Richard Zarou: Freedom and the Composer

Richard Zarou, faculty member of Bard High School Early College in Baltimore, is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. His education includes Doctoral and Master’s degrees in composition from Florida State University and a Bachelor’s degree in composition from Shenandoah University. His primary composition teachers include Mark Wingate, Ladislav Kubik, Clifton Callender, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, William Averitt & Thomas Albert. He has also participated in masterclasses and lessons and with Chen Yi, Michael Torke, Martin Bresnick, Christopher Theofanidis, Robert Morris, Andrew Rindfleisch & Paul Richards.
Zarou has written over forty-five compositions including instrumental and vocal chamber music, works for large ensemble, and multi-channel studio pieces. His works have been performed at festivals such as Electronic Music Midwest, The Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference, The Imagine2 Electro-Acoustic Festival, The College Music Society National Conference and international in the Czech Republic and at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in the United Kingdom. His awards include the New Music @ East Carolina University Competition in 2002 for Fragile Wraths and again in 2003 for Upon a Child. A lullaby for women’s chorus, Upon a Child has been performed frequently since its premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC in 2002. In 2005, The Smell of Wet Dogs After a Summertime Rain, for bass trombone and CD, was commissioned by Aaron Misenheimer who performed the composition at thirteen universities and recorded the piece as the title work for a commercial CD. Zarou has also composed the music for 12 films including the feature-length documentary Breaking the Silence: Torture Survivors Speak Out.
This video was filmed live at the Alpine Fellowship 2022 Symposium in partnership with Bard College through the Open Society University Network and supported in part by a grant from the Open Society Foundations.