Richard Sears is an American pianist and composer based in Paris whose work spans jazz, experimental, and contemporary music. He has performed with the Billy Hart Quartet (featuring Mark Turner and Ben Street), the Muhal Richard Abrams Orchestra, Ravi Coltrane, Ralph Alessi, Eric Revis, Andrew Cyrille, Joshua Redman, and others. Recently, he has also collaborated with a number of artists whose work blurs genre boundaries, including, Sam Wilkes, Ganavya, and Shahzad Ismaily.

In 2018, The Shed (New York) commissioned Sears to compose Should I Lose You, a concerto for improvised piano and electronic score created with composer and sound artist Ethan Braun. The piece premiered in 2019 as part of The Shed’s inaugural Open Call program, with video by Clara Cullen and stage design by Yael Ginosaur.

Sears’s 2016 release Altadena, featuring the late Albert “Tootie” Heath, was noted by DownBeat for its “strong melodic content and forays in freeform improvisation,” and by AllAboutJazz for its “fertile ideas and splendid performances.” Commissioned by the Los Angeles Jazz Society and supported by the Aaron Copland Recording Fund, the album documents a long musical relationship between Sears and Heath.

In 2020, Sears released Disquiet, a set of vignettes and improvisations for the Una Corda, a single-string piano designed by David Klavins and Nils Frahm. Produced by Shahzad Ismaily, the recording features bassist Masa Kamaguchi and drummer RJ Miller. Le Figaro described it as “six oxymores gorgés d’inquiétude et de torpeur, de noirceur et de lumière,” observing that “il y a du Monk dans les suites d’accords de Richard Sears,” and called Sears “un musicien singulier.”

After relocating from Brooklyn to Paris in 2021, Sears was awarded a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, later receiving support from the American Composers Forum and joining the POUSH art center as a resident artist.

Sears’s most recent album, Appear to Fade (Figureight Records, 2023), is a collection of solo piano works and improvisations developed in collaboration with producer Ari Chersky. Using tape loops and analog production tools, the two worked from extended piano sessions—on both acoustic piano and Una Corda—reshaping them into layered, textural pieces that move between structure and erosion. The Guardian described the record as one in which “limpid, meditative piano improvisations are digitally reworked through tape loops and electronic effects,” producing a sound “like a vintage recording of Keith Jarrett or Harold Budd decaying on analogue tape.” PopMatters called Appear to Fade “[Sears’s] most satisfying, compelling release to date,” noting that “piano and tape loops provide the basis … edited down by Sears and Chersky using magnetic tape loops and analog production tools.”

Sears has also composed music for film, working primarily under the name Faux Amis, his duo with Noé Boon. Together, they have created original scores for filmmaker and actress Judith Goodrich, including Moi Aussi (Cannes, Un Certain Regard) and Icon of French Cinema (Arte/A24)

Across his projects, Sears continues to explore the space between composition and improvisation, acoustic and electronic sound, structure and chance. His work often centers on the piano as both an expressive instrument and a site for sonic experimentation.