Born in Palermo, Italy in 1990, Riccardo Terzo began taking bassoon lessons at the age of 7. At the age of only 20 he won the principal position with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra. In 2012 he completed his master's degree at the University of Salzburg Mozarteum with Marco Postinghel before doing his post-graduate studies with Dag Jensen at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. In 2017 he won the principal position with the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. As a guest principal, Terzo has worked with such renowned orchestras as the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle Zürich Orchester, Vienna Philharmonic (Vienna State Opera), and Berlin Philharmonic. He has performed in festivals including Zagreb, Spring Prague, the Kanazawa Gargan Festival, BBC Proms in London, and Easter Festival in Salzburg. He won first prizes at the International Chamber Music Competition in Grosseto in 2003, the International Competition for Bassoon Città di Chieri in 2004, the Rossini International Bassoon Competition in Pesaro in 2006, and the International Double Reed Society (IDRS) competition in 2016, subsequently returning to IDRS in 2017 as Guest of Honor. Terzo has performed as a soloist and taught at universities in cities across the globe. In 2020 he recorded the Mozart, Weber, Rossini, and Jolivet concerti with the Camerata Salzburg, with whom he performed the Mozart concerto for Mozartwoche 2023. 
This is his first appearance at PMF.