BIO

Born in Aberdeen, Richard grew up in a small village in Aberdeenshire and found his interest in music during high school, where he first learnt classical piano and then for his third year took up playing drum kit.

It wasn’t until university that Richard began to take an interest in Jazz. Whilst studying Classical music at Aberdeen University, Richard joined the student big band. Through playing alongside other jazz musicians, Richard learnt the fundamentals of jazz and in his third year began lessons with Alyn Cosker, where he had up to that point been studying classical percussion with Lisa Nicol and playing jazz in his spare time. Richard changed his degree in third year to Music Education and won both third and fourth year performance and education prizes in 2018 and 2019 respectively, becoming the first jazz drummer in Aberdeen University to do so, where he then left Aberdeen University with a First-Class Honours. Richard then attended the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2019, where he completed a Masters in Jazz.

Richard has played with several bands including the Aberdeen Jazz Orchestra, the Aberdeen University Jazz Orchestra, The Houlies (Ceilidh band), Hamlet (fusion jazz band) and also runs his own quartet, who have played to sold out crowds at the Blue Lamp and the Jazz Bar as part of the Edinburgh Jazz Festival. Richard received the George Duncan Prize for Jazz Composition at the RCS for music on his debut album Eclipse, and is now soon looking to release new music.

He has also played in the pit for many amateur theatre companies.

Richard is now based in Aberdeen where he is now a fully qualified teacher working in schools and teaching students at Aberdeen University and still gigs around Scotland.