Peter Rodgers Melnick

American conductor

Peter Rodgers Melnick (born July 24, 1958) is an American author and composer for film, television and musical theatre.

Career

Some of Melnick’s earlier film score credits include L.A. Story, The Only Thrill, Convicts, and Farce of the Penguins. His television credits include the PBS's, Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood, Indictment: The McMartin Trial, Grand Avenue, and Lily Dale by Horton Foote.

His first produced musical was Adrift in Macao,^[1] featuring script and lyrics by Christopher Durang. Melnick then collaborated with Bill Russell on The Last Smoker in America, a musical comedy about a dysfunctional family struggling with a new law forbidding smoking.^[2] It opened in Columbus, Ohio in late 2010.

Melnick and Russell have also worked together on two musical one-acts, Patter for the Floating Lady, based on the eponymous Steve Martin, and A Bad Spell, adapted from a Virginia Moriconi short story Simple Arithmetic.

Personal life

Melnick is the son of Daniel Melnick and Linda Rodgers, and grandson of Richard Rodgers and grew up in New York City. He graduated from The Choate School (which later merged with Rosemary Hall to become Choate Rosemary Hall) and attended Harvard College, Berklee College of Music, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.^[3] He also studied jazz with the Jaki Byard.^[4]

Melnick lives in Montecito, California, with wife, Talia Van-Son.

Works

Musical theatre scores

Adrift in Macao (2007)
The Last Smoker in America (2012)

Film scores

Vampire Knights (1987)
Homesick, film short (1988)
Get Smart, Again! (1989); TV movie
Out of Sight, Out of Mind (1990)
Bad Attitudes (1991); TV movie
L.A. Story (1991)
Convicts (1991)
Only You (1992)
In the Name of the Father, film short (1992)
Running Mates (1992); TV movie
Arctic Blue (1993)
12:01 (1993); TV movie
Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995); TV movie
For Hope (1996); TV movie
Grand Avenue (1996); TV movie
No One Could Protect Her (1996)
Two Mothers for Zachary (1996); TV movie
Lily Dale (1996) TV movie
Every 9 Seconds (1997); TV movie
Jitters (1997); TV movie
The Only Thrill (1997)
Time to Say Goodbye? (1997)
Becoming Dick (2000); TV movie
Tak For Alt: Survival of a Human Spirit Documentary Feature
Mermaid (2000); TV movie
Taking Back Our Town (2001); TV movie
Call Waiting, (2004)
Farce of the Penguins (2006)
Benjamin (2018)

Television scores

The Death of a Star (1987) TV documentary
The Mystery of the Master Builders (1988) TV documentary
Nightingales (1989) TV series
The KGB, the Computer and Me (1990); TV documentary
Testing Dirty (1990); TV series: ABC Afterschool Specials
Magic (1991); TV series
Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul (1995); TV series documentary: American Masters
Robert Rauschenberg: Inventive Genius (1999); TV series documentary: American Masters
Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood (2009); TV documentary
James McNeill Whistler: The Case for Beauty (2014) TV documentary

References

^ Charles Isherwood (14 February 2007). "Here's Looking at You, Beloved Movie Clichés". The New York Times. Retrieved 2014-07-12.
^ Piepenburg, Erik (October 12, 2009). "NYMF: Five Questions About 'The Last Smoker in America'". The New York Times.
^ "Musical Composer Peter Melnick ’76 Premieres 'The Last Smoker in America'". The Choate School. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
^ Melnick, Peter (2013). "Biography". PeterMelnick.com. Archived from the original on 2016-10-10. Retrieved 2017-04-22.