Born in 1951, Richard Derby received his Ph.D. degree in music composition from the University of California Santa Barbara in 1978, studying with Peter Racine Fricker. In 1977-78 he studied with Justin Connolly at the Royal College of Music in London on a Fulbright Fellowship. He has published an article on “Elliott Carter’s Duo for Violin and Piano” in Perspectives of New Music (Vol. 20 No. 1, 1981-82) and has been considerably influenced by Elliott Carter’s music.
Derby has composed a number of orchestral, chamber, choral, and vocal works. Two early choral pieces ("To Everything There Is a Season" and "Adoramus Te/Resurrexi") have been published by Lawson-Gould Music Publishers. In 1985 his "Chamber Concerto" (1977-79) won the American New Music Consortium composition award. Three recent compositions - "Soliloquy for Solo Horn" (1993), "Duo for Horn and Piano" (1993-95), and "Quintet for Flute, Strings, and Piano" (1997) have been recorded by Southwest Chamber Music (swmusic.org) in their Composer Portrait Series on Cambria Master Recordings (cambriamus.com). Recent works include "The Piercing Chord" (seven poems of Wallace Stevens for soprano and piano, 1999), "Symphony No. 3" (2000-2001), and "String Quartet No. 2" (2002-2003). A concerto for orchestra is currently in progress.
Rather than teach at a university, Derby earns his living as a computer network administrator and composes music on evenings and weekends.