Terry Riley – In C
Terry Riley’s In C (1964) occupies a singular place in the history of experimental and minimalist music, a piece that redefined what musical structure could mean, and what it could feel like to perform and to listen. Composed of 53 short melodic cells, each to be repeated ad libitum, In C offers not a fixed score but a framework for collective creation. Performers move through the material at their own pace, staying roughly together, listening, responding, adjusting. The steady pulse of the note C, played continuously, anchors the music: a bright centre of gravity around which the patterns orbit and transform.
Out of this simple design arises extraordinary complexity. Lines overlap, phase, and fuse, forming luminous polyrhythms and shimmering harmonic fields. The music seems to breathe, expanding and contracting with the ensemble’s attention, never quite the same twice. It invites an awareness of process: one hears not only the sound but the act of its unfolding, the listening and decision, making that shape it in real time.
For the ensemble, In C embodies many of the ideas that define our approach to performance. It is at once a composition, an improvisation, and a social structure, a living ecosystem that relies on balance, empathy, and responsiveness. Our instrumentation: violin, cello, electric bass, tuned percussion, flute, bass clarinet, trombone, and the live electronics of Robin Rimbaud (Scanner) , expands Riley’s sound world while remaining faithful to its open spirit. The timbres of strings, winds, and percussion interlace with Scanner’s electronic textures, which flow through the ensemble like an invisible current. The electric bass grounds the rhythmic continuum, giving the pulse a tactile, physical weight; meanwhile, tuned percussion and winds generate a luminous surface of shifting overtones.
Every performance becomes an encounter between structure and spontaneity. The ensemble listens as much as it plays: adjusting dynamics, density, and colour according to the room, the acoustics, and the energy of the audience. Sometimes the texture thins to a single thread; at other times, it erupts into dense polyphony. In this fluid, collective state, In C reveals its true nature , not as a static work of minimalism but as a continually renewing process of attention and connection.
Our performances often emphasise spatial experience, the musicians arranged in the centre of the space, surrounded or intermingled with the audience, so that sound moves and breathes from every direction. In this configuration, In C becomes both concert and installation, a shared environment rather than a spectacle. The electronics extend this sense of space, transforming Riley’s rhythmic lattice into a shimmering, immersive field that evolves moment by moment.
In the case of Klang Systematiek, In C remains a vital model of what music can be: open, democratic, and endlessly adaptable. It dissolves the boundary between performer and listener, score and experience. In its balance of precision and freedom, pulse and intuition, it embodies our belief that music is a living organism, sustained by collective energy, shaped by space, and renewed each time it is heard.
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