Composers’ Forum – Lecture by Riccardo Riccardi Presented by Liszt Academy

The next of the forum will be the professor of the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia.

Born in Rimini in Northern Italy, Riccardo Riccardi studied piano there with Guido Zangheri and Franco Scala, but as early as 1972 he had begun studying composition with Pier Luigi Zangelmi and Carlo Prosperi at the Cherubini Conservatory of Music in Florence. At the University of this city , in 1981 he earned a Doctorate in Architecture. In 1982 he came to study in California and in 1983 his Violin Concerto won the Composer’s Award at the 21st Southwestern Youth Music Festival.

As an academic from 1988 to 2012, he taught composition at the Florence Conservatory and from 2008 to 2012 in the Florence Program of New York University. Since 2012, he has held a Chair of Composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory of Music in Rome. The author of educational programs for Radio 3, Italian National Radio and for the Radio Nacional de España (1988-1991). Since 1994 he has been invited as a guest speaker and artist in residence to various Universities, Colleges, and Music Centers in California, Arizona, Indiana , New York and Maryland. In 2014 he was the Nancy Unobskey Visiting Artist in Modern and Contemporary Art, at Goucher College (Towson, Maryland). He belongs to the Creative Circle of the International Centre for Contemporary Music, London.

Stylistically, Riccardi's music originated in the post-World War II avant-garde era, but from the early eighties he assimilated the post- modern movement and has developed a clearer tonal focus. Initially, as a composer, he devoted himself to chamber, vocal and orchestral music. Since the late 1990’s, however, he has written primarily for musical theater. His operas are based on his own librettos. Some are sung throughout; others insert spoken dialogues between arias and ensemble pieces. Among his many theatrical works, he has written: The man who loved islands for the Teatro comunale di Latina (2005), Talk Show for the Opera Bazar di Lucca (2009), Una questione d’onore for the Baroque Festival of San Gimignano (2010), Il testamento(The Will) for the Royal Irish Academy of Dublin (2014), Moving Out for the Italian Embassy in Washington (2016), Shakespeare and Gossip for Anno per Anno Festival at the Palazzo Braschi, Rome (2016), L’ascensore for the Sala Accademica of the “Santa Cecilia” Conservatory (2018), and Il direttore for the Teatro di Villa Torlonia, Rome (2019), Duello (2019), Questionario for the Teatro Nacional of Panama (2020) La via del mare (2020), La disfatta (2021).