Roger Reynolds is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer known for his experimentation with electronics, visual media, and theatrical concepts. A dedicated educator, he has taught at the University of California since 1969, and he founded its Center for Music Experiment in 1972. He was born in Detroit in 1934, to a non-musical family. He first discovered his love for music when he was a boy and he heard phonograph records of Vladimir Horowitz. This led to piano lessons with Kenneth Aiken, who taught the standard repertoire with an emphasis on its historical context. Shortly after he graduated from high school in 1952, Reynolds performed his first solo recital of the music of Brahms, Liszt, Debussy, and Chopin. That fall, heeding his father's advice and enrolled in the engineering physics program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After he finished his bachelor’s degree in 1957, he was temporarily employed as a systems development engineer for a missile manufacturer in Los Angeles, but he was not content. As an army reservist, he fulfilled his obligation in the military and served one year with the military police. Later, he returned to the University of Michigan to study composition with Ross Lee Finney, and Roberto Gerhard. He was also in contact with many of the leaders in contemporary music of the time such as Edgard Varèse, Harry Partch, and John Cage. Reynolds completed his BA in music in 1960 and his MM in composition in 1961, and he was a cofounder of the ONCE Group in Ann Arbor. He traveled to Cologne, Germany in 1962 to study with Bernd Alois Zimmermann on a Fulbright Scholarship, but Zimmermann refused to teach him, so Reynolds sought out Gottfried Michael Koenig. He also collaborated with Michael von Biel, and he worked at the Electronic Music Studio of the WDR. It was around this time that he composed The Emperor of Ice Cream, which combined music with visual elements, and it utilized an inventive and influential system of graphic notation. In 1966, Reynolds received a fellowship from the Institute of Current World Affairs, which took him to Japan for three years. In a collaboration with dancer Sekii Maro and cinematographer Kazuro Kato, he premiered his multimedia work PING, which included scoring for instruments, film, and electronic visual and audio effects. Reynolds returned to the U.S. in 1969 and accepted an invitation to teach at the University of California in San Diego. As a guest artist and lecturer, he has visited several institutions, including The University of Illinois, Harvard, and Amherst. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1989 for his orchestral work Whispers Out of Time. Reynolds has composed several works in traditional classical forms such as concertos, symphonies, and string quartets, and he continues to experiment with electronic, theatrical, and visual elements in his music. He lives in Del Mar, California with his wife Karen, he remains active as a composer, and engaged in his responsibilities with the University of California. His music has been featured on several albums, including Roger Reynolds: Process and Passion, Epigram and Evolution: Complete Piano Works of Roger Reynolds, and 2023's For a Reason. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi