Born in Bern, Richard studied singing, music theory and music composition first at the Conservatoire de musique de Genève and later at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg with Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough.
[1] This was followed by studies in live electronic music with Hans Peter Haller at the Experimentalstudio des SWR [de] Freiburg and at IRCAM[2] in Paris.
In 1983, on the occasion of a performance of Luigi Nono's work The Breathing Clarity, he founded, together with Arturo Tamayo, the Freiburg Soloists' Choir, of which he has been the director since 1984.
[3] He made his conducting debut at the Warsaw Autumn in 1988 with the Polish premiere of Nono's Diario Polacco no 2, Quando stanno morendo.
[4] With his studio, he has appeared internationally in numerous realisations of new works with integrated live-electronic means as interpreter and conductor.