and at 12 or 13, heard a BBC documentary using the opening to Kraftwerk's Autobahn, inspiring him to research how to build synthesizers, and led on to listening to artists like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Vangelis. At around the same time, the local milkman introduced him to minimalist music by the likes of Terry Riley, Philip Glass and John Cage.
Richter studied composition and piano at the University of Edinburgh and at the Royal Academy of Music, though he had some reservations about the syllabus being focused on a Polish School modernist canon to the detriment of other minimalist works. This led him to study with Luciano Berio in Florence which struck him as "opening a door" to "music which was more various".
Richter became involved in performing minimal and post-minimal music, and co-founded the contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus. He stayed with the group for ten years, commissioning and performing works by minimalist musicians such as Arvo Pärt, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe, and Steve Reich. The ensemble was signed to Decca/Argo, producing five albums.
In 1996, Richter collaborated with Future Sound of London on the album Dead Cities, first as a pianist, but ultimately working on several tracks and co-writing the track "Max". He worked with the band for two years, also contributing to the albums The Isness and The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness. In 2000, Richter worked with Mercury Prize winner Roni Size on the Reprazent album In the Mode. Additionally, he produced Vashti Bunyan's 2005 album Lookaftering and Kelli Ali's 2008 album Rocking Horse.