Robert Russell Bennett

Robert Russell Bennett (born June 15, 1894, Kansas City, Mo., U.S.—died Aug. 19, 1981, New York City, N.Y.) was an American composer, conductor, and Broadway orchestrator. He studied music in Berlin, London, and Paris. Beginning in the 1920s, he scored some 300 Broadway musicals over 40 years, including the works of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Frederick Loewe, and such hit shows as Show Boat, Anything Goes, Kiss Me Kate, South Pacific, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music.