Native American (Iroquois-Mohawk) composer, producer and performer, Anthony Joseph Rice-Perttunen studied composition and orchestration in the 80s under Frederick Kaufman, Jan Krzywicki and Andrew Rudin at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts. Over 40 years, he has written, produced, conducted, recorded and performed classical and avant-garde music, jazz, folk, pop, rock, poetry and performance art for recitals, dance, film, theater and nightclubs in Oulu (Finland), Philadelphia, Aspen, Los Angeles, New York and Anchorage, Alaska.
Rice-Perttunen’s earlier highlights included a 1990 composer residency with Philadelphia’s DanceFusion, composer of soundtracks for the Emmy Award-winning film The Rest of Donna and Afterthoughts and direction, production and performances at New Jersey’s Walt Whitman Center, Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School and Group Motion Theater. In 1993, Voces Novae et Antiquae (VNA) commissioned Rice-Perttunen’s Song of the Clam – in the aboriginal Alaskan language of Aleut – for choir and chamber ensemble. He produced, recorded and performed with Philadelphia blues legend, Georgie (Gatormouth) Bonds and Ulali‘s founder, Nammy Award-winning Native singer-songwriter, Pura Fe and with the internationally renown Grammy Award-winning Paul Winter.
In 2009, Uuden Musikiin Lokakuu produced the European premiere of Rice-Perttunen’s art song cycle Leaves in Oulu, Finland, the recording of which aired nationally on YLE radio. Today, Rice-Perttunen lives with his wife in Oulu, continuing to compose and support music making in the area. He is currently developing a cycle of multi-lingual songs for the gifted Finnish mezzo-soprano/violinist Virpi Raisänen, another song cycle based upon original Persian poetry for an Oulu ensemble of mixed chamber and Iranian traditional instrumentalists, as well as his first symphony, for Oulu Sinfonia.