Ricardo Acosta

Ricardo Acosta, pianist, conductor, and composer, is praised for his extraordinary sensitivity, his unique musical voice, and his versatility. Born in Mexico and now based in Bern, Acosta looks back on a distinguished career marked by numerous national and international awards and scholarships.

Acosta’s diverse projects have taken him around the globe: he has performed in the United States, the Czech Republic, Thailand, Russia, France, and Switzerland. He distinguishes himself both as a soloist and as a chamber musician and has collaborated with renowned orchestras such as the State Symphony Orchestra of Moscow, the Bern Sinfonietta, the Proton Ensemble, Musica Nova, and the Eastman Philharmonia. His repertoire includes collaborations with distinguished conductors such as Brad Lubman, Neil Varon, Dmitri Orlov, and Patrick Jüdt.

A constant innovator, Acosta is dedicated to reviving historical performance practices while simultaneously exploring new musical frontiers. His programs often feature his own improvisations and cadenzas in performances of concertos by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven. He curates eclectic concerts in which he combines forgotten works of past masters with contemporary compositions by Latin American, European, and American composers, creating vivid and engaging experiences for his audiences.

In 2016, Acosta completed his studies in piano and composition at the prestigious Eastman School of Music, where he studied with the renowned pedagogue and Van Cliburn Competition laureate Barry Snyder, as well as with the composers Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez. In the same year, he received the Swiss Excellence in Arts Scholarship to pursue a Master’s degree at the Bern University of the Arts, where he studied piano with Professor Tomasz Herbut and orchestral conducting with Florian Ziemen.

Since 2020, Acosta has been a piano instructor at the Bern Conservatory of Music and a répétiteur in the orchestral conducting class of Florian Ziemen. He is the musical director of Workshopera Bern, with which he has been involved in productions such as Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte, as well as Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto.