Reynold Tharp

Reynold Tharp (born June 17, 1973) is an American composer of contemporary classical music.

His music reflects a fascination with transitory physical aspects of sound, such as resonance and decay.

Tharp was born in Indiana, and studied music composition and history at Oberlin College before entering the graduate program in composition at the University of California, Berkeley.

As a recipient of the university's Ladd Fellowship, he spent two years in Paris studying composition with Philippe Leroux and orchestration with Marc-André Dalbavie.

He was selected for the Stage d’Automne at IRCAM in 2000 and has participated in workshops and seminars with Ivan Fedele, Brian Ferneyhough and Jonathan Harvey.

In recent years, his music has been performed in the U.S. and Europe by groups such as the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, the Orchestre Lyrique de Region Avignon-Provence and the Nieuw Ensemble (Amsterdam), which commissioned and premiered his work A Backward Glance in 2000.

Several of these performances have been broadcast on French and Dutch radio.

Awards for his music include BMI’s William Schuman Prize, Columbia University’s Joseph H. Bearns Prize for his orchestral work Drift and UC Berkeley’s Nicola DeLorenzo Prize.

Recent projects include commissions from the Irving M. Klein International String Competition, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players for their 2008-2009 season and a duo for flute and harp for Jonathan Keeble and Ann Yeung.

Tharp has taught composition, orchestration, analysis and theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, UC Berkeley, Northwestern University and San Francisco State University.