Richard Horowitz

Richard Horowitz is a jazz musician, composer and music producer.

Richard Horowitz started out in the meeting point of free jazz, New Age and Minimalism. He has been most concerned with fusing elements of ancient music and folkore with modern instruments and technologies, particularly the Prophet-5 synthesizer which can be heard on the Minute ‘Baby Elephant Magic’. One critic pointed out that ‘his tracks are translations that morph ancient sources into the resonance of full spectrum surround-sound.’

Along with fellow collaborators Jon Hassell, Brian Eno & David Byrne, Richard became part of a small music movement known as Fourth World, a genre of music in which imagined geographies were soundtracked by blending musical traditions from around the world with modern synthesizers.

Richard spent much time in Morocco where he studied Arabic and music, learning the ney, a reed flute (also on the minute) that is one of the oldest musical instruments still in use. Morocco was also where, at the age of 19, Richard encountered a type of music called Gnaoua/Gnawa, a North African Islamic spiritual trance music. Richard Horowitz has been one of the most fervent proponents of Gnawa outside of Morocco and even founded a festival dedicated to the music that now attracts 400,000 people to Essaouira on the west coast of Morocco. He is perhaps most famous however for his work on film scores, notably films like ‘Any Given Sunday’ and ‘The Sheltering Sky’, in which he collaborated with composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.