Paul Riker was born in Las Vegas and raised in upstate New York. His early musical experiences were through the world of rock, heavy metal, and jazz. He earned a B.M. from the Crane School of Music, SUNY Potsdam, where he studied electronic music with Paul Steinberg.

Paul earned his M.A. in composition from Queens College, CUNY, where he studied with Jeff Nichols, Bruce Saylor, and Hubert Howe. While enrolled at ACSM, Paul earned the Herbert Sukoff award in composition and the George Perle award in composition.  Paul also enjoyed a number of performances, including the New York premiere of his song cycle “Prophecies” at the Flea Theatre in Manhattan.

Currently, Paul is pursuing a PhD in composition from the CUNY Graduate Center, where he has been awarded a Chancellor’s Fellowship.  Paul has also received funding from the Graduate Center's New Media Lab, where he works primarily with Max/MSP/Jitter. Some of Paul’s recent instructors include David Olan and David Del Tredici (composition), Joseph Straus (theory), and Allan Atlas (musicology).  Paul continues to work with Hubert Howe in his computer music studies.

Paul’s compositional interests include computer-aided studies in timbre, overtones, and sounds of the real world; finding ways of incorporating additional media and interactivity into music; and developing new approaches to the composition of tonal music.

Recently, Paul’s works have been featured at SEAMUS, Lincoln Center (NYC), the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival (Gainesville, FL), The SCI Region II conferences (Queens, NY and Hamilton, NY), the Syracuse Society for New Music (Syracuse, NY), Uncle Ming’s (NYC), FOLDOVER (WOBC 91.5FM - Oberlin, OH), todayscomposers.com, Coney Island, The New York City Downtown Film Festival, and at the American Composer’s Alliance Festival (Flea Theatre, NYC), with performances by a variety of performing ensembles including Cygnus and ICE. Paul has received support from CUNY's New Media Lab and from ASCAP.

Paul is the co-founder of the InterMedia Arts Group (IMAG) in New York City. Their events feature new works involving interactive multimedia and have involved artists such as This Spartan Life, David Grubs, Amnon Wolman, and Morton Subotnick.

Paul is co-founder and co-director of the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF). More information is available at nycemf.org.

Paul, his wife Katie, and their son Max live on Long Island.