Rick Bassett is a composer, pianist, arranger, and orchestrator in New York City. Rick and his collaborator, lyricist/playwright Jessica Fleitman, received the 2018 BMI Harrington Award for Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theatre. Their songs have been featured at NY City Center’s “Front & Center: The Original Musicals of Tomorrow with Tom Kitt,” The 2019 BMI Musical Theatre Showcase, The Lori Beechman Theatre, and Cornelia Street Café in New York City, and the series "A Little New Music" in Los Angeles. Fleitman and Bassett are adapting Ms. Fleitman’s play – “The Average-Sized Mermaid” – into a new musical comedy in the BMI Musical Theatre Advanced Workshop.
Rick's orchestrations have been performed by Sutton Foster with orchestras including the New York Pops, Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, and the National Symphony Orchestra, and are featured on Ms. Foster's 2018 CD, "Take Me To The World." On Broadway, Rick is a co-orchestrator for Violet, Caroline, or Change and Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center. Rick's keyboard programming credits include Classic Stage’s Pacific Overtures, Fiddler On The Roof (Broadway), Dames At Sea (Broadway), Big River, 1776 (Encores), and Ahrens and Flaherty’s Little Dancer (Kennedy Center).
Rick was a 2013 Fellow at the John Duffy Composers Institute at the Virginia Arts Festival and a nominee for a 2016 MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs) Award. He is the composer of "Burning Up!" featured at the 2016 NY Sound Bites festival. Rick also wrote the music, book, and lyrics to the musical comedy Hope, which was produced in Kampala, Uganda, and had its second production there in 2019.