Jacob Richman

My creative work focuses on unique performance settings and mixtures of composition for live performers, media arts, and site-specific installations. I feel that exploring relationships between sounds, images, live performers, space, and movement is an effective way to both investigate and convey greater connections that surround us. My recent work also explores the practice of "roving performances"—those in which the audience moves to experience the piece. I am interested in how movement through a performance setting can help express complex topics such as personal and collective loss, and expose the hidden linkages between things.

I have a dedicated community art practice and believe in the ability of art and music to create community. I am co-director of Tenderloin Opera Company, a homeless advocacy music and theater group in Providence, RI, and am continuing homeless advocacy and labor rights organizing incorporating communal art and music making.

I have played double bass and trombone since my youth, and graduated with a joint BA in music composition and film/video production from Harvard University. I received an MA in Media Arts from the University of Michigan and a PhD in Music and Multimedia production from the MEME program at Brown University in 2013.  I have studied music composition, film/video production, and media arts with Bernard Rands, Kurt Stallmann, Robb Moss, Ross McElwee, Hal Hartley, Ed Osborn, and Steven Subotnick.  My work has been performed and screened at an eclectic array of venues in Rhode Island, NYC, Boston, Los Angeles, and all around the country. I have presented papers on multimedia performance techniques and audience reception at conferences in Boston and Virginia and have had articles on performance practice published at Howlround and New Music USA.  

I have taught at the University of Michigan's School of Art and Design, Brown University, Bryant University, University of Rhode Island, Portland State University, and have been a teaching artist at Providence CityArts! for Youth. I am currently an adjunct faculty member in the Multimedia Program at Portland Community College. I love teaching and have been awed by the opportunity I have had to learn from my many talented students. I live with my partner, composer Kirsten Volness, dog Tito, and cat Juniper in Portland, OR.

Access my CV HERE.