British choir director, countertenor and composer Richard Wilberforce trained at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music, where he graduated in choral conducting and opera singing. He conducted the Hallé Youth Choir for five years in collaboration with conductor Sir Mark Elder. In 2018, he was appointed conductor of the Cambridge University Symphony Chorus. Since 2017, after being appointed professor at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris, he has conducted the Jeune Chœur de Paris and the Ensemble vocal de la Maîtrise de Paris. Richard Wilberforce was artistic director of the professional choir English Voices for five years. He has also worked with the London Philharmonic Choir and the BBC Symphony Chorus and is regularly invited to work with various French ensembles, including Accentus, Ensemble Pygmalion, the Radio France Choir, Les Métaboles and the Lyon Opera Choir. He has prepared choirs for Klaus Mäkelä, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Laurence Equilbey, Sir Simon Rattle and Kent Nagano. Richard Wilberforce will take up his position as choir director of Le Concert d'Astrée in 2023, alongside Emmanuelle Haïm. He has also worked with artists such as Natalie Dessay, Yaël Naim, Jeanne Added, Rufus Wainwright and Oliver Beer, and collaborates regularly with Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitaï.

Richard Wilberforce's career as a countertenor has taken him to some of Europe's finest opera houses, including the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck, the Théâtre du Capitole and the Grand Théâtre de Provence. He performed for 10 years with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir.

Richard Wilberforce's compositions are published by Boosey & Hawkes.