Richard Aaker Trythall (July 25, 1939 – December 21, 2022) was an American and Italian composer and pianist of contemporary classical music.
He attended Central High School in Knoxville and in 1958 he enrolled at the University of Tennessee, where he studied under David Van Vactor graduating with a Bachelor of Music in 1961.
[2] His interest in composition was fostered by Van Vactor, at the time conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra and founder of the University of Tennessee School of Music.
He was then admitted to Princeton University in 1961 where he studied under Earl Kim, Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, and Edward T. Cone obtaining a Master of Fine Arts in 1963.
Trythall was invited by Lukas Foss and Lejaren Hiller to join the faculty of the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts of the State University of New York at Buffalo where he taught from 1972 to 1973.
Trythall was selected twice, in 1960 and 1968, to take part to the Tanglewood Music Festival, where he performed his works Twelve Duets for Treble Instruments and Continuums.
[13] Parts Unknown, an hour-long composition for piano articulated in twelve sections, was composed between 1989 and 1991 and premiered in Rome, at the Ghione Theater, on December 9, 1991.