Richard Festinger (born 1 March 1948) is an American composer of contemporary classical music, pianist and educator. Festinger was born in Newton, Massachusetts. He received his B.A. in Music, Magna Cum Laude, from San Francisco State University, and his Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of California, Berkeley. He was the founding director of Earplay, a new chamber music ensemble based in the Bay Area. He has been a resident artist at the MacDowell Colony, Camargo Foundation, Cité Internationale des Arts, Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Study Center, the Ligurian Study Center in Bogliasco, Italy, Fundación Valparaíso, Mojácar, Almeria, Spain, Ucross Foundation Centre International d’Accueil et d’Échanges des Récollets, the