Richard Rischar

About Richard

Richard Rischar–he/him–is a music-historian, music director, and singer of pop/R&B, Broadway, and concert music, having taught at the University of Michigan-Dearborn—Assoc. Professor; Dickinson College—Penn., Asst. Professor; Muskegon Community College; The Children's House—Montessori, Traverse City; Traverse City Area Public Schools—guest conductor/instructor; and as freelance artist-instructor at Interlochen Arts Academy for a decade.

Composition-work includes Interlochen Arts Academy’s recent productions of Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle and Lorca's Blood Wedding; and bilingual songs for Albert Porter: Niño Explorador and Leyendo!/Reading! And Other Superpowers—Creede, Colo., produced by Interlochen Arts Academy-faculty-alumna Johamy Morales. Historically-informed performance practice (HIPP), dramaturg, and other consultations include Interlochen Arts Academy’s Molière's Tartuffe and Shaffer’s Amadeus, Ann Arbor Civic Theatre's How I Learned to Drive, and Playmakers Theater—No. Carolina, Shakespeare. Favorite roles as an actor are Tongues by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin—Abreact Theatre, Detroit, Mich.—and Harry Cooper in Mike McGettigan's Detroit musical of Night of the Living Dead.

Richard’s publications include R&B/pop vocal ornamentation—think Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men and white appropriators like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande; a Music Theory Spectrum essay on the symphony orchestra scene, inspired by Christopher Small’s Musicking; and other music history topics, including music by Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Weill, and Gustav Mahler.

During Covid, he directed a play-translation/discussion group about the playwright Molière, resulting in his 2021 translation of Le médecin volant—as Chase-Scene Doctor—as well as coordinating NAMI Grand Traverse's weekly peer-discussion group. Richard and his wife split their time between Interlochen, her hometown of Bombay/Mumbai, and U.S. family in Kansas City.