Richard Rodney Bennett

Richard Rodney Bennett was an eclectic composer of serious orchestral works, jazz songs and music for stage and screen. Of the former, his most famous compositions include a First Symphony, a piano concerto and four string quartets. Among the latter are scores for operas, such as the dramatic "The Mines of Sulphur" and the more light-hearted and satirical "A Penny for a Song". Born into an artistic family (his mother was a pianist and composer, his father a writer of children's books), Bennett wrote a cantata, "Put Away the Flutes", while still in his early teens. He enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1953, graduating three years later. He subsequently continued his studies under the avant garde French composer/conductor Pierre Boulez in Paris, eventually becoming adept at fusing jazz and serial techniques, in addition to mastering jazz piano. Comfortable in varied genres, some of his best film music is strongly jazz tinged, notably The Wrong Arm of the Law (1963) and