Once referred to as a ‘musical Swiss Army knife’, multi-instrumentalist Mac Ritchey brings a diverse palette of sounds and skills to both performance stage and recording studio. Studying electronic music at Oberlin College and anthropology at Brandeis University, his decades of musical involvement have been sculpted and influenced by an assortment of genres and cultures: classical Turkish to rock, jazz to reggae, the traditional to the cutting-edge.

 

For the past 10 years, Mac’s instrumental focus has been on the oud (also known as the ‘Arabic lute’). His other instruments include: guitar, bouzouki, çümbüs, saz, bass, keyboards, and didjeridu, as well as many forms of drums and percussion. He has studied Turkish and Armenian music traditions extensively and was a student of the late Alan Shavarsh Bardezbanian, as well as studying with Brahim Fribgane (Hassan Hakmoun, Club d’Elf) and Mal Barsamian.

 

Ritchey is a prolific composer and a member of the music groups 35th Parallel, Esthema, Dunham Shoe Factory, and The Response. He has toured the US over the past two decades, and performed in Freiburg Germany at the Tamburi Mundi 2009 Frame Drum Festival with internationally acclaimed percussionist Ramesh Shotham.

 

Mac’s musical interests go behind the scenes as well as the proprietor of Possum Hall Studios in Carlisle MA, a small rural town just outside of Boston. As a music producer and audio engineer, his work has been met with great acclaim. Most notably, the full-length album release ‘Alluvia’ (Evren Ozan) was the winner of The 2008 Native American Music Awards: Best Instrumental Album Of The Year and was on the Grammy entry list in two categories. Other studio production work has reached audiences in many ways, such as MTV ‘The Real World’, New Hampshire Public Radio, The National Holocaust Museum and their podcast ‘Voices On Anti-Semitism’, a number of independent film soundtracks, and even the daytime soap opera ‘All My Children’.

 

Mac currently lives in Carlisle MA and works tirelessly at keeping the deer from eating his vegetable garden.

 

For music, current projects, and more: http://www.possumall.com