Joshua Rosenblum

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Joshua Rosenblum (born May 10, 1963) is an American composer, conductor, pianist, arranger, music journalist, and author. He writes music for both the concert hall and musical theatre, and teaches musical theatre composition at Yale University and conducting and orchestration at New York University. A active performer in New York City, he works as a pianist in solo and orchestral settings, in Broadway pit orchestras, and with the City Center Encores! Orchestra. He has conducted many Broadway and Off-Broadway shows and served as pianist and associate conductor for the 2022 Broadway revival of Into the Woods; he also plays on the original cast recording.

Rosenblum grew up in Marietta, Ohio, studied at Interlochen, and earned his BA summa cum laude from Yale College in 1983. He then trained at Yale School of Music, where he earned an MM in Piano Performance in 1985 and studied with Ward Davenny and Donald Currier, taking master classes with Claude Frank. He also studied composition with Jacob Druckman, Martin Bresnick, and Frank Lewin. He joined Yale’s faculty in 2006 and began teaching at NYU’s Steinhardt School in 2020.

His musical theatre works include Fermat’s Last Tango (Off-Broadway at the York Theatre, with a Lisbon premiere), Einstein’s Dreams (with librettist JoAnne Sydney Lessner; Off-Broadway 2019, four Drama Desk nominations), Garbo and Me, and The Haunted Hotel. Other projects include Mark Felt, Superstar and Bush is Bad, as well as Love is Not a Science, premiered in London in 2016 and leading to a Stage Door adaptation in 2017. Garbo and Me had a world premiere in 2021 at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

In addition to theatre, Rosenblum has written for Opera News since 1999 and published essays in several outlets. He founded The Pit Stop Players in 2009, a New York chamber group focused on contemporary music and cross-genre programming. The ensemble has premiered his works such as A Young Person’s Guide to the Pit Stop Players, narrated by Cynthia Nixon in 2012.

His book Closer Than Ever: The Unique Six-Decade Partnership of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire was published by Oxford University Press in 2024. His next book will explore the life and work of Maury Yeston.