Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, CBE (29 March 1936 – 24 December 2012) was a British composer renowned for his film scores and his jazz performance as much as for his challenging concert works. He was based in New York City from 1979. As one of Britain’s most respected and versatile musicians, Bennett produced over two hundred works for the concert hall, and fifty scores for film and television, as well as having been a writer and performer of jazz songs for fifty years.