Robert Russell Bennett

From Wind Repertory Project
Robert Russell Bennett

Biography

Robert Russell Bennett (15 June 1894, Kansas City, Mo. – 18 August 1981, New York City, N.Y.) was an American composer.

Bennett's early music studies were with his parents and Carl Busch and from 1926-29 he studied composition with Nadia Boulanger. Most of his career was spent as an orchestrator for over 300 Broadway musicals from the 1920s into the 1960s. Examples of these include Show Boat, Girl Crazy, Of Thee I Sing, Annie Get Your Gun, South Pacific, The King and I, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Camelot. He also worked on the documentary Victory at Sea by developing melodies by Richard Rodgers into over twelve hours of music.

His original works include seven symphonies for orchestra and an opera. Bennett also hosted his own radio show and wrote the book Instrumentally Speaking on scoring for theater groups. Besides his original compositions for winds he made arrangements for band of works such as Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma!, and The Sound of Music.


Works for Winds


Resources