Composer Max Richter is known for his ability to translate profound human emotions into music. Max’s record Sleep is the most streamed classical album of all time and his catalogue has surpassed 3 billion streams.

A prolific collaborator, he scored and performed for Kim Jones for the Dior shows, and the new Wayne McGregor and Margaret Atwood ballet MADDADDAM, and arts collective Random International on the Rain Room installation.

Max has collaborated with film directors Denis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese, and Ari Folman, and scored film & TV including Ad Astra, Black Mirror, Shutter Island, The Leftovers, Arrival and his Emmy-nominated score for Taboo.

He’s the co-founder of Studio Richter Mahr, with his partner and artist Yulia Mahr in Oxfordshire, UK. Max and Yulia built the studio around an old tractor barn, and have powered it with cutting-edge solar and heat-pump technology. It’s a haven for their family and community of musicians and artists which regularly come through. Set within 31 acres of woodland, Max and Yulia have a huge passion for using the land to farm and provide a sustainable working environment as well as using creativity as an elevating force within society. Operating as a free space for artists to develop their work, the studio also works with local partners to support the local community.

"I think there's something about our culture which sort of erodes those connections to those experiences. And I think particularly large-scale creative works can allow us to reconnect to them because they feel like alternate realities. So when you go to a Sleep performance, you are entering a kind of different world.

You are, as an audience member, you've made a decision to go into a room with 500 people and be vulnerable, going to sleep with strangers in this kind of altered space, altered state. And it's a kind of community which goes on a journey together. So all of these basic human things are encapsulated in the piece.

The world is very busy, and we tend to get a bit sidetracked by things that are not important. Creativity is a way to reconnect with important things. And I think the kinds of narratives, the kinds of perspectives that we put into the world with creativity can be a way to elevate the gaze a little bit. And it's true that literature is a big part of what I'm about in a way. I love stories, music, literature, visual art… These are ways to experience how another mind encounters the world. And that, for me, is really the most exciting thing about when you are reading a piece of writing by someone or you are seeing a piece of visual art – you are seeing a window into that person's encounter with reality. That person's biography. What things mean to them. And then you can compare notes with that person. How is it that person sees these things, and how do I see these things? And it's a way to understand one another. And I think that's really one of the most important things that creativity does in our world."

www.maxrichtermusic.com

https://studiorichtermahr.com

Photo by William Waterworth

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Max Richter’s music featured in this episode in order of appearance "On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep, “Spring 1” from The New Four Seasons – Vivaldi Recomposed, "Lullaby From The Westcoast Sleepers” from 24 Postcards in Full Colour, Vladimir’s Blues” from The Blue Notebooks.

Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.