Richard Rodgers

Richard Rodgers was a composer, who lived in New York and has worked with some of the best on Broadway. He is ranked beside other composers like Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II. Rodgers has won every award in his field and people today can still hear his masterpieces in musicals and other productions of his work. Shortly after, Rodgers birth in 1902, his family moved to Upper Manhattan, near his future partners, Hart and Hammerstein. His home was filled with music as his parents loved Broadway and his grandparents enjoyed the opera. Rodgers learned how to play the piano as a toddler in the home.

Rodgers would sing songs, while his mother played the piano. This helped him to be very adaptive to music and harmony at a young age. While Rodgers was at summer camp he composed his first melody and by the time he was fifteen years old he knew he want to pursue music as a profession. He was found of music by Jerome Kern and was accepted to Columbia University, here is were he wrote Varsity Show , which became an annual production at the school. Then Rodgers become partners with is brother Mortimer, Mortimer introduced him to Oscar Hammerstein II and Lorenz Hart. Hart and Rodgers had a partnership until Hart’s died in 1943.

Rodgers was only sixteen years old when he first started collaborating with Hart. They worked on great masterpieces like I’ll Take Manhattan, Blue Moon, My Funny Valentine, and Isn’t It Romantic . Together in their short amount of time together, they composed music and lyrics for twenty-six Broadway shows. Rodgers start to collaborate with Hammerstein in 1942, this was because Hart was too ill to write anymore and Rodgers composed with Hammerstein till his death as well in 1960. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first collaboration was a hit Oklahoma!. After that Rodgers and Hammerstein created their own company that would let them and other writer control their own work. Because of this, they were able to become produces as well, back plays, national tours, and concerts besides musicals.

Rodgers and Hammerstein were unstoppable and in the little time they had together, they created music for The Sound of Music, South Pacific, The King and I, Carousel, and even produced a television version of Cinderella . Rodgers was one of the pioneers in Broadway and was won Tonys, Grammys, Oscars, Emmys, and two Pulitzers as well as many other honors over the course of his career.