Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (born March 29, 1936) is a British composer.
Born in Broadstairs, Kent, England, Richard Rodney Bennett studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Howard Ferguson and Lennox Berkeley. During this time, he attended some of the Darmstadt summer courses, where he was exposed to serialism. He later spent two years in Paris as a student of the arch-serialist Pierre Boulez.
Despite this early foray into modernist techniques, Bennett's tastes are catholic, and he has written in a wide range of styles, being particularly fond of jazz. Early on, he found success by writing music for feature films, although he considered this to be subordinate to his concert music. Nevertheless, he has continued to write music for films; among his best-known scores are Murder on the Orient Express (1975), Enchanted April (1992) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). Despite this eclecticism, Bennett's music rarely involves crossover of styles.
Bennett taught at the Royal Academy of Music (1963-65) and the Peabody Institute in Baltimore (1970-71), and was later International Chair of Composition at the RAM (1994-2000). He received a CBE in 1977, and was knighted in 1999.
