Composer and multi-instrumentalist Richard Horowitz specialized in music from the Middle East. From 1968 to 1979, he lived in Paris and Morocco, where he studied music, Arabic, French, and Oriental philosophy while performing throughout Europe and Morocco. Horowitz had musical roots in classical, jazz, and electronic/computer music, and he studied trance, tribal, classical, and sacred music from North Africa to Indonesia. He played keyboards, percussion, and various wind instruments, including the ney, an obliquely blown reed flute. Horowitz scored many feature films and received a Golden Globe and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for his work, along with Ryuichi Sakamoto, on the 1990 film The Sheltering Sky, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. In 1981, Horowitz began to work with Sussan Deyhim, a singer born in Tehran. They performed together internationally beginning in 1984 and collaborated on media theater pieces, ballets, and feature and short film music projects. Their 1997 Sony Classical album Majoun featured a stellar array of guest artists from world music, rock, and jazz. Jaron Lanier, the father of virtual reality, was a frequent collaborator; in 1997, the two presented a visual performance duet ("virtual motion to music") at MIDEM in Cannes, Japan, and Brazil. Horowitz died in Marrakesh, Morocco, on April 13, 2024; he was 75 years of age. ~ Carol Wright, Rovi