Rizky is a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology with research interests that include popular music, politics, affect, and sound studies. He earned his MA degree in Performing Arts and Visual Arts Studies from Universitas Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2017. At the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt), he completed another MA degree in 2019. His thesis, entitled Aksi – A Soundscape of Political Protest in Indonesia, 1998, examines the soundscape of protests in Indonesia that led to the fall of ex-president Soeharto in 1998. Currently, he is writing his dissertation that examines the audiopolitics of the independent music (indie) scenes in Indonesia.
In 2019 he was selected as one of the participants for an academic workshop on “Acoustemology” at Johannes Gutenberg University, in Mainz, Germany. In 2022 he was again invited to present his work at a workshop on “Social Movements in Southeast Asia” organized by Universita’ Ca’ Foscari in Venice, Italy. In addition to the presentations at the two academic workshops, he has presented his research at various conferences, such as The Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), The International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM), The Association for Asian Studies (AAS), and The European Association for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS). During his doctoral pursuit, he has contributed his thoughts through three book chapters and an academic journal. He has served as a teaching assistant for the "World Music" class at Pitt, and has been invited as a guest lecturer for classes at several higher education institutions on the topics of "The History of Ethnomusicology", "Popular Music in Southeast Asia," and "Research Methodology." He is an awardee for the 2023 Immersive Dissertation Research Fellowship from Humanities Engage, University of Pittsburgh.
Rizky is also a singer/songwriter of Indonesia indie rock band Risky Summerbee & the Honeythief, who has released three studio albums and one live cassette album. The band has performed at various music festivals in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and Australia. He is also a member of Teater Garasi/Garasi Performance Institute, an award-winning performance collective based in Yogyakarta.