Richard Carrick (b. 1971, Paris, France) is a musician of wide-ranging vocations and interests, whose activities spans composition, performance, conducting, teaching artistry, education, lecturing, ensemble leadership, and curation. His reputation as an international leader in contemporary music rests on his tireless curiosity, intercontinental body of experience, and ceaseless exploration across disparate musical fields. His music is characterized by spatial depth and robust stasis; continual development and the evocation of profound human experiences.
Described both as "charming, with exoticism and sheer infectiousness" and "organic and restless" by The New York Times, Carrick's music is influenced by his multicultural background and experiences as well as his commitment to inspire professionals, audiences and youth through composition and live performance. His music spans beyond solo, chamber and orchestral compositions to include conceived works incorporating dance, graphic scores, multiple video projections, and group and conducted improvisation.
Carrick’s music has been programmed and presented internationally at festivals including NYPHIL BIENNIAL, ISCM World Music Days-Switzerland, Library of Congress, Enescu Festival, Pacific Rim Festival, Miller Theatre, Mid-American New Music Festival, and Darmstadt Summer Festival, and performed by musicians including the JACK Quartet, Mivos Quartet, Nieuw Ensemble, Wet Ink Ensemble, New York New Music Ensemble, Hyperion Ensemble, String Noise, Sequitur Ensemble, Musica Nova, Hotel Elefant, Marilyn Nonken, Taka Kigawa, Margaret Lancaster, Vasko Dukovski, Jennifer Choi, Tony Arnold, Magnus Andersson, Steven Schick, Rohan de Saram, and others. Recent Concert Portraits were presented by Miller Theatre (2019, 2024) Either/Or (2023, 2025), MIT (2023) Berklee (2024) and by New Chamber Ballet (2023, 2021) with whom he has written a number of new works for dance. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2015-16 Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition and a 2011 Fromm Foundation Commission.
Carrick is co-founder and co-artistic director of the contemporary music ensemble Either/Or, declared 'first rate' and ‘a trustworthy purveyor of fresh sounds’ by The New York Times, and winner of the 2015 CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. As conductor and pianist, Carrick has worked closely with many celebrated composers including Helmut Lachenmann, Jonny Greenwood, Chaya Czernowin, Elliott Sharp, George Lewis, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Iancu Dumitrescu, Robert Ashley, Karin Rehnqvist and Raphael Cendo. Carrick conducting E/O's ambitious single night concert of “John Cage Party Pieces” premiered 125 scores by renowned composers from around the world.
As teaching artist of considerable experience, Carrick was instrumental in the development and international expansion of the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composer program internationally, in which he mentored hundreds of young composers to compose pieces to be performed by New York Philharmonic musicians (including over 20 pieces premiered by the full NY Philharmonic Orchestra). He helped develop VYC ground breaking programs for young composers in Korea (with KACES), Japan and at the Barbican in the UK. During his work as a Guggenheim fellow, Carrick started two young composer programs, in Tel Aviv, Israel and Kigali, Rwanda.
Carrick serves as Chair of the Composition Department at Berklee College of Music, possibly the largest composition department in the world, where he has developed a number of new courses including the Neither/Nor Composer/Performer Ensemble, Composing New Music for Dance, Advanced Projects in Composition, and Introduction to Composition. He has presented masterclasses and lectures throughout the US, Canada, Holland, France, UK, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Israel, Rwanda, Japan and South Korea. Former posts include composition faculty at Columbia University (Graduate program) and New York University.
His latest release, The Atlas, for extended piano and string quartet, features his longtime collaborators Either/Or, and is the first in three projected CD’s based on hour long concept works. His previous release, Cycles of Evolution, incorporates pieces commissioned and performed by Musicians of the New York Philharmonic, Either/Or, Sweden’s Ensemble Son, Hotel Elefant and String Orchestra of Brooklyn. Carrick conducts or performs on all works on this CD, which includes his 'apocalyptic' multimedia work for performers and video, Prisoner's Cinema. Carrick's first recording, also on New World Records, the “rich, beguiling” (The New York Times) extended chamber composition Flow Cycle for Strings, translates psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's 'flow' principle into sonic terms. 2020 release lanterne (New Focus Recordings)includes solo and chamber works by close collaborators, including his second string quartet Space:Time. Carrick's improvisation-based disc Stone Guitars (NFR) garnered critical attention in both the new music and guitar worlds, causing American Record Guide to note 'it may change your perception of electric guitar'.
A US/French citizen born in Paris of French-Algerian and British descent, Carrick received his BA from Columbia University, MA and PhD from the University of California-San Diego working with Brian Ferneyhough, and pursued further studies at IRCAM and the Koninklijk Conservatorium. Scores distributed by Project Schott New York.
Bio by Brad Balliett
