Dominick Argento

Dominick Argento
Argento in April 2016
Born(1927-10-27)October 27, 1927
York, Pennsylvania
DiedFebruary 20, 2019(2019-02-20) (aged 91)
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Alma materEastman School of Music
Occupation(s)Composer, professor
Notable workPostcard from Morocco
Miss Havisham's Fire
The Aspern Papers
From the Diary of Virginia Woolf
AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship[1] (1957, 1964), Pulitzer Prize for Music (1975)

Dominick Argento (October 27, 1927 – February 20, 2019)[2] was an American composer known for his lyric operatic and choral music. Among his best known pieces are the operas Postcard from Morocco, Miss Havisham's Fire, The Masque of Angels, and The Aspern Papers. He also is known for the song cycles Six Elizabethan Songs and From the Diary of Virginia Woolf; the latter earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1975. In a predominantly tonal context, his music freely combines tonality, atonality and a lyrical use of twelve-tone writing. None of Argento's music approaches the experimental, stringent avant-garde fashions of the post-World War II era.[3]

As a student in the 1950s, Argento divided his time between the United States and Italy, and his music is greatly influenced by both his instructors in the United States and his personal affection for Italy, particularly the city of Florence. Many of Argento's works were written in Florence, where he spent a portion of every year.[4] He was a professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He frequently remarked that he found residents of that city to be tremendously supportive of his work and thought his musical development would have been impeded had he stayed in the high-pressure world of East Coast music.[4][5] He was one of the founders of the Center Opera Company (now the Minnesota Opera). Newsweek magazine once referred to the Twin Cities as "Argento's town."[5]

Argento wrote fourteen operas, in addition to major song cycles, orchestral works, and many choral pieces for small and large forces. Many of these were commissioned for and premiered by Minnesota-based artists. He referred to his wife, the soprano Carolyn Bailey, as his muse, and she frequently performed his works. Bailey died on February 2, 2006.

In 2009, Argento was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association.[6]

  1. ^ "Dominick Argento - John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation". www.gf.org. Retrieved 2024-06-17.
  2. ^ Paige, Tim. "Dominick Argento, composer who was a modern master of opera, dies at 91". The Washington Post. Retrieved 21 April 2019.
  3. ^ Saya, Virginia. "Dominick Argento," Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy. (Accessed 15 December 2006).
  4. ^ a b Waleson, Heidi. "An Introduction to Argento's Music." Boosey & Hawkes online (accessed 15 December 2006). Article
  5. ^ a b Argento, Dominick. Catalogue Raisonné as Memoir. Minneapolis: U of M Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8166-4505-1.
  6. ^ "American Choral Directors Association". Archived from the original on 2016-03-08. Retrieved 2016-03-27., Retrieved March 2016