I’m Richard, and I am working to strengthen civic health and community agency in my home state of Kentucky. I am the Founder & Executive Director of CivicLex, which has been nationally-recognized as a solution for strengthening American democracy. I am also involved with several other projects here in Kentucky, a place that I deeply love. You can learn more about that below.
I founded and currently lead CivicLex. We’re a place-based civic health organization working on civic education, local news, public realm improvement, convening & bridging, and collaborative governance in Lexington, Kentucky. We have been recognized by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Library of Congress as a national best practice for building civic media to strengthen American Democracy. We are a winner of American Public Media’s Next Challenge for Media & Journalism.
I also founded and run a pop-up jazz club in Lexington called Origins Jazz Series. We have presented countless shows in Lexington, including over a dozen Grammy-winning artists.
I am a founding Steering Committee member of the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange (RUX), the preeminent framework in the United States for bringing together rural and urban communities to understand their interdependence. I co-authored a set of Case Studies about RUX for the National Endowment for the Arts and helped lead an adaptation effort of the model in Minnesota.
I am an owner and steward of the Grayson Springs Inn, in Grayson County, Kentucky, where we are working to rehabilitate 100+ acres of natural woodlands, springs, and an historic inn.
I am a graduate of the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, and am a Double Bass Teaching Artist. I teach at Central Music Academy and out of my own studio. If you want to take lessons, you can learn more here.
I was the co-founder and Executive Director of the first place-based Community Development Corporation in Lexington, the North Limestone CDC. There, I developed affordable housing, remediated stormwater challenges, spurred economic development, and more. Shortly before I left the organization, I wrote and published the North Limestone Cultural Plan, a long-range document designed to force more equitable community development practices in the neighborhood that I am very proud of.
I co-founded Lexington’s first El Sistema inspired music program, called MusicWorks. El Sistema is a social action music program that was founded in Venezuela in 1975 by Maestro José Antonio Abreu to offer intensive and joyful music making as a vehicle for social development. Since MusicWorks started, it has provided free, communal music making to hundreds of children in Lexington.
I was the Executive Director for the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, where I created an Ensemble-in-Residence program that animated public spaces through pop-up chamber music performances. I also helped steward a first-of-its-kind collaborative Composer-in-Residence program.
