Caleb Richards is a composer, lyric baritone, ethnomusicologist, and multi-instrumentalist. His compositions cover many genres, namely choral, chamber and electroacoustic, all of which demonstrating his unique research-based and ethnomusicological approach to composition, with many of his compositions incorporating elements of non-western musical styles. Other stylistic interests of his include spectralism, serialism and modality.
Caleb is currently studying for a Bachelor of Arts in Music at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he is building up both an ensemble and solo vocal career; he is a bass in the Chapel Choir of Queens’ College, Cambridge, was a member St John’s Voices from 2023-2024, and in 2024 became a founding member of the Cambridge University Schola Cantorum, with whom he is the 2025-2026 holder of the Andrew Macintosh Memorial Choral Scholarship. Caleb is also a bass choral scholar in the choir of the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs in Cambridge, the centre of East Anglia’s largest Catholic parish. Caleb is a prolific recitalist and choral soloist, frequently making solo appearances with vocal ensembles throughout East Anglia. With a particular interest in the art song of the British Isles, Caleb is passionate about vocal art music that represents folk music, heritage, and culture, in keeping with his background in British and Irish folk music and dance traditions. His choral solo repertoire includes Durufle’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, Dvorak’s Mass in D and S. S. Wesley’s The Wilderness; his recital repertoire includes Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad, Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel, Britten’s Folksong Arrangements and Weir’s Songs from the Exotic.
Caleb’s work in ethnomusicology is largely focused on the music of the Indian Subcontinent, music and auralities of the Islamic world, and the folk music of Britain and Ireland. For the past four years he has been studying the sitar and Hindustani classical music under the tuition of Sheema Mukherjee of the Imagined Village and Transglobal Underground. As well as the sitar, Caleb plays the guitar and the mandolin; as an instrumentalist, Caleb has performed in a diverse range of musical settings, including folk/traditional arts festivals (Shrewsbury Folk Festival, 2022; Festival at the Edge, 2024) and several appearances on the radio (BBC Radio Shropshire; BBC Introducing).
