# Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play

The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play is an annual award presented by Drama Desk in recognition of achievements in the theatre across collective Broadway, off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway plays (distinct from full musicals) produced in New York City. This category was introduced at the 1980 ceremony, presented sporadically (seven times) through 2008, and has been regularly awarded since 2009.

## Winners and nominees
### 1980s

| Year | Composer | Production |
| 1980 |
| 1980 | Norman L. Berman | Strider |
| 1980 | Richard Peaslee | Teibele and Her Demon |
| 1980 | Stanley Silverman | Bent |
| 1981–89 | — | — |

### 1990s

| Year | Composer | Production |
| 1990–91 | — | — |
| 1992 |
| 1992 | Jan A.P. Kaczmarek | 'Tis Pity She's a Whore |
| 1992 | Richard Peaslee | Akin |
| 1993 |
| 1993 | Ladysmith Black Mambazo | The Song of Jacob Zulu |
| 1994 |
| 1994 | Stephen Warbeck | An Inspector Calls |
| 1994 | Jonathan Dove | Medea |
| 1994 | Duke Ellington & Stanley Silverman | Timon of Athens |
| 1995–98 | — | — |
| 1999 |
| 1999 | Jeanine Tesori | Twelfth Night |
| 1999 | Steven Edis | Not About Nightingales |
| 1999 | Drew McVety | Corpus Christi |
| 1999 | David Van Tieghem | The Turn of the Screw |
| 1999 | Richard Woodbury | Death of a Salesman |

### 2000s

| Year | Composer | Production |
| 2000–01 | — | — |
| 2002 |
| 2002 | Willy Schwarz | Metamorphoses |
| 2002 | Crispin Cioe | True Love |
| 2002 | Nona Hendryx | Blue |
| 2002 | Peter John Still | Cymbeline |
| 2003–06 | — | — |
| 2007 |
| 2007 | Mark Bennett | The Coast of Utopia |
| 2007 | Adam Cork | Frost/Nixon |
| 2007 | Gerard McBurney | Oliver Twist |
| 2007 | The Propeller Company | The Taming of the Shrew |
| 2007 | Ray Rizzo, Adam Rapp & Lucas Papaelias | Essential Self-Defense |
| 2007 | David Van Tieghem | Inherit the Wind |
| 2008 | — | — |
| 2009 |
| 2009 | Dominic Kanza | Ruined |
| 2009 | Mark Bennett | The Cherry Orchard |
| 2009 | Mark Bennett | The Winter's Tale |
| 2009 | DJ Rekha | Rafta, Rafta... |
| 2009 | Richard Woodbury | Desire Under the Elms |
| 2009 | Gary Yershon | The Norman Conquests |

