Electronic excited and ionized states of pyridine were reinvestigated by the symmetry-adapted cluster configuration interaction (SAC-CI) method using an extended basis set and a wide active space. The present SAC-CI results for the singlet and triplet excited states are greatly improved and agree well with the experimental observations, providing a firm assignment of all low-lying n --> pi (*) and pi --> pi* valence excited states observed in the vacuum ultraviolet spectrum and electron energy-loss spectrum. The ionization potentials were reexamined by the SAC-CI general-R (R represents excitation operator) method. The first four ionization potentials are greatly improved compared with our previous results obtained by the SAC-CI single- and double-R (SD-R) method. The present theoretical ionization potentials are in good agreement with the experimental values in high-resolution synchrotron photoelectron spectrum for energy regions up to 25 eV (which contain outer- and inner-valence regions), and give a detailed theoretical assignment for the photoelectron spectra. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.