103 Presser Hall
Phone: 513/529-8351
Email: averbach@muohio.edu

Ricardo Averbach (D.M.A., University of Michigan, 1995), assistant professor of music, is conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra, Oxford Chamber Orchestra, and annual opera production. Prior to accepting his position at Miami University in 2002, he served as music director of the University of Pennsylvania Symphony Orchestra and Wind Ensemble, as well as the Penn Chamber Music Society. In 1988, he began his professional career as assistant conductor and later Acting Music Director of the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, the largest professional orchestra in Brazil. Averbach has maintained a professional relationship with several leading international orchestras and organizations in Europe, South America, and Asia. His commitment to contemporary music is reflected programming and on his recordings, which have sold more than 500,000 copies.

Born in Brazil, Averbach completed a degree in Industrial Engineering before receiving a degree in Orchestra, Opera and Choir Conducting at the Bulgaria National Academy of Music in 1988. He worked with Sergiu Celibidache at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival in Germany and with Gennady Rozdestvensky at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Italy, where he received the Diploma di Merito. In 1992 he received the Maurice Abravanel Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Festival and in 1995 a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Orchestra Conducting from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.