Who is Riccardo Riccardi?

Riccardo Riccardi was born in 1954 in Rimini where he studied piano with Guido Zangheri. His early schooling at the Liceo Classico Giulio Cesare included Italian classes with Carlo Alberto Balducci who had also taught Federico Fellini.

In 1972 he moved to Florence to study composition at the Conservatorio di Musica Luigi Cherubini with Pier Luigi Zangelmi and later with Carlo Prosperi. He concurrently studied piano with Franco Scala until his graduation in 1976. From 1977 to 1980 he spent summers in Germany and in 1980 worked as a music coach at the Jugend-Festspieltreffen in Bayreuth.

In 1981 he earned his doctorate in architecture with a dissertation entitled, The Theory of Harmonic Proportions in the Architectural Treatises of the Renaissance.  He earned his degree in composition in July 1982 and moved to Los Angeles that August. In 1983 his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra received the Composer’s Award at the 21st Southwestern Youth Music Festival.

He returned to Europe in 1984 and led radio programs from 1988 to 1991 at the Spanish National Radio (RNE) and the Italian National Radio and Television (RAI). In the 1990's he returned to painting, an earlier passion, and also started working as an architect, devoting himself mainly to interior design.

Since the 1970’s Riccardi has composed chamber, orchestral and vocal music, and began focusing primarily on music theater in the early 1990’s. His operas range from works sung throughout, as in historical Italian opera, to Singspiel and theatrical texts with arias and are based on his own libretti, some original and others adapted from early 20th century writers.

Among his recent works: Talk Show (Lucca, 2009), Una questione d’onore (San Gimignano, 2010), Il testament–The Will (Dublin, 2014), Moving Out (Washington, 2016), Shakespeare & Gossip (Rome, 2016), L'ascensore (Rome, 2018).

As an academic, Riccardi has been invited to colleges and universities in California, Arizona, Indiana, and Maryland since 1994. He also taught composition in the New York University Florence Program from 2008 to 2012, and Music Appreciation in the Rome Program of Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame from 1998 to 2013. He was the Nancy Unobskey Visiting Artist in Modern and Contemporary Art at Goucher College, Towson, Maryland in 2014.

Riccardo Riccardi holds a Chair of Composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome.