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Since winning the sinfonia ViVA Conducting Scholarship in 2001, Richard has established a reputation as one of the most exciting and versatile young conductors in Britain. In 2002 he graduated from the Birmingham Conservatoire with a Master's degree, a postgraduate diploma in conducting, and the Conservatoire's Postgraduate Prize for the most outstanding contribution to the musical life of the college, subsequently working intensively on operatic conducting with Diego Masson at Dartington, supported by the Foyle Foundation.
Richard has conducted in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. He is Music Director of the critically-acclaimed Birmingham-based professional opera company Operamus, Music Director of the Worcestershire Symphony Orchestra, the Leicester Bach Choir, and the Midlands Chorale, Principal Conductor of the Leamington Chamber Orchestra, and a regular guest conductor with Queen’s Park Sinfonia, Hallam Sinfonia, Midlands Sinfonia and Chandos Symphony Orchestra. Forthcoming engagements include concerts in Eisenach and Rome, and in October Richard will be conducting the first two concerts of the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra’s new season.
Richard is a conductor and coach in the Department of Vocal and Operatic Studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire where he assists Lionel Friend. His operatic performances have included La Traviata and La Bohème (Dartington Festival Opera), Malcolm Williamson’s English Eccentrics (Birmingham Conservatoire), Handel’s Orlando (Pigotts), Adrian Cruft’s Dr Syn (Kent Opera), Noye’s Fludde, Albert Herring and Hansel and Gretel (Operamus). Richard is Associate Conductor of the virtuoso young ensemble Sinfonia Cymru, which regularly tours with Bryn Terfel, and will be conducting the orchestra in venues across Wales in February and March. He is Associate Conductor of the internationally acclaimed Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra in Surrey, assisting Adrian Brown. Richard is in demand as a coach at festivals and summer schools and as a leader of orchestral and choral workshops around the UK. He has premiered many new works and plays the violin for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Orchestra of the Swan, and as a guest leader for the Sinfonia of Birmingham and the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra.
In his limited spare time Richard pursues a wide range of academic interests: his undergraduate work in Manchester on John F. Kennedy’s policy in Vietnam won him the Kaiser Award for American History, and he has presented papers on subjects as diverse as Hollywood film, reality TV and the Ring cycle at the International Conferences on Film and Literature at Florida State University and the International Wagner Symposium at the University of Adelaide.
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