Richy Glasgow

In 1990 Richy was approached to run 6 Brazilian percussion workshops for the Artrage project “Bizircus’ which resulted in the founding of ‘Sambanistas’, currently Perth’s longest standing bateria, and second oldest in Australia after Melsamba.

The intervening years have seen Richy involved with running workshops and festival projects across Australia, New Zealand , and the UK , resulting in the initiation of several community percussion groups and the widespread use of his workshop techniques.

Richy studied with Carlos Ferriera and Ray Pereira in Australia, and Dudu Tucci and Inner Sense in the UK, before gaining an Australia Council Fellowship to - ‘study Samba and the street cultures surrounding Samba Schools in the two distinct styles of Salvador and Rio de Janeiro.’

More specifically Richy looked to rehearse in the semi formal Blocos de Carnaval and Escolas de Samba(Samba schools) and research organisational and management structures involved in rehearsing and staging an Escola De Samba performance with several thousand participants.

This was followed by examining and comparing structure, facilitation and management of community percussion on a local regional and national level in the UK as a possible development model for Australia.

Whilst in Rio Richy rehearsed with the Estacio, Viradouro and Porto da Pedra Escolas and performed in Carnaval with Monobloco and Bambas do Catete

In 1995 he was commissioned to compose a piece to open the Perth International Arts Festival and then create and direct a 500 strong percussion ensemble to play it.

More recently Richy visited the Jambalaya Festival in New Zealand to scope the opportunities of setting up a regional body to network and co-ordinate Samba activity in the Australasian region.

Richy is currently working to incorporate all this knowledge and experience into the structure of Beleza.