Brooks, Richard, 1942-

Richard Brooks was born in upstate New York in 1942. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in music education from the State University of New York at Potsdam, a Master of Arts in music composition from Binghamton University, and a Ph.D. in composition from New York University. He was a member of the music faculty of Nassau Community College from 1975 until 2004, and has served in numerous professional organizations, while composing and arranging over one hundred works for a variety of audiences and venues, and receiving multiple grants and commissions. He has held leadership positions in the American Society of University Composers (now the Society of Composers, Inc.) and the American Composers Alliance, among others. Brooks founded a record label, Capstone Records, and collaborated extensively with Nancy Bogen and the performance group The Lark Ascending. Brooks also arranged the cantata Mein Lebenslauf, a composition by Georg Schönberg, a relative of Arnold Schoenberg and uncle of Bogen's husband, Arnold Greissle-Schönberg (a grandson of Arnold Schoenberg). In 2013, Brooks donated his works to the University of North Texas Music Library.