Charlie Richard is a Professor of Music at Riverside City College, where he directs the college’s award-winning jazz program and teaches saxophone. During his tenure, he has also served as Department Chair and Interim Dean of Fine and Performing Arts. A Riverside native, Richard graduated from Ramona High School before attending Riverside City College, where he earned his Associate of Arts degree. He then completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at California State University, Los Angeles, and later pursued advanced study in jazz composition and saxophone at the University of Texas at Austin. He joined the RCC faculty in 1990. Under Richard’s leadership, the RCC Jazz Ensembles have garnered extensive recognition, earning top honors at the Reno and Fullerton Jazz Festivals and multiple awards from the DownBeat Magazine Student Music Awards. As a graduate student at the University of Texas, he received the DownBeat award for Best Extended Original Jazz Composition. His album The Hawk’s Out, featuring his own compositions and arrangements, was named “Outstanding Big Band Recording of the Year” by New York’s Cadence Magazine in 1998, and a subsequent album by the Hawk-Richard Jazz Orchestra received enthusiastic critical acclaim. His works have been performed widely by a variety of ensembles, including a commissioned piece for the Dallas Wind Symphony. Richard has also been a longtime faculty member at the Idyllwild Arts Summer Jazz Camp and previously served as President of the California Unit of the International Association for Jazz Education. In 2018, he recorded more than one hundred instructional saxophone videos for the Musician’s Toolkit, and in 2019 he was honored as Riverside City College’s Alumnus of the Year. Richard’s performance career includes work with ensembles such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Saxophone Quartet, Orion Saxophone Quartet (of which he is a founding member), Long Beach Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, Redlands Symphony Orchestra, and Mark Masters Jazz Composers Orchestra. He has also performed with artists including Lou Rawls, The Temptations, The Four Tops, the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Legends of Swing, and Doris Day.