Born in Stirling, Kenneth Richardson read French, Russian and Music at St Andrews University. He began his career in the casting department of Scottish Opera, becoming Company Manager of The Royal Opera in 1987 and was then appointed General Manager in 1989. He was jointly responsible for the founding of The Royal Opera’s Garden Venture in 1988, which commissioned 13 chamber operas from emerging composers and librettists.
From 1989-91, he combined his role at Covent Garden with that of Artistic Director of Dublin Grand Opera. Following a short spell as Arts Director of the Barbican Centre in 1994, Richardson worked as a consultant for a number of organisations, including BBC Radio 3, for which he masterminded the year-long Fairest Isle retrospective of little-known British opera, Britannia at the Opera, and directed the UK premiere of Gavin Bryars’ Medea at Glasgow’s Tramway Theatre.
He was Director of the world-renowned Covent Garden Festival of Opera and Music Theatre from 1996-2001. At CGF he increased the scope and scale of the festival from 10 days to 3 weeks presenting over 100 performances annually in 20 different venues.
In 2001 he directed Tan Dun’s Orchestral Theatre: IV The Gate for the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London and Luxembourg and formed a close association with the Chicago Humanities Festival where he has directed Around the World with Cole Porter, Noël & Cole, Oh, Mr Mercer!, and Puttin’ On the Ritz. He was the 2002 Arts Director of the Chicago Humanities Festival where he directed It Might As Well Be Swing! and Noël & Alfred & Lynn.
Other directing credits include Carousel, The Second Mrs Kong and Death in Venice at the Royal Festival Hall; Oklahoma! for the BBC Proms and BBC2; the world première staging of A Ceremony of Carols/Winter Words for Streetwise Opera at New College, Oxford; Eight Songs for a Mad King, The Knot Garden, The Adventures of Mr Brouček, the UK premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s opera Adriana Mater, and The Bartered Bride, Dvořák’s The Jacobin, Ravel’s L’heure espagnole, Albert Herring and Les mamelles de Tirésias (Poulenc) all for the BBC Symphony Orchestra at London’s Barbican Centre and The Midsummer Marriage at the 2013 BBC Proms; Amadigi for the Early Opera Company at the Iford Festival. In March 2009 he directed the French version of Martinů’s opera, Juliette, at the Barbican which was awarded the 2009 Royal Philharmonic Opera Award, citing its “revelatory concert staging”. Future projects include Wozzeck and Dalibor (Smetana).
He was Associate Director of the Greenwich Theatre 2002-2005 where he established the Musical Voices Festival and for which he created When a Merry Maiden Marries; Director of the 2008 Temple Festival, a year-long celebration of the 400th anniversary of the granting of the Temple’s Royal Charter; and the 2009 Executive Producer of Temple Music. He is currently Artistic Director of the Creative Oundle.
Broadcasting credits include script writing for a number of BBC Radio 3 productions including The Starlight Express and He who gets slapped. He is also a translator and creates and designs websites. He is a trustee of The Orgelbüchlein Project.