Rich began classical piano studies aged six, exploring jazz and composition in his teens. He studied composition and contemporary music at the Royal Academy of Music, composition at the Yale School of Music, and jazz at Leeds College of Music.

The main thrust of his compositional work has been in drawing together techniques developed by contemporary classical composers with improvisational tools taken from contemporary jazz. Chiefly his work is concerned with advanced rhythmic techniques whose complexity creates satisfying musical effects: rhythmic illusions, implied metric modulations, rhythmic ambiguities, and controlled rhythmic ‘incorrectness’.

Since 2015, Rich has written almost exclusively for Trio HLK - Rich Harrold, Ant Law and Richard Kass - in order to develop this compositional direction. In 2016 Trio HLK released their first album, Standard Time, which features Dame Evelyn Glennie on percussion and Steve Lehman on Alto Sax, and the Trio has toured extensively in the UK and Europe with Evelyn Glennie since 2018.