Dominick Argento

Dominick Argento ( born October 27, 1927 in York ( Pennsylvania)) is an American composer and university teacher.

Life

Dominick Argento, son of Sicilian immigrants, felt early attracted by the music of George Gershwin. During World War II he did military service as a cryptographer in North Africa. There was a bachelor and master study at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore in Nicholas Nabokov, Henry Cowell, and Hugo Weisgall, followed by a doctorate at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester joined ( until 1957 ). There Argento by Alan Hovhaness, Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson was taught. As a Fulbright Fellow, he was able to complete his studies in Italy in 1954 with Luigi Dallapiccola.

After studying Argento was musical director of the Hilltop Opera in Baltimore and taught both music theory and composition at the Eastman School. Two Guggenheim Fellowship enabled him in 1957/58 and 1964/65 more stays in Italy. From 1958 until his retirement in 1997 worked as a lecturer at the Institute for Argento Music of the University of Minnesota. In 1979 he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Work

The compositional work of Dominick Argento comprises mainly vocal compositions alongside some instrumental works. These include a number of successful in the United States operas (almost all taken up by European stages ), including The Boor (1957 ), Postcard from Morocco (1971 ), The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe (1976 ), Miss Havisham 's Wedding Night (1981 ), Casanova 's Homecoming (1984 ), The Aspern papers (1988) and The Dream of Valentino (1994). From the 1970s also resulted in several song cycles, with him who composed music for Janet Baker cycle From the Diary of Virginia Woolf 1975 Pulitzer Prize of Music earned. 2004 Casa Guidi cycle with a Grammy Award for "Best Classical Contemporary Composition ."

In the music of Dominick Argento tonality, atonality and twelve- sound techniques can be freely combined in a predominantly tonal context.