Born in 1954 in Rimini, Riccardo Riccardi is a composer, a playwright, a painter and an architect. He began studying piano with Guido Zangheri, at Rimini’s Liceo Musicale, but in those years painting was the means of expression that he felt most drawn to.

In 1972 he moved to Florence to study composition at the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini with Pier Luigi Zangelmi and later with Carlo Prosperi. He concurrently studied piano with Franco Scala until his graduation in 1976. Starting with his studies in Florence, he dedicated himself to the composition of chamber music, vocal and orchestral music, and he occasionally created abstract paintings inspired by music. He divided his time between Florence and Rimini and spent summers in Germany. In August 1980, he worked as a music coach at the Jugend-Festspieltreffen in Bayreuth.

In 1981 he earned his doctorate in architecture with a dissertation entitled, The Theory of Harmonic Proportions in the Architectural Treatises of the Renaissance. He earned his degree in composition in 1982 and then moved to California. In 1983 his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra received the Composer’s Award at the 21st Southwestern Youth Music Festival.

He returned to Europe in 1984 and led radio programs from 1988 to 1991 at the Spanish National Radio (RNE) and the Italian National Radio and Television (RAI). In the 1990’s he began work as an architect, devoting himself mainly to interior design. He returned to painting and, thanks to the Florentine set designer Ferdinando Ghelli, he deepened his technical skill in drawing. As a result of this return to the figurative arts, there were solo exhibitions of his works in Paris (2001), Rimini (2002), Rome (2004) and Baltimore (2004). Then he temporarily suspended painting because of a greatly increased interest in musical theater.

His stage works range from works sung throughout, as in historical Italian opera, to Singspiel and theatrical texts with arias and ensembles. They are based on his own libretti, some original and others adapted from early 20th century writers.

Among his recent works: Talk Show (Lucca, 2009), Una questione d’onore (San Gimignano, 2010), Il testament – The Will (Dublin, 2014), Moving Out (Washington, 2016), Shakespeare & Gossip (Rome, 2016), L’ascensore (Rome, 2018) Il direttore (Rome, 2019), Duello (2019), Questionario (Panama City, 2021), La via del mare (2021), La disfatta (2021-2023).

Riccardi spent almost four decades as an academic, teaching in Colleges and Conservatories. He held the Chair of Composition at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence from 1988 to 2012 and at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome from 2012 to 2021. Since 1994 he has been a visiting professor or artist in residence in colleges across the United States, in California, Arizona, Indiana, New York and Maryland. He has also served as Professor of Composition in the Florence Program of New York University from 2008 to 2012 and as Professor of Music Appreciation at Saint Mary’s College (Notre Dame, Indiana) in their Rome Program from 1998 to 2013. He was the Nancy Unobskey Visiting Artist in Modern and Contemporary Art at Goucher College, Towson, Maryland in 2014. Since 2021 he has been a member of the Creative Circle of the International Centre for Contemporary Music, London, and since 2022 he is the Director of International Projects for this institution.