Ricardo Ribeiro was born in Calvão (Vagos) in 1971. Between 1984 and 1993 he studied at the Aveiro Music Conservatory and in 1996 completed the BA in Composition from Lisbon’s Higher School of Music, where his teachers were José Carlos Buonacorso, Christopher Bochmann and António Pinho Vargas. On that same year of 1996 he received a Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation scholarship to attend the European Composition Course in Brescia (Italy).

Among the seminars attended one should mention those with the Amsterdam Saxophone Quartet, with Jorge Peixinho, Emmanuel Nunes, Christopher Bochmann, Gilbert Amy, Tristan Murail or Magnus Lindberg.

Between 1996 and 1997, Ricardo Ribeiro was a teacher at the Phydellius Choir Music School. He was also the vocal trainer of this institution’s choir.