Tim Ribchester

master vocal coach

Acclaimed for his “passionate commitment to the composer and score...” “elegant sense of shape...” “perfected technique [and] a personal aesthetic vision,” Tim Ribchester is expanding an international presence as an inspiring, versatile musical leader, particularly in the fields of baroque interpretation and composer collaboration.

Engaged pre-pandemic as recitative and continuo harpsichordist under Sir Simon Rattle at the Staatsoper Berlin, Ribchester returns in July 2021 to the Trentino Music Festival, Italy for his sixth season as the festival’s resident baroque conductor, where he has led fully staged productions of Rinaldo, Alcina, L’incoronazione di Poppea, and Dido and Aeneas in collaboration with stage directors David Gately and Greg Eldridge. His forthcoming performing edition of L’incoronazione di Poppea will have its world premiere at this year’s festival. In addition he will serve as the principal coach for Cape Town Opera’s June 2021 production of Les pêcheurs de perles. In Boston he has directed the music of composers Joseph Summer and Mary Bichner on operatic and chamber music premieres and recordings for Albany Records and Navona Records, including collaboration with the Ulysses Quartet. Recent engagements include debuts with the Bacau Philharmonic in Romania and the Vidin Sinfonietta in Bulgaria, Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Gidon Saks’ staging for the Delphi Stummfilmkino Berlin, cover conducting Das Rheingold and Eugene Onegin at North Carolina Opera, and an ongoing residency as Coach/Conductor in Residence at Cape Town Opera, where last season he led the Young Artist Program tour of Germany and directed a subscription concert of Handel’s Italian vocal duets. In previous seasons, Ribchester has led rehearsals of the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin, Baltimore and Boulder Chamber Orchestras, the Academy of Vocal Arts Chorus, and Opera Philadelphia Chorus, as well as completing a two season contract as Music Director of Delaware County Symphony (Pennsylvania).

Formerly repetiteur and assistant conductor at the Academy of Vocal Arts and Opera Philadelphia, Ribchester is currently based in Berlin where he appears with Neues Barockorchester Berlin and Opus XX Orchestra as harpsichordist, and with the Berlin Philharmonic’s Children’s Concert program as pianist, as well as maintaining a vocal coaching studio with past clients including Maria Aleida, Emily Birsan, Richard Cox, Joyce El-Khoury, Sara Hershkowitz, Mireille Lebel, and Gidon Saks. His recital collaborators have included Julianne Baird, Ian Bostridge, Paquito D’Rivera, Pedro Giraudo, and Ricardo Morales, and his playing is featured in director Park Chan-Wook's critically acclaimed 2016 feature film The Handmaiden, and in duo with Cassia Harvey on the album The Russian Cello.