Hailed by The Washington Post for her “fresh and idiomatic” performances with “a brawny vitality,” violist Wendy Richman has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician across the U.S. and Europe. She has performed at venues from American Repertory Theatre to Miller Theatre, MassMoCA to the Phillips Collection, and Symphony Space to the Gewandhaus. Recent and upcoming appearances include Boston’s Jordan Hall, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the American Academy in Rome, Longy School of Music, St. Paul’s Chapel and Merkin Concert Hall in New York City, and the Lucerne and Edinburgh Festivals. Ms. Richman appeared on WCRB-Boston’s Tuesdays at Noon series, and she has also been heard on WGBH-Boston, WFMT-Chicago, WQXR-New York, and WETA-Washington, D.C. Since 2005, she has been a member of White Rabbit, Artists-in-Residence with the Harvard Group for New Music at Harvard University.
Ms. Richman has received particular praise for her interpretations of new music and has collaborated closely with a wide range of composers, including John Luther Adams, Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, Brian Ferneyhough, Sofia Gubaidulina, Lee Hyla, David Lang, Alvin Lucier, Jeffrey Mumford, Matthias Pintscher, Bernard Rands, Augusta Read Thomas, Ken Ueno, Christian Wolff, and Hillary Zipper. In 2002, she and percussionist Timothy Feeney gave the fully-staged American premiere of Luciano Berio's Naturale on the International Contemporary Ensemble's all-Berio concert at Theater Building Chicago. Ms. Richman can be heard on Albany Records, AURec, Between the Lines, Bloodshot Records, Mode Records, and NAXOS.
Ms. Richman has appeared at such summer festivals as Aspen, Bravo!, Norfolk, San Juan, and Yellow Barn. In the summers of 2005 and 2006 she worked with Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Lucerne Festival Academy, focusing on 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, where she studied viola with Jeffrey Irvine and Peter Slowik and voice with Marlene Rosen, Ms. Richman received her master’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, under the guidance of Kim Kashkashian and Carol Rodland. She has been recognized in the Primrose, American String Teachers Association, Chicago Viola Society, Civic Music of Milwaukee and Ruggeri competitions. She currently resides in Boston and serves as assistant principal viola with the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra. In Boston, she performs with the Radius Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Callithumpian Consort. She also teaches violin and viola privately, at St. George’s School in Newport, RI, and at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. Ms. Richman is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), who perform regularly in New York and Chicago and are Artists-in-Residence at Columbia College in Chicago. ICE is a collective of young performers and composers committed to bringing contemporary classical music to a wider audience (www.iceorg.org).