Born in New York in 1902, pianist-composer and producer Richard Charles Rodgers was one of the finest of twentieth-century popular composers, who left a legacy of achievement unparalleled in theatre history. After a successful collaboration with lyricist Lorenz Hart, Rodgers teamed up with librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The result was Oklahoma, a musical which broke away from the operetta tradition and won the Pulitzer prize in the following year. After the death of Hammerstein, Rodgers was his own lyricist for No Strings and worked with Stephen Sondheim, Hammerstein’s protégé, in Do I Hear A Waltz?. In 1998 Rodgers and Hammerstein were placed by Time Magazine and CBS News among the top twenty most influential artists of the twentieth century.