Copyright 2000 by Carly Gartman

Richard Pittman is well known in the Boston area, having taught at the New England Conservatory and then founded the Boston Musica Viva, of which he has been music director for the past 28 years. He is also the conductor of the Concord Orchestra.

Mr. Pittman has also ventured far beyond the local scene, with a long and impressive list of appearances as guest conductor, both in the United States and abroad. He has conducted the National Symphony, the Virginia Philharmonic, Philadelphia Concerto Soloists, Hartford Chamber Orchestra, and the Chattanooga Symphony, among others, and he has served as cover conductor for the New York Philharmonic. In Europe, he has led the Kirov Opera Orchestra in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Royal Philharmonic in Great Britain, all four BBC Symphony Orchestras, the London Sinfonietta, the Ensemble Modern, and the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam. His festival engagements include Tanglewood as well as Edinburgh, Holland, and Gulbenkian.

With Boston Musica Viva and elsewhere, Mr. Pittman has built a solid reputation as an interpreter of contemporary music, both instrumental and operatic. He has conducted numerous world premiere opera productions at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Lincoln Center in New York, the American Music Theatre Festival in Philadelphia, and the Banff Arts Festival in Canada. Mr. Pittman has also conducted standard as well as modern opera repertoire at the Boston Lyric Opera, the Huntington Theatre Company, the Kentucky Opera, Opera Omaha, and the Tulsa Opera.

Mr. Pittman has made 20 recordings with Boston Musica Viva on the Nonesuch, Newport Classics, Delos, CRI, Albany, Cambridge, and Northeastern labels. His conducting studies were with Laszlo Halasz, Sergiu Celibidache, Perre Boulez, and Wilhelm Brueckner-Rueggeberg in New York, Siena, Basel, and Hamburg.