Dominick Argento Contemporary American composer Date of Birth: 27.10.1927 Country: USA

1. Biography of Dominick Argento
2. Early Life and Education
3. Career and Achievements
4. Later Life

Biography of Dominick Argento

Dominick Argento, a contemporary American composer, was a leading expert in the field of lyrical opera and choral music. He taught at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and was one of the founders of the Center Opera Company, which later became the Minnesota Opera.

Early Life and Education

Dominick Argento was born on October 27, 1927, in York, Pennsylvania, to Sicilian immigrants. Ironically, despite becoming a famous composer, he found music lessons in school unbearably dull. After high school, Argento was drafted into the army, where he learned cryptography. After being discharged, he became a student at the Peabody Conservatory, where he initially studied piano before focusing on composition. His teachers included Henry Cowell and Hugo Weisgall, and he earned a bachelor's degree in 1951 and a master's degree in 1953.

While at the conservatory, Argento served as the musical director of the Hilltop Musical Company, where local composers could showcase their new works. This experience allowed him to immerse himself in the world of new opera. The company's director was writer John Olon-Scrymgeour, with whom Argento later collaborated on many operas.

In the early 1950s, Argento split his time between America and Italy and spent a year in Florence on a Fulbright Fellowship, studying under Luigi Dallapiccola. He considered this experience