Richard Marriott
Richard Marriott (born October 29, 1951) is an American composer and performer. He writes music for film, television, dance, theater, opera, installations and video games, and he founded the Club Foot Orchestra, a key group for live music to silent films.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Marriott studied with notable teachers including Dominick Argento and Paul Fetler at the University of Minnesota, Pauline Oliveros at UC San Diego, Ali Akbar Khan, Masayuki Koga, Nyoman Windha, and Made Subandi. He has performed on brass and woodwinds from both Western and Asian traditions and has recorded with The Residents, Snakefinger’s History of the Blues, Brazilian Girls and others.
His credits include music for the film Rising Sun, the CBS series The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, the 1988 Oscar-nominated short Silver into Gold, and Legong: Dance of the Virgins (written for Balinese gamelan and Western instruments). He was a staff composer for Atari Games (1992–1997), writing for Mace the Dark Age and contributing to LeapFrog Enterprises.
Marriott has worked with Della Davidson since 1991 and in New York with Yoshiko Chuma’s School of Hard Knocks and Yin Mei. His recent work combines Asian and Western elements. A collaboration with Beijing librettist Xu Ying, Prince Lan Ling, uses Western symphonic forces with Chinese instruments and voices. His operas include Divide Light, Passion of Leyla, and God Machine.
Selected recent works include Metropolis Violin Concerto (premiered 2015 with violinist Alisa Rose), The Klezmorim Bass Concerto (premiered 2018 with Gary Karr and the Gonzaga University Orchestra, conducted by Kevin Hekmatpanah), and The Ghost Ship Cello Concerto (premiered 2018 with soloist Matthew Linaman and the Oakland Symphony, conducted by Michael Morgan).
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 19:07 (CET).