Richard has been creating music and soundscores for Canadian theatre, dance and film since 1992. Companies include Buddies In Bad Times (Arigato, Tokyo; Silicone Diaries; Steel Kiss/Gulag; Live With It; Bathory); Canadian Stage (Public Enemy; Every Brilliant Thing; The Other Place; Belleville; THIS; The Test; Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet; The Soldier Dreams); Coal Mine Theatre (The Father; The Nether); Crow’s Theatre (Seeds; Eternal Hydra; Dali); da da kamera (Cul-de-Sac; In On It; You Are Here; Monster; Here Lies Henry); Dancemakers (The Satie Project); Mirvish Productions (Terminus; My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding); Necessary Angel (This Is What Happens Next; Half-Life; Insomnia; The Eco Show); Outside The March (The Flick; Dr. Silver; Jerusalem; Terminus); The Shaw Festival (Lady Windermere's Fan; When The Rain Stops Falling); Soulpepper (Sizwe Bansi Is Dead; Betrayal; Animal Farm; CAGE; Angels In America; A Raisin in the Sun; The Chairs; Uncle Vanya; Endgame); Stratford Festival (Hamlet; An Ideal Husband; Hay Fever); Tarragon Theatre (Russell Hill; The Good Life; Faust); Theatrefront (Tribes; The Mill [parts 1-4]); Theatre Passe Muraille (Life, Death and the Blues; Possible Worlds; This Hotel); 2B Theatre (Revisited); and VideoCabaret (The Cold War; Confederation & Riel). Richard has won seven Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the 1999 Pauline McGibbon Award, was one of the original Harold recipients in 1995, and was the first sound designer ever shortlisted for the Siminovitch Prize, in 2012.
His film work includes feature films by Daniel MacIvor (Past Perfect), Robert Lepage (Possible Worlds), Valerie Buhagiar (The Anniversary), Hrant Alianak (A Trip To The Island; Burning, Burning), as well as numerous short films and videos. He has also crafted music for several websites, flash animations, industrial videos, and a new score for the classic silent horror film Nosferatu.
Richard began his musical training as a child, learning classical violin and music theory. As an adolescent, while playing in a youth orchestra, he also began to experiment with tape recording, and was fascinated by synthesizers and the early electronic equipment of the pre-digital 1970s. At the age of 14, he became involved with a local college radio station (CFRU-FM in Guelph) and learned about mixing, tape editing, and recording studios, all while becoming one of the nation’s youngest-ever broadcasters. With influences ranging from Bach to Brian Eno to The Beatles, he soon picked up a multi-track cassette recorder and began composing and producing mountains of new experimental music, assisted by various friends along the way. While he broadened his creative forays into various other media (video art, curating a series of cult movies, speculative fiction writing), music has always been at the forefront. When Richard became involved with the Toronto theatre community, various artists began to commission him to devise music scores, soundscapes and microphone treatments for their productions.
At the same time, he continued to work on his own music, in the mid-1990s focusing on a dark electronic/ambient project with the moniker Crimescene. The first album, Rapture, was released on CD in 1997, and the 2nd, A Warning To The Curious, in 2003, with two more to be released shortly. The following year, he also released Descent Of Ishtar under his own name; it was a suite of middle-eastern-influenced music commissioned by the Arabesque Dance Company for a stunning production that envisioned the Dance of the Seven Veils as a colourful kabbalistic journey for an ensemble of belly dancers. The album is available for purchase on iTunes.
In recent years, Richard has composed a number of feature film scores, co-produced podcasts Fun Palace Radio Variety Show and Climate Change & Other Small Talk, composed an ambient concerto and an album of background music-scapes for Dungeons & Dragons sessions, and co-founded retro goth-pop band The Haunted Palace, while continuing his work as one of Canada’s leading theatrical sound designers. Among his current projects is Plague Sonata, about the ongoing pandemic, scored for full orchestra.
photo by Guntar Kravis
Richard Feren is represented by Catalyst Talent Creative Management.
He is a member of Associated Designers of Canada and IATSE Local ADC659
Download Richard's resume here.
