James Richman

James Richman, Artistic Director of the Dallas Bach Society and New York’s Concert Royal, as well as Music Director of the New York Baroque Dance Company, is a prominent harpsichordist and fortepianist and one of today’s leading conductors of Baroque music and opera. The first musician since Leonard Bernstein to graduate from Harvard, Juilliard and the Curtis Institute of Music, Richman studied conducting with Max Rudolf and Herbert Blomstedt; piano with Rosina Lhévinne and Mieczyslaw Horszowski; and harpsichord with Albert Fuller and Kenneth Gilbert. He holds a degree in the history of science magna cum laude from Harvard College.

A recipient of the prestigious United States-France Exchange Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, he was made a chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1995 in recognition of his contributions to the field of music. Richman has been a prizewinner in four international competitions for early keyboard instruments, including first prize in the Bodky Competition of the Cambridge Society of Early Music; laureate of the Bruges Harpsichord Competition; and bronze medals in the Paris Harpsichord Competition of the Festival Estival and in the First International Fortepiano Competition (Paris). In appearances at the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Spoleto Festival USA, the E. Nakamichi Baroque Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, as well as in regular series in New York, he has organized and conducted revivals of stage works by Handel, Gluck, Purcell, J.C. Bach, Monteverdi and seven operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau. He has recorded for Nonesuch, Newport Classic, Centaur, Vox and New World records, and his live performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #6 is featured on National Public Radio’s Bach CD, along with recordings of James Galway, Yo-Yo Ma and Christopher Hogwood. Recent releases include a live performance of Handel’s Messiah, which was chosen for national distribution by Public Radio International, as well as Rameau’s Pygmalion and Handel’s Terpsicore and Ariodante ballet scenes for Centaur Records. Richman has conducted the Hanover Band at the Festival de Pollença in Mallorca and has conducted opera at the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival.