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Biography
Saxophone Quartet, The NakedEye Ensemble, pianists Marilyn Nonken, Kathleen Supové and Ju-Ping Song, Network for New Music, The Serafin and The Amernet String Quartets, saxophonist Brian Sacawa, the Avian Orchestra, the AUROS Group for New Music and numerous others as well as having his music heard in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, the DiMenna Center and Philadelphia’s Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. His music has been included on the URUK contemporary music series in Västerås, Sweden, Spectrum NYC, Boston’s COAXIAL festival for Electro-Acoustic Music & the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. He has also received grants and awards from The Meet the Composer Foundation, ASCAP/SEAMUS, The American Composers Forum, The Philadelphia Cultural Alliance & New Sounds Music Inc.

Belcastro studied music composition at the University of California in Davis, Brandeis University and the University of Pennsylvania under composers Ross Bauer, Eric Chasalow, Andrew Frank, Maria Niederberger, Pablo Ortiz, Haim Permont, David Rakowski, Jay Reise and Anna Weisner.

As a sitarist, Belcastro is pursuing unorthodox means of utilizing the instrument in a vareity of musical contexts for which the sitar is not typically considered to be suited. Belcastro is currently working on a textbook outlining the issues of the instrument and its notation for composers and performers from eastern adn western backgrounds alike. The text includes a collection of solo works for sitar titled "Tattered Ragas". Belcastro has also composed works pairing sitar with chamber ensemble for The NakedEye Ensemble, The Amernet String Quartet, Ensemble 54 and Melomanie.

In addition to his work as a composer he is also the Artistic Director of the DCCC Performing Arts Concert Series (www.dccc.edu/performingArts) where he is focused on bringing the most talented and entertaining performers from around the world to the eyes and ears of the Philadelphia area community in unique musical productions and collaborative projects between a variety of arts and media. He formerly held positions as Assistant Director of Education and Community Partnerships for the Philadelphia Orchestra and Executive Director of the Chamber Music NOW! Annual Concert Series in Philadelphia.  He also serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Delaware County Community College in Media, PA and is a board member for the NakedEye Ensemble.  His work serves to better connect diverse artistic communities and most importantly to excite and revitalize the classical music audience in and outside of Philadelphia.

Richard Belcastro (b. 1976) is an active composer and musical activist in the Philadelphia area. His music has been called "an eclectic blend of melodic and rhythmic elements of Jazz and Rock and Roll with a uniquely contemporary harmonic vocabulary" - The NY Concert Review. His music is composed for a variety of instrumental combinations ranging from the very traditional to the distinctly odd as well as ventures into electro-acoustic music and purely electronic explorations.

Belcastro has enjoyed commissions and performances from the PRISM