### 2010s

| Year | Composer | Production |
| 2010 |
| 2010 | Branford Marsalis | Fences |
| 2010 | Adam Cochran | A Play on War |
| 2010 | Adam Cork | Red |
| 2010 | Shelby Gaines & Latham Gaines | A Lie of the Mind |
| 2010 | Philip Glass | The Bacchae |
| 2010 | Hem | Twelfth Night |
| 2011 |
| 2011 | Wayne Barker | Peter and the Starcatcher |
| 2011 | Kathryn Bostic | Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo |
| 2011 | Lars Petter Hagen | Baby Universe |
| 2011 | Alan John | The Diary of a Madman |
| 2011 | Tom Kitt | The Winter's Tale |
| 2011 | Dan Moses Schreier | The Merchant of Venice |
| 2012 |
| 2012 | Grant Olding | One Man, Two Guvnors |
| 2012 | Mark Bennett | An Iliad |
| 2012 | Mark Bennett | Richard III |
| 2012 | Tom Kitt | All's Well That Ends Well |
| 2012 | Gina Leishman | Septimus and Clarissa |
| 2012 | Duncan Sheik & Suzanne Vega | Carson McCullers Talks About Love |
| 2013 |
| 2013 | Glen Kelly | The Nance |
| 2013 | César Alvarez with The Lisps | The Good Person of Szechwan |
| 2013 | Jiří Kadeřábek, Mahir Cetiz & Ana Milosavljevic | Act Before You Speak: The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark |
| 2013 | Eugene Ma | The Man Who Laughs |
| 2013 | Steve Martin | As You Like It |
| 2013 | Jane Wang | Strange Tales of Liaozhai |
| 2014 |
| 2014 | Nico Muhly | The Glass Menagerie |
| 2014 | Lewis Flinn | The Tribute Artist |
| 2014 | Elliot Goldenthal | A Midsummer Night's Dream |
| 2014 | Rob Kearns | The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle |
| 2014 | Tom Kochan | Almost, Maine |
| 2014 | Duncan Sheik | A Man's a Man |
| 2015 |
| 2015 | Arthur Solari & Jane Shaw | Tamburlaine the Great |
| 2015 | Cesar Alvarez | An Octoroon |
| 2015 | Danny Blackburn and Bryce Hodgson | Deliverance |
| 2015 | Sean Cronin | Kill Me Like You Mean It |
| 2015 | Bongi Duma | Generations |
| 2015 | Freddi Price | The Pigeoning |
| 2016 |
| 2016 | Philip Glass | The Crucible |
| 2016 | Billie Joe Armstrong | These Paper Bullets! |
| 2016 | Estelle Bajou | Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally |
| 2016 | Shaun Davey | Pericles |
| 2016 | Tom Kitt | Cymbeline |
| 2017 |
| 2017 | Bill Sims Jr. | Jitney |
| 2017 | Daniel Ocanto, Graham Ulicny, & Sean Smith | Alligator |
| 2017 | Marcus Shelby | Notes from the Field |
| 2018 |
| 2018 | Imogen Heap | Harry Potter and the Cursed Child |
| 2018 | Justin Hicks | Mlima's Tale |
| 2018 | Amatus Karim-Ali | The Homecoming Queen |
| 2018 | Justin Levine | A Midsummer Night's Dream |
| 2018 | Adrian Sutton | Angels in America |
| 2019 |
| 2019 | Jason Michael Webb and Fitz Patton | Choir Boy |
| 2019 | Paul Castles and Jongbin Jung | Wild Goose Dreams |
| 2019 | Justin Ellington | Mrs. Murray's Menagerie |
| 2019 | Justin Ellington | The House That Will Not Stand |
| 2019 | Nick Powell | The Lehman Trilogy |

### 2020s

| Year | Composer | Production |
| 2020 |
| 2020 | Martha Redbone | for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf |
| 2020 | Steve Earle | Coal Country |
| 2020 | Frightened Rabbit | Square Go |
| 2020 | Jim Harbourne | Feral |
| 2020 | Adam Seidel, Jane Bruce, and Daniel Ocanto | Original Sound |
| 2021 | No awards: New York theatres shuttered, March 2020 to September 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City | No awards: New York theatres shuttered, March 2020 to September 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City |
| 2022 |
| 2022 | Bill Sims Jr. | Lackawanna Blues |
| 2022 | Te'La and Kamauu | Thoughts of a Colored Man |
| 2022 | Michael Thurber and Farai Malianga (drum compositions) | Merry Wives |
| 2023 | Suzan-Lori Parks | Plays for the Plague Year |
| 2023 | Ben Edelman, Zane Pais, & Sinan Rafik Zafar | Letters from Max, a ritual |
| 2023 | Mauricio Escamilla | the bandaged place |
| 2023 | Ian Ross | Wuthering Heights |
| 2023 | Daniel Schlosberg | Montag |
| 2024 | Will Butler | Stereophonic |
| 2024 | Michael "Mikey J" Asante | The Effect |
| 2024 | S T A R R Busby and JJJJJerome Ellis | (pray) |
| 2024 | Dionne McClain-Freeney | The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents The 84th Annual Star-Burst Cotillion in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel |
| 2024 | Ben Steinfeld | Pericles |