Clarinetist Richard Faria pursues an active career as soloist, chamber musician, and educator. He has been a participant in numerous festivals such as the Bennington Chamber Music Conference, Bard Music Festival of the Hamptons, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Skaneateles Festival, Garth Newel Music Festival, and Klasik Keyifler in Cappadocia, Turkey. His chamber music experience includes collaborations with such diverse groups as the Zephyros and Sylvan Wind Quintets, Atlantic, Tetraktys, and Arianna String Quartets, Composers Concordance, Guild Trio, Mother Mallard, and the Young Composer’s Collective in Seattle. He has performed in Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, The Kitchen, Miller Theater, Spivey Hall, the Smithsonian Institution, as well as at the American Academies in Rome and Berlin, Netherlands' De Lakenhal, and the Temple of Apollo in Turkey.
As a founding member of the new music group Ensemble X, he recorded chamber music by Steven Stucky (In Shadow, In Light) and by Scottish composer Judith Weir (The Consolations of Scholarship), which Gramophone magazine praised as “powerful, streetwise, colourful.” The inaugural season featured Richard as soloist in John Adams clarinet concerto Gnarly Buttons. Other notable performances have been of Thomas Adès Catch, Op. 4 and Life Story, Op. 8, Magnus Lindberg Steamboat Bill, Jr. and American premieres of Anders Hillborg Tampere Raw and Matthias Ronnefeld Sextett, Op. 2.
A fervent advocate of new music, Richard has premiered works written for him by composers such as Roberto Sierra, Steven Burke, Perry Goldstein, Joshua Kohl, James Matheson, David Borden, Yotam Haber, Diego Vega, Sean Shepherd, Josh Oxford, and John Fitz Rodgers. He gave the west coast premiere of the Sierra Clarinet Sonata dedicated to him at ClarinetFest 2007 in Vancouver, BC, as well as a premiere of the winning work of the International Clarinet Associations’ Composition Competition at ClarinetFest 2010 in Austin, TX. He has been invited to present at conferences such as NYSSMA, NACWPI and the Midwest Clinic.
He also appears on Roberto Sierra: Clarinet Works (“a superb recording that belongs on every clarinetist’s shelf.” - American Record Guide), and the premiere recording of Stephen Hartke's The Horse with the Lavender Eye (Faria…stands out in his supreme command of his instrument, his clear identification with the projection of disjunct lines, and his sheer control." - Fanfare Magazine).
Richard studied at Ithaca College, Michigan State University, SUNY Stony Brook, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra and the Stockhausen Courses, Kürten. His teachers have included Michael Galván, Joaquin Valdepeñas, John McCaw, Georgina Dobrée, Dr. Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr and Charles Neidich.