Scott Davenport Richards

Scott Davenport Richards is an award-winning composer/librettist whose creative works have resided at various addresses around the intersection of Jazz, Opera, and Musical theatre. His most recent opera, Blind Injustice (with librettist David Cote) premiered with direction by Robin Guarino at Cincinnati Opera in 2019 to a sold out run and national critical acclaim. The live CD/Album was cited by Opera News as one of the 5 Best New Opera Recordings of 2022.

He has recently completed commissions for The Public Theater; The Rumble of Myth (with Marcus Gardley) and the TONY Winning Signature Theatre (VA) The Break (with Michele Lowe). The New York City Opera has performed two Richards works as a part of its Vox Festival of new opera; A Star Across The Ocean - Paris 1965 featuring Tony Award Winner, Chuck Cooper and Charlie Crosses the Nation, An Opera in Jazz Idiom. He was commissioned by Paulette Haupt, Artistic Director of The O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Musical Theatre Conference to compose A Thousand Words Come to Mind (with Michele Lowe) for the inaugural set of her Inner Voices one-person musical monologue series. Other musical theatre works include music for Coyote Goes Salmon Fishing (written with Deborah Brevoort) directed by Molly Smith at Perseverance Theatre/produced by Stuart Ostrow in Houston) and the original score for A Christmas Story: The Musical at Kansas City Rep.

His play-scores have been heard at resident theatres around the country including The Yale Rep, Alliance, Center Stage, Madison Rep, Powerhouse and New Federal.

Works for children include a number of commissions from Theatreworks U. S. A.; Corduroy (music, lyrics, orchestration), Sundiata! The Lion King of Mali (music, lyrics, orchestration), Island of the Blue Dolphins (orchestrations) and Junie B. Jones (orchestrations.)

As an actor, Mr. Richards originated the role of Sylvester (the stuttering nephew who almost ruins the recording session) in the historic original Broadway production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and assisted his father, Director Lloyd Richards in the origination and Broadway premieres of three other Wilson works.

A recipient of the Jonathan Larson, Frederick Loewe, Shen Family Foundation, Meet the Composer, and the NJ State Council on the Arts Composition Awards, he taught on the faculty of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program from 1997-2009 and currently holds a position as Professor of Composition/Musical Theatre at Montclair State University’s Cali School of Music where he has taught since 2005.

As of today, he is hard at work on a new opera Robeson/Moscow with co-librettist David Cote. A workshop is scheduled for April 2023 at Cincinnati Opera's Opera Fusion: New Works.

He golds the following degrees: M. F. A. from New York University Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program and B. A. from Yale University

Visit Scott’s Website: www.scottdavenportrichards.com