Richard began his study of music with violin lessons at the age of 8. He pursued a classical course of study through high school, playing in regional youth and community orchestras and the All-Connecticut High School Orchestra. He graduated from Western Connecticut State University with a Bachelor of Music degree in Violin Performance. An invitation to perform with Paul Winter and Mary Travers for a benefit concert in Redding, Connecticut in 1973 introduced him to cellist David Darling and he soon began to explore a more contemporary approach to the violin. He co-formed the group Solstice in 1977, along with guitarist Andy Lafreniere and multi-instrumentalist Guy Dedell, and the group explored free group improvisation and writing and performing original music for a decade. He formed his own jazz-fusion group in 1988 and was featured a year later at the New Haven Jazz Festival. His 1992 independent album release "Alone Amongst Friends" documents the work of that group. In 1998 he released an album on the now-defunct label J-Bird Records which utilized multi-synth MIDI backgrounds to his electric violin on a collection of original tunes. He currently works as a free-lance conductor, teacher and performer with associations to the Norwalk Youth Symphony, the Wooster School, The Gunnery, and the Cheshire Symphony Orchestra, among others.

Loops (No. 1) is part of a series of works Richard originally designed for use in solo electric violin concerts. Each one relies on a digitally reproduced pattern which he lays down and and improvises over. For recording purposes, overdubbed violins were incorporated to achieve more accurate rhythms (in lieu of an echo device). This new version includes a "reverse violin" intro (a portion of an electric violin solo played backward). The original version appeared on J-Bird Records' Spirit for the Millennium which was released to retail stores in 1999. It was also on his 1998 CD Violin Electric on J-Bird.