Download Since completing his Master`s degree at the Royal College of Music

Biography
Education and Background…
Brad Richter (b. 1969, Enid, OK) began teaching himself to play guitar and compose at age 12. At
19, having had no formal musical training, he was awarded the Presidential Scholarship to the
American Conservatory of Music in Chicago where he began his first serious study of classical
music, becoming a teacher at the Conservatory after only two years of intensified practice and study.
After completing his undergraduate degrees in performance and composition at the Chicago College
of Performing Arts, Brad accepted a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London where he
studied with Carlos Bonell. He became the first guitarist in the college’s history to win the coveted
Thomas Morherr Prize for voice accompaniment, and went on to win the Royal College of Music’s
guitar competition before completing his Master's degree and returning to the US to continue his
concert career.
Career Highlights…
Brad has performed around the globe as a soloist, with renowned chamber ensembles, and in duos
with artists such as David Finckel, cellist of the Grammy-winning Emerson String Quartet and
director of chamber music at Lincoln Center. Brad’s concerts and those of The Richter Uzur Duo
(with cellist Viktor Uzur) are featured frequently on national NPR and PBS broadcasts including
regular appearances on NPR’s Performance Today and a recent appearance on PBS’s WoodSongs which
is also heard in 173 countries through the armed forces radio network. Festival appearances include
The Aspen Music Festival, The World Youth Guitar Festival, The Guitar Festival of Great Britain,
The London International Guitar Festival (where he was a co-headliner with Carlos Bonell, Alirio
Diaz and John Williams), Festival Dr. Alfonso Ortiz Tirado (Mexico) and the Walnut Valley Festival,
where he won the National Finger-picking Championship in 1999, a competition that features some
of the world's finest guitarists from all genres.
In addition to his collections of concert music for solo guitar (published by Mel Bay, Acoustic Music
Records and GSP), Brad is an avid composer of his own particular brand of chamber music combining genres such as world music, Native American music, pop and classical. He is a winner of
the International Composer’s Guild Competition, he wrote and performed a score for the Emmy
award winning PBS television series, The Desert Speaks and a High Definition Audio CD of his most
ambitious chamber work, Navigating Lake Bonneville – a concert length work for Soprano. Guitar,
Cello, Percussion, Narrator and Choir commissioned by Weber State University – was released in
2008. String Theory, The Richter Uzur Duo’s new CD featuring original compositions and
arrangements for guitar and cello by Brad and Viktor, was recently named ‘Best New Release’ by the
nationally syndicated NPR program Classical Guitar Alive.
While at home in Tucson, Brad focuses on his work as Artistic Director of Lead Guitar, a not-forprofit he co-founded in 2006 which establishes guitar programs in schools around the US with large
www.bradrichter-guitar.com
populations of at-risk-youth. In 2011/2012 Lead Guitar programs are teaching more than 1,150 kids
to play the guitar and training more than 50 public school teachers to teach guitar.
www.bradrichter-guitar.com