Wendy Richman

Violist Wendy Richman is celebrated for her compelling sound and “absorbing,” “fresh and idiomatic” interpretations with “a brawny vitality” (The New York Times, The Washington Post). As soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player, she has performed at major venues across the U.S. and around the world. She is a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Wendy collaborates with a wide range of composers and has commissioned a body of work for singing violist, releasing her vox/viola album on New Focus Recordings in 2020. She has mentored hundreds of student composers and regularly offers classes on viola repertoire and technique, lectures on notation, and workshops on contemporary string techniques. Dr. Richman serves as Lecturer in Performance Studies and Director of uclaFLUX Contemporary Ensemble at UCLA, and Lecturer of Viola at Cal State Northridge (CSUN). In Los Angeles, she frequently performs with Los Angeles Philharmonic, Tesserae Baroque, and ECHOI/Monday Evening Concerts.

Wendy holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory (BM), New England Conservatory (MM), and Eastman School of Music (DMA, Ethnomusicology Diploma). Her teachers include Carol Rodland, Kim Kashkashian, Jeffrey Irvine, Peter Slowik, and Sara Harmelink; she also counts Karen Ritscher and Roger Tapping as primary mentors. Wendy’s academic interests address musicians’ communities, studying composer-performer relationships and gender-based discrimination. Her compositions link her love of unconventional string sounds with reflections on nature and invisible disability.

In the 2026-2027 school year, Wendy is curating a series called Modal Interchange: Conversations on 21st-Century Performance Practices, welcoming celebrated members of Los Angeles’s diverse contemporary music communities to present and lead lecture-workshops for the UCLA music community.