Richard St. Clair was born in Jamestown, North Dakota on September 21, 1946. The following year his family moved to Grand Forks, ND, a city then of about 25,000 inhabitants which had far greater musical resources than Jamestown through a university, a local orchestra, schools and churches with quality choruses, and a concert series that each year brought in many prestigious performers.  His musical experiences in Grand Forks were the foundation of his musical life. He began piano lessons there at age 4. By age 16 he had begun to compose music and received some performances within the next year. He was awarded an A.B. in Music Composition from Harvard in 1969, taking his Masters and Doctoral degrees from Harvard in 1973 and 1978 respectively.

Richard St. Clair has composed over 130 compositions since the early 1960s, including 8 song cycles, 4 string quartets, 8 piano sonatas, other chamber works, numerous works for chorus, and works for orchestra and band. St. Clair made his debut as composer and pianist at the Marlboro Festival of Music in 1967. His works have been featured in a number of venues through North America. His works have been presented by such distinguished musicians as Jane Struss and the Janus 2000 ensemble, Composers in Red Sneakers, Basso Moderno Duo, the Boston Cecilia chorus, Coro Allegro, Convivium Musicum, and the Longy School of Music's Modern American Music series. His works for band have been performed by the MIT Concert Band. In Fall 2000, Richard St. Clair gave a solo recital of his new piano compositions at MIT in the Artists Behind the Desk series.

As a pianist himself, St. Clair writes idiomatically for the piano and understands the technical challenges his music poses for the soloist. Much of his music is for solo piano or piano in combination with voices or other instruments. His works span styles from atonal serialism to a more stylistically eclectic orientation in recent years.

See also his Wikipedia page.