Biography

Composer, theorist, and pianist Richard Drehoff Jr.’s work has been commissioned by leading ensembles and organizations including the U.S. Library of Congress, the Durham Symphony Orchestra, and the New Mexico Contempoary Ensemble. His work has been premiered by Talea Ensemble, Mivos Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, oboist Andy Nogal, Bergamot Quartet, and Ensemble Paramirabo, amongst others. He has participated in festivals across Europe, Canada, and the United States, including the Etchings Festival (Auvillar, FR), Domaine Forget Academy (Saint-Irénée, CA), the VIPA Festival (Valencia, ES), and the DePaul New Music Residency (Chicago, IL), working with composers Chaya Czernowin, Philippe Leroux, Raphael Cendo, Lei Liang, Osnat Netzer, and Christopher Jones.

Richard is currently the 2022–2023 Composer-in-Residence of the Durham Symphony Orchestra. Other accolades include a residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, a composition fellowship from the James Tenney Memorial Symposium, multiple grants from the Peabody Instute of Johns Hopkins Unviersity, and finalist awards from both the American Prize in Composition and ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer program.

As a theorist, Richard’s creative and research interests explore the cognitive and cultural thresholds between delineations of sound, noise, and music, examining the compositional tools that allow us to bend listeners’ perceptions across time. His papers exploring the works of Pierre Boulez and Galina Ustvolskaya from the vantage points of semiotics and perception have been presented annual meetings of the Society of Music Theory and of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic. Upcoming research projects include papers on the use of vocal timbre in Chaya Czernowin’s Infinite Now and on music composition case studies from the Covid-19 pandemic.

As Co-Director of earspace, a North Carolina-based chamber ensemble dedicated to the cultivation of immersive performances of contemporary compositions, Richard actively curates programs of modern repertoire, collaborating with and commissioning living composers to write for the group. Under his direction, the ensemble has commissioned and premiered works by Luis Fernando Amaya, D. Edward Davis, inti figgis-vizueta, Maria Kaoutazni, Michal Massoud, and Elijah Daniel Smith, and the ensemble regularly presents the work of today’s leading composers. Richard often preforms with earspace as a pianist, presenting works by Hans Abrahamsen, Henry Cowell, Cody Criswell, Donnacha Dennehy, Simon Holt, and Kaija Saariaho.

Richard is an adjunct faculty member in the Music Theory, Ear Training, and Keyboard Skills department at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. He has previously held adjunct positions in Music Theory & Composition division at the University of Maryland, College Park and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a doctoral candidate at the Peabody Institute, from which he also holds degrees in composition (M.M.) and theory pedagogy (M.M.). He includes among his mentors Michael Hersch, Felipe Lara, Ildar Khannanov, Jenine Brown, Kip Wile, Severine Neff, Evan Feldman, and Stephen R. Anderson.