December 17, 2025

British-born American composer, singer-songwriter, dramatist, and author Rupert Holmes (’67, HonDMA ’21) reflects on his foundational studies at Manhattan School of Music and growth as a creative.

Interview by Dr. Justin Bischof (BM ’90, MM ’92, DMA ’98)
MSM Alumni Association Chair

In 1947, Rupert Holmes was born in Cheshire, England, to a U.S. Air Force father and British mother; the family moved to the U.S. the following year. Both parents were artistically inclined and nurtured Holmes’s early talents for clarinet and composition including writing music, lyrics, and prose. In the late 1960s, Rupert enrolled at Manhattan School of Music first as a clarinet major, then changed to be a music theory major. He would go on to score major motion pictures during the 1970s, and by the end of that decade he had written and produced several Billboard top-10 hits —including the smash hit in 1979, Escape (The Pina Colada Song)—and worked on acclaimed albums for high-profile artists such as Barbra Streisand: he was producer, arranger, conductor, and wrote songs for six of her albums and wrote songs for her film A Star is Born (1976) which won the Oscar for best original score.

The 1980s saw Holmes triumph as a playwright and musical theatre composer on the Broadway. He won two Tony Awards for his original musical, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1985): Best Book and for Best Original Score, with the production also winning Best Musical. Holmes was also honored with his first Edgar Award— the prestigious prize for mystery writers—for Drood, winning his second in 2001 for Curtains.

Holmes’s output and critical acclaim have anything but slowed over the following decades, netting him several more Tony nominations and collaborating with some of the biggest names in music. He received ASCAP’s 2014 George M. Cohan Award in recognition of his exceptional achievements in multiple musical and artistic fields. This century, Holmes is dedicating himself to a third act, prose writing, including novels that are receiving national acclaim. (Click here for a full biography.)

Rupert, what inspired you to attend Manhattan School of Music? 

Everything I hoped to do or be as a musician and writer seemed to originate in New York City. And MSM was, and is, its most vibrant, dynamic, “world class and real world” conservatory, second to none. I also knew if I were accepted as a clarinetist, my mentor would be Herbert Blayman, remembered now not only as the first chair of the Metropolitan Opera in its golden age but also for providing The Godfather with some of its most lilting musical moments. My first day at MSM, I discovered Yusef Lateef (BM ’69, MM ’70), one of my greatest jazz heroes, sitting next to me in music history. He was my classmate! So many of the amazing talents I’ve worked with in my career have also been faculty or alums of MSM. This year alone, I adapted Pirates of Penzance for Broadway in tandem with the brilliant Joseph Joubert, who holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from MSM … while the musical director and conductor of MSM’s recent production of my Mystery of Edwin Drood was the incomparable David Loud, who also music directed and conducted the Kander and Ebb Broadway musical Curtains, for which I wrote book and additional lyrics. The inaccurate cliché “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” should be revised to be: “Those who can and do teach at MSM.”

Can you share with us your journey/connection between music and poetry? 

My father was a superb classical and jazz musician, while my British mother was a perceptive admirer of the gifted pop lyricists of the ’30s and ’40s as well as the great Romantic poets (my first name is on loan from Rupert Brooke). So, as a child, I was immersed in not only Ravel, Mozart, and Duke Ellington, but also Lorenz Hart, Johnny Mercer, and Noel Coward. When I was eight, my father began teaching me clarinet while my mother was reading me epic poems and pointing out Alan Jay Lerner’s clever wordplay in My Fair Lady. Thus, while making my first adolescent attempts to write pop songs, I found also myself interested in a paperback entitled Story Poems, containing such pitch-perfect narratives-in-verse as “The Bearer of Evil Tidings” and “The Inchcape Rock.” Come high school, I thought I’d have to choose between being a musician or a writer when I heard a song called “Guess Who I Saw Today”… a haunting, three-minute playlet that moved from uneasy love song to breathtaking reveal in only its last three words. I suddenly realized that if I wrote story songs—with plots ranging from humorous to heart-breaking—I might manage to be both a writer and a composer. Since then, I work in various combinations of prose, lyrics, music, and orchestration for many mediums…whether in Broadway musicals, incidental music for my stage thrillers and courtroom dramas, musical underscore for my 50 scripts for my AMC dramedy Remember WENN, or transitional music for the audiobooks of my novels. My second mystery for Random House even came with a CD of my original jazz songs referenced in my text, which allowed me to uniquely say at book signings: “I’d now like to sing you some songs from my novel.”

Was there someone during your time at MSM who stood out as a mentor? Please share an experience(s) or some advice you received during your time at MSM that contributed to where you are today. 

In my second year at MSM, I changed my major to music theory and was blessed to have as one of my professors the savvy and inspiring Cynthia Auerbach (MM ’62). As her student, I was constantly trying to strain the boundaries of musical correctness, bending the rules of four-part chorale so that the result sounded like modern jazz while technically toeing the line; writing etudes for such illegitimate instruments as harmonica and kazoo; setting a Beatles melody to an existing accompaniment by Clementi. All such shenanigans might have gained me a reprimand or even a fail, but Professor Auerbach got the joke and encouraged me to be “sensibly silly” whenever I could make it work musically. She was the best muse any sophomore could have hoped for. Tragically, Cynthia Auerbach died far too young … but the good she did for all her fortunate students lives on in all their work.

What advice do you have for our recently graduated class of 2025? 

Be grateful in this burgeoning “Age of AI” that you work in the still analog fields of music and performing. Like carpenters, sculptors, choreographers, and actors, you ply a craft using much the same gifts and tools of centuries past. AI can ape human beings at lightning speed, but it has yet to learn how to self-generate laughter or heartbreak. So, as we progress into this brave new world, take comfort that you may stand a better chance for future employment (not to mention self-expression) than many of your non-musical or theatrical peers.

Beyond that: please view every audition as your moment, not “theirs.” Learn from it. You will not always get what you seek—often for reasons unknown or out of your control—but an audition is always your chance to grow. Give every role and venue, no matter how humble, the same respect, dedication, and passion you would give a turn at Carnegie Hall, the Met, or the Minskoff. Make it that. You never know who is watching, nor where your collaborators may pop up next. And whenever a modest opportunity knocks on even the dingiest of doors … always try your best to say yes.