My Take
Max Richter is one of those rare composers who makes you feel like you've been quietly asleep your whole life and his music is what waking up actually sounds like. Born in Hamelin — yes, the Pied Piper town — and classically trained at Edinburgh and the Royal Academy before studying under Luciano Berio in Italy, he's got pedigree stacked on pedigree, yet his work never feels academic or cold. His recomposition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons is genuinely one of the boldest moves in contemporary classical music, and Sleep — an eight-hour piece designed to be listened to while unconscious — is either the most ambitious or most absurd project of the last few decades, and I mean that as the highest compliment. He won a European Film Award in 2008 and later a CBE, but the real metric is that his music shows up everywhere from HBO dramas to art installations and it always lands exactly right. I'm completely sold.
Overview
Max Richter (; German: [ˈʁɪçtɐ]; born 22 March 1966) is a German-born British composer and pianist. He works within postminimalist and contemporary classical styles. Richter is classically trained, having graduated in composition from the University of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Music in London, and studied with Luciano Berio in Italy.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Max Richter
- Name (Japanese)
- マックス・リヒター
- Reading
- まっくす・りひたー
- Born
- March 22, 1966 (age 60)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Aries / Horse
- Origin
- Hamelin, Lower Saxony, Germany
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- composer / pianist / film score composer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- University of Edinburgh
Awards & achievements
- 2008 European Film Award for Best Composer
- 2013 Echo Klassik – Classical Music without Borders
- Commander of the Order of the British Empire
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.