Bio
Sylvia Rickard, born 1937 in Toronto, Canada, began piano studies at 7 years old, continuing to ARCT level In 1959.
This same year, Rickard received her BA degree in French, Russian, and German, from UBC, Vancouver.
After travelling, and living in France, U.S.A., India and West Germany, Rickard began, after 11 years of “absence” from music, private composition lessons in earnest, with Jean Coulthard. Through this marvelous mentor a jump-start to prize winning, CBC radio broadcasts and performances, by star performers, Rickard’s career in music began. At the Okanagan Composers’ Festival, Rickard began to adjudicate compositions of younger composers.
Piano composition gave way to songs, strings, solo harp, chamber music-both vocal and instrumental-orchestral and choral music, and cabaret songs. In 1999 Taras and Gaelyne Gabora very kindly invited Sylvia Rickard to be the first resident composer of the (Oberlin) in Casalmaggiore International Chamber Music Festival, in Italy. Since that time, her works continue to be played there.
Rickard’s passion for music is parallel with her passion for animal welfare. A vegetarian, she is a crusader for animals and the world’s green and wild spaces. Her 2007 composition is: Song For The Earth, for cello and piano. Lyricism, drama and humour dominate the music of this composer. Her musical output is about half and half: vocal and instrumental. Performances of her music are across Canada, and in the U.S.A., Hungary, Germany, Sweden, Italy, England, Japan, and Belgium.
Favourite performances include Rum Ba-Ba for four violas and double bass, on the Leila Getz, Vancouver International Festival of Music at Crofton House School; Birth, Death and Regeneration - poems by Rilke, by tenor Roger Honeywell and pianist Emily Hamper, and McCaws Cawling by classical guitarist Razvan Bezna, 2023.
Recent concerts include this piece, Answering the Call (2001) for tenor, clarinet and guitar on Bezna’s doctoral recital at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, April 7,2024.
Razvan Bezna, as a doctoral student of Classical Guitar at McGill, in July of 2023, gave a live TV interview: Salut Romanesc din Montréal with Johnny Ciatlos-Deak, covering Classical Guitar pieces of Canadian Women Composers, for his doctoral thesis.
Bezna discussed Sylvia Rickard’s Leprechaun Suite for Solo Guitar, MacCaws Calling and Answering The Call.
Rickard’s affiliations are: associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre (voting member of B.C. region), League of Composers, SOCAN member, life fellow of the Cambridge International Biographical Society.