Jerry Bock

Jerry Bock, born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1928, was one of the great melodists of the American musical theatre. Working chiefly with the lyricist Sheldon Harnick, he created a string of Broadway scores marked by warmth, character, and a remarkable gift for capturing a show’s world in song. The partnership won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with the political satire Fiorello! (1959), but their masterpiece, and one of the most beloved musicals ever written, is Fiddler on the Roof (1964), set among the Jewish villagers of Tsarist Russia and infused with the melodies and modes of Eastern European Jewish music. Bock and Harnick also wrote She Loves Me and The Apple Tree before their partnership ended after The Rothschilds (1970). Bock’s melodies have an enduring, folk-like directness that has carried songs like ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ and ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ far beyond the theatre and into the standard repertoire of singers worldwide. He died in Mount Kisco, New York, in 2010.