BAND DETAIL: Richmond Punch

YouTube Video - Beyonce on the Violin Paris Style

For special events including weddings, galas and other events in Dallas and beyond. Featured at Belo Mansion events for the last 3 years. Recent performances included a Big Brothers and Big Sisters/Philantrophy World Magazine event at Mansion on Turtle Creek and a Grand Opening of a Hilton Rockwall.  Performs solo violin or has a string quartet or also a Jazz Band. A graduate of   Dallas ISD, Juilliard and Yale University where he received my Masters. One of the most high impact instrumentalists today.

Richmond Punch is a graduate of Yale University School of Music with a Master of Music degree in Viola in 2005 and Bachelor of Music degree from Juilliard in May 2003. He was the 2004-2005 recipient of the Moses Scholarship at Yale University and was the 2002-2003 recipient of the Juilliard Scholarship and the Dallas Juilliard Scholarship at The Juilliard School. At Yale, he served as Principal of Yale Philharmonia and studied viola with Jesse Levine. Richmond has performed with artists such as pianist and composer Marvin Hamlisch. He has been the recipient of many awards and honors such as a Congressional Black Caucus Performing Arts Scholarship, a Downbeat award in Chamber Music, honorary member of the National Honors Society, and a Governors Scholarship for Interlochen. With the help of scholarships and private benefactors, he has attended numerous festivals, such as Strings International Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Interlochen Arts Camp, and the Manchester Music Festival. He has been a member of the Aspen Festival Orchestra and the Aspen Chamber Symphony. He has been Assistant Principal of both the Sinfonia Orchestra of the Aspen Music Festival and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, with which he toured France, England and Scotland.

Richmond has won top prize at two competitions: the Dallas Independent School District and the Carrolton / Metrocrest Chamber Symphony and performed, respectively, Concerto in B minor by Handel and Theme and Variations by Alan Shulman with orchestra. He has performed extensively on the New York Circuit as a free-lancer and traveled to the Kennedy Center where he performed with the "Queens Ensemble" in Concert for the Divas, sponsored by Arts and Letters, Inc. This concert featured black female vocalists Harolyn Blackwell, Oleta Adams, the Clark Sisters and Melba Moore, with host Cecily Tyson. Richmond has participated in the masterclasses of James Dunham, Kimberly Fisher, Paul Neubauer, Don Wilerstein, the jazz duo Regina Carter and Kenny Barron, and Tokyo String Quartet. He has performed at Carnegie Hall with the Juilliard Orchestra, Sir Roger Norrington conducting, at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia with Strings International, with the Yale Philharmonia and St. Petersburg Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in a concert celebrating the music of Aram Khachaturian, and he performed Compositions by Darin Atwell with Soulful Symphony at the Myerhoff Hall in Baltimore. More recently Richmond performed for an awards ceremony of the National Association of Negro Musicians in In 2004, in Sprague Hall at Yale, he premiered a Ciaconna from a Song Cycle composed by Yale student and composer Martin Sickling for Viola and Sopranist. In 2005, he had his 10th annual Solo Recital in Dallas, and a performance with Donnie McClurkin, Richard Smallwood and others in Virginia Beach, Virginia for the album "Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs", concerts with the New Conservatory of Dallas Chamber Orchestra in Dallas and in New York, was a featured violin soloist with the Williams High School Sinfonia Orchestra in Plano, TX. He also performed "A Christmas Song" for Fox 4 "Insights" show on Christmas Day. 2006 has included performances for Kirk Franklin's 10th Wedding Anniversary, a wedding show at Belo Mansion, and performances for United Way's 2006 Fundraising Campaign. Debutants.

Through the Young Strings Program of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Richmond received gratis lessons from Kay Gardner, Ellen Rose, Mary Alice Wittrig and David Kim. He received additional tutelage from Toby Appel, Masao Kawasaki, Dr. Susan Dubois, Emanuel Vardi, Eudice Shapiro. Mr. Punch aspires to share music with others by teaching as Professor of Music, winning a top position in a major Symphony Orchestra, and becoming an arts administrator aiding artists in pursuits of performance education and dreams. Richmond has taught strings from ages four to adults for the past ten years at institutions such Manchester Music Festival, Strings International, and headed a strings program at New Haven Public Schools "Gear-Up" Summer Program. Currently Richmond teaches privately in Plano ISD, is a teacher, performer, and he performs with the Las Colinas Symphony. In his spare time he enjoys Salsa Dancing and Foreign Films.