Ralph Towner

Ralph Towner was an American guitarist, pianist and composer, born on 1 March 1940 in Chehalis, Washington, who died in Rome on 18 January 2026. He played classical and twelve-string guitar and in 1970, after leaving the Paul Winter Consort, co-founded the group Oregon with Paul McCandless, Glen Moore and Collin Walcott. He recorded for ECM from the early 1970s, solo and in duos with Gary Burton, John Abercrombie and Gary Peacock. Towner enrolled at the University of Oregon in 1958, where he studied composition with Homer Keller, and later studied classical guitar with Karl Scheit in Vienna.