New CD Dissolution Seedlings with House on Fire 1/2025, Sawyer Editions
New CD Rewild with Ghost Ensemble 10/2024, New World Records
"gorgeous … the most arresting thing about Rewild is the way it challenges our perception of time … serene, slowly unfolding shapes … lingering, unspooling and evading time … alternately dizzying, hypnotic, and ominous … suggesting an eternal process that we’ve just dropped into for 50 minutes." Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily
New 2CD Aurogeny — accordion, string quartet, & ensemble works 12/2023, Infrequent Seams
"consistently fascinating ... mysterious ... pulsating, scintillating music is realised brilliantly ... with momentous results" Julian Cowley, The Wire
"epic symphony of accordion mastery ... some of the most powerful experimental music of the last 12 months or more" Noel Gardner, Buzz
"gargantuan, glacially paced, sprawling, fantastic" hypirestition ruins
UPCOMING EVENTS
January 17, 2025 :: Williamstown, MA @ Williams College :: I/O Festival (Portent of Laramidia, Macklay)
March 7, 2025 :: Brattleboro, VT @ Epsilon Spires :: Deep Listening Workshop & residency opening concert (Portent of Laramidia, Niblock, Oliveros)
March 16, 2025 :: Northampton, MA @ Bombyx with Ghost Ensemble (Davachi world premiere, Rewild, Oliveros)
March 22, 2025 :: Brattleboro, VT @ Epsilon Spires :: residency closing concert (new work for organ)
April 2-4, 2025 :: Davis, CA @ UC Davis :: Ghost Ensemble residency
April 5, 2025 :: San Francisco, CA @ The Lab with Ghost Ensemble (Davachi, Niblock, Oliveros, Stepancic)
COMING SOON
:: Ghost Ensemble recording of Catherine Lamb's interius/exterius: Spring 2025 (greyfade)
:: Respire album with previously unreleased accordion works: Spring 2025 (Blue Tapes)
:: Striya film score
:: Exploratory LP with Phill Niblock (Matière Mémoire)
:: New accordion works for Ben by Nomi Epstein, Michael Pisaro, and Carolyn Chen
"likely to offer a profound impact on the very nature of listening."
— Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio
"cloudy, mysterious, and dark ... Beckettian in its slow spread"
— Brian Olewnick, Just Outside
"a multifaceted texture that evokes the primeval"
— Meg Wilhoite, Meg's New Music Blog
"a look, perhaps, into a different dimension … the music sounds like something incomprehensibly massive is passing by, slowly."
— George Grella, The New York Classical Review
"immense magnitude … frequencies melting your very walls … areas of sonic dynamism that work their trembling magic … shiver me timbres"
— Darren Bergstein, Downtown Music Gallery
the Infuse podcast: Ben Richter re-accorde son accordéon pour jouer avec la microtonalité
15 Questions interview with Tobias Fischer (text)
PRXLUDES interview with Zygmund de Somogyi (text)
KCBX Arts Beat: Ghost Ensemble's "Sensuous Sounds" interview with Melanie Senn and Sky Macklay (text/audio)
Other Minds Podcast: Ghost Ensemble interview with Joseph Bohigian and Sky Macklay (audio)
SURROUNDSCAPES: The Future of Music interview with Graeme Harrison (audio)
Ben Richter is a composer, accordionist, and founding director of Ghost Ensemble.