Richard Yarr is one of Northern Ireland’s best-known Arts professionals: an award-winning Music and Arts producer with the BBC; a recognised innovator in the sector; and the recipient of a National Honour – an MBE for Services to Music. He is also a Deputy Lieutenant of the County Borough of Belfast. 

Richard has substantial experience of leading local government committees and charities. He is Chairperson of the Charles Wood Festival of Music & Summer School; Artistic Director of the Northern Ireland International Organ Competition, which he founded in 2011; a Music Advisor for CCEA (The Council for the Curriculum, Examinations & Assessment, NI) and Director of Music in Belfast’s oldest place of worship. He is also Music Fellow at Lichfield Cathedral School in Staffordshire and Patron of both the Northern Ireland Young Musician of the Year Competition and the Lagan Festival of Speech, Drama, Music & Art.  

Richard co-ordinated the BBC's national coverage of Derry~Londonderry UK City of Culture in 2013 and, as a strong advocate of Arts partnerships, created BBC Northern Ireland’s School Choir of the Year Competition in 2015 – a partnership between the BBC, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the National Youth Choir of Northern Ireland. Richard is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Freeman of the City of London.