Music arranger Peter Howard died 18 April 2008 of pneumonia. Born Howard Weiss on 29 July 1927 in Miami, Florida, he changed his name in the late 1940s when he began his Broadway career. Howard arranged dance music, composed incidental music, and conducted orchestras for many Broadway hits, from My Fair Lady (which ran from 1956 to 1962), Oh Captain! (1958), and Say, Darling 1958-59), to Chicago (the current production, which opened in 1996), 1776 (1997-98) and Minnelli on Minnelli (1999-2000).
His genre work was of a smaller scale, but still important. He played a celesta to represent the voice of Tinkerbell in the 1960 television production of Peter Pan (which starred Mary Martin). He also rearranged Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” for 25 Chinese tap dancers for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).