Sid Richardson

Sid Richardson is a twenty-five-year-old composer from Belmont, MA, who also performs as a contrabassist with new music groups such as the Boston New Music Initiative and the Equilibrium Concert Series, among others. Sid recently completed a Master of Music degree in composition at the Boston Conservatory, and he holds a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University in music and classics. His primary composition teachers have been John McDonald, Marti Epstein, Jan Swafford, and Elliott Schwartz, with additional studies with John Harbison, Christian Wolff, Nils Vigeland, Andy Thomas, David Ludwig, and Joel Hoffman. He has recently collaborated on compositions with artists such as the Alcyon Chamber Ensemble, Philipp Stäudlin, Michelle Makarski, Scott Woolweaver, and the Nebula String Quartet. In the summer of 2012, he attended the Summer Institute of Contemporary Performance Practice at New England Conservatory and also participated in the Atlantic Music Festival at Colby College. In the summer of 2011, he attended the Upbeat International Music School in Milna, Croatia. Sid’s orchestral movement Tecton received an honorable mention in the 2013 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute Competition. In 2011, Sid won first prize in the Alcyon Chamber Ensemble’s Composition Competition for his work Après la Transfiguration de la Nuit, which was premiered by the group in September of 2012. He has been on the staff of The Boston New Music Initiative since 2011 working alongside fellow Boston musicians to actively promote and produce new music. As graduate teaching assistant at The Boston Conservatory since 2011, Sid has taught classes in Medieval, Classical, Romantic, and twentieth-century music history. In 2010, Sid was a volunteer community music teacher at the Washington Irving Middle School in Roslindale, MA, through the non-profit organization Citizen Schools.
In addition to music, Sid is interested in sailing, classical studies, and French literature, in which he finds inspiration for many of his works. In the fall of 2013, he will be continuing his education as a PhD candidate in composition at Duke University.