Riccardo O'Grady

I begun my academic course of studies at the age of 14, when I was admitted in the Jazz Drums Pre-Academic Course at the Conservatory Santa Cecilia of Rome. I remained there for 5 years, and I studied piano and music theory, harmony, and ear training along with drums. After I’ve obtained my Scientific High School Diploma in 2017, I moved to Milan to enroll in the Pop/Rock Drums BMus course of the Conservatory Giuseppe Verdi. There I really started to expand my connections within music, creating relationships with my peers that are still fruitful now that I’m in England. I had the fortune to study with the great italian drummers Maurizio Dei Lazzaretti and Lele Melotti, and I’ve also been given ensemble music tutorials by the renowned producer Simone Bertolotti. On the 21st of June 2021 I’ve been selected to play in one of the Conservatory’s bands opening the concert of Edoardo Bennato, at Castello Sforzesco of Milan during the Festa della Musica event. I graduated in October 2021. I am one of the four recipients of the Hipgnosis Song Award of this academic year at the RNCM, where I started a MMus in September 2021. Since then, I put a lot of work in the making of my upcoming EP. I’ve been looking for new creative ways of developing my music, and I started a band to perform live in Manchester. I am self-producing the EP and released the first single on the 24th of June. It's called Upon a Star and you can listen to it on every streaming platform.