Film & Concert Music

Rick's film credits include the award-winning PBS documentary “Body & Soul: Diana & Kathy”, and HBO’s “The Vagina Monologues” and “Life Afterlife”.

All music by Rick Baitz; all rights reserved.

Biography

Rick Baitz composes for the moving image, the concert hall, dance and theater. Credits include the award-winning documentary What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (2018), HBO’s The Vagina Monologues (featuring vocalist Cathy Richardson), and HBO’s Life Afterlife, plus the scores for several immersive museum installations, including 24 Hours That Changed History (2016) for the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, and three soundtracks for the recently-unveiled Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, with voice-overs by Oprah Winfrey. Other media credits include, the Sundance-honored The Education of Shelby Knox, National Geographic’s acclaimed specials The New Chimpanzees, Heart of Africa and Looters; and Geoffrey Nauffts’ ground-breaking film Baby Steps, starring Kathy Bates.  Rick’s concert works have been performed across the US, Europe and Latin America, with his string quartet Chthonic Dances, premiered by the eminent ensemble ETHEL in 2011, described as “a bright-hued, vigorously melodic score” by the New York Times.  His Juilliard-commissioned quintet River of January won multiple awards, including the Delius Composition Contest, and was termed a “glowing jewel of a new score” — also by the NY Times. Rick’s acclaimed album Into Light was released in 2018 on the Innova Recordings label, featuring the string quartet Chthonic Dances, his percussion quartet with live electronics, Hall of Mirrors, commissioned by The Juilliard School, and his eponymous trio, Into Light.

Rick is on the faculty of the Graduate and Evening divisions of The Juilliard School,  as well as former Chair and current core faculty of the MFA in Music Composition at Vermont College of Fine Arts.  He is also founding Director of BMI’s “Composing for the Screen: A Film Scoring Mentorship Program.”    Raised in Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro and Durban, South Africa, Rick has worked as a deckhand on a dredger in Durban and a cabbie in New York City.  He received his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Composition from Columbia University, and bachelors and masters from Manhattan School of Music. Rick composes, produces and teaches out of his studio in New York City.