Richard Peaslee

Richard Peaslee (June 13, 1930 – August 20, 2016) was a New York-born composer whose career spanned theatre, film, television, dance, and symphonic music. Though he worked across multiple idioms, his most sustained output was for the stage, where he composed for some of the most prominent directors and companies of the twentieth century.

Peaslee studied music composition as an undergraduate at Yale University before completing two years of service in the U.S. Army. He subsequently earned a master's degree from The Juilliard School and pursued private study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and William Russo in both New York and London.

His association with director Peter Brook and the Royal Shakespeare Company produced some of his most recognized work. He composed the music for the RSC productions of Marat/Sade, A Midsummer Night's Dream, US/Tell Me Lies, and Antony and Cleopatra in London. He also scored Terry Hands's RSC production of Tamburlaine the Great and Peter Hall's National Theatre production of Animal Farm, as well as the musical Moby-Dick. His collaboration with Brook extended to film, with scores for Brook's Marat/Sade (1967) and Tell Me Lies (1968).

On Broadway, Peaslee's credits as composer and book writer include The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, Indians, Teibele and Her Demon, Frankenstein, and Boccaccio. His work on two productions in 1980 earned him Drama Desk Award nominations for both Outstanding Music in a Play and Outstanding Sound Design.

In New York, Peaslee composed extensively for Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival, contributing music to productions of Richard III, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Troilus and Cressida, and Antigone. His long collaboration with choreographer and director Martha Clarke and the Music Theatre Group yielded scores for The Garden of Earthly Delights, Vienna Lusthaus, The Hunger Artist, and Miracolo d'Amore. He also composed for children's and family theatre, including The Snow Queen, The Children's Crusade, and Tanglewood Tales, and wrote an opera, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Peaslee's work in dance includes Touch, commissioned and performed by the New York City Ballet, and The Four Humours, commissioned and performed by the Pilobolus dance company. His television credits include an Emmy-nominated score for the Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers series The Power of Myth, music for Claudia Shear's Blown Sideways Through Life on American Playhouse, and the Time/Life series Wild, Wild World of Animals.

His symphonic and jazz compositions were performed by the Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and Buffalo Symphony Orchestras, as well as by William Russo's London Jazz Orchestra, the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, the Stan Kenton and Ted Heath Orchestras, and Gerry Mulligan. In 1993, he composed Arrows of Time for Solo Trombone and Band for trombonist Joseph Alessi and the United States Army Band.

Among his honors, Peaslee received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Marc Blitzstein Award, an Obie Award, a Villager Award, and fellowships from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.