John Corigliano Italian-American Corigliano was born in New York to a musical family. His father , John Corigliano Sr.

, was concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for 23 yea rs, and his mother, Rose Buzen, is an accomplished educator and pianist.[1] He i s a former student of Otto Luening,[1] Vittorio Giannini and Paul Creston. Corig liano attended P.S. 241 and Midwood High School in Brooklyn.[2] He studied compo sition at Columbia University (BA 1959)[3] and at the Manhattan School of Music. Before achieving success as composer, Corigliano worked as assistant to the pro ducer on the Leonard Bernstein Young People's Concerts, and as a session produce r for classical artists such as Andr Watts. Most of Corigliano's work has been for symphony orchestra. He employs a wide var iety of styles, sometimes even within the same work, but aims to make his work a ccessible to a relatively large audience. He has written symphonies, as well as works for string orchestra, and wind band. Additionally, Corigliano has written concerti for clarinet, flute, violin, oboe, and piano; film scores; various cham ber and solo instrument works, and the opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, which en joyed a success at the premiere.[4] The younger Corigliano first came to prominence in 1964 when, at the age of 26, his Sonata for Violin and Piano (1963) was the only winner of the chamber-music competition of the Spoleto Festival in Italy.[4] Support from Meet the Composer, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation followed, as did important commissions. For the New York Philharmonic he composed his Vocali se (1999), Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra (1977) and Fantasia on an Ostinat o (1986); for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he wrote Poem in Octo ber (1970); for the New York State Council on the Arts he composed the Oboe Conc erto (1975); for flutist James Galway he composed his Promenade Overture (1981), as well as the Symphony No. 2 (2001); the National Symphony Orchestra commissio ned the evening-length A Dylan Thomas Trilogy (1960, rev. 1999). He also compose d Chiaroscuro [Listen here], for two pianos tuned a quarter tone apart for The D ranoff International Two Piano Foundation. In 1991 he was awarded the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music C omposition for his Symphony No. 1 (1991), which was inspired by the AIDS crisis. [5] In 2001 he received the Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 2 (2001). Corigl iano composed dramatic scores for the 1980 film Altered States, the 1985 film Re volution and Francois Girard's 1997 film, The Red Violin. The award-winning scor e for Revolution is one of Corigliano's most impressive creations although it is less known, as it was never released in any recorded format;[6] it has existed in a bootleg form until Varese Sarabande officially released the score for a lim ited time in December 2009 through their CD club, which will be released in stor es as a regular release later in 2010.[7] Corigliano did, however, export portio ns of the score for use in his first symphony. Portions of the score to The Red Violin were also used in his Violin Concerto (2003). In 1970 Corigliano teamed u p with David Hess to create The Naked Carmen. In a recent communication with Dav id Hess, Hess acknowledged that The Naked Carmen was originally conceived by Cor igliano and himself as a way to update the most popular opera of our time referr ing to Bizet's Carmen. Mercury Records wanted the classical and popular division s to work together and after a meeting with Joe Bott, Scott Mampe and Bob Reno i t was decided to proceed with the project. In Hess's own words, the project was "a collective decision." Among Corigliano's students are David S. Sampson, Eric Whitacre, Elliot Goldenth al, Edward Knight, Nico Muhly, Roger Bergs, Scott Glasgow, John Mackey, Michael Bacon, Avner Dorman, Mason Bates, Steven Bryant, Jefferson Friedman, Dinuk Wijer atne and David Ludwig. In 1996, The Corigliano Quartet was founded, taking his n ame in tribute. Corigliano lives with his husband, composer Mark Adamo, in New Y ork City.[8] In 2011, Corigliano's "One Sweet Morning" premiered at Avery Fisher Hall for the New York Philharmonic, a commission commemorating the 10th anniversary of the S eptember 11th Attacks.[9] Ms. Stephanie Blythe performed the solo mezzo-soprano role.

Works[edit] See List of compositions by John Corigliano. Notable works include: Clarinet Concerto (1977) Symphony No. 1 (1988) The Ghosts of Versailles, Opera in 2 acts (1991); libretto by William M. Hoffman String Quartet (1995) The Red Violin, Film score (1998) Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan for soprano and piano (or orchestra ) (2000) Symphony No. 2 for string orchestra (2000)