Biography
Violist Wendy Richman has been celebrated internationally for her compelling sound and “absorbing,” “fresh and idiomatic” interpretations with “a brawny vitality.” (The New York Times, The Washington Post). As soloist and chamber musician, she has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center Festival, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Miller Theater, Mostly Mozart Festival, Park Avenue Armory, Phillips Collection, and international festivals in Berlin, Darmstadt, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Karlsruhe, Morelia, and Vienna. She is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble.
Upon hearing her interpretation of Berio’s Sequenza VI, The Baltimore Sun commented that she made “something at once dramatic and poetic out of the aggressive tremolo-like motif of the piece.” She collaborates with a wide range of composers, commissioning pieces in which she sings and plays simultaneously. Wendy’s debut solo album, vox/viola, was released on New Focus Recordings (2020). In addition to her work on contemporary repertoire, Wendy has collaborated with fortepianist Malcolm Bilson, the Claremont and Prometheus Trios, and members of the Cleveland, Juilliard, and Takács Quartets. She frequently performs with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and has been a regular guest with the orchestral viola sections of Atlanta, Minnesota, and St. Louis.
Wendy is a distinguished educator and sought-after clinician at universities and conservatories across the country, offering classes on viola repertoire and technique, lectures on string instrument notation, and workshops on contemporary and “extended” string techniques. She holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory (BM), New England Conservatory (MM), and Eastman School of Music (DMA with Diploma in Ethnomusicology). Wendy’s academic interests address musicians’ communities, stemming from her own experiences with composer-performer relationships, genderbased discrimination, and disability. Her own compositions link her love of unconventional string sounds with reflections on nature, physical trauma, and invisible disability.
In 2022-23, in addition to her duties as an academic lecturer at UCLA and viola instructor at California State University at Northridge (CSUN), Wendy will be Artist-in-Residence at UC-Davis, presenting two recital programs and playing a concerto with the university orchestra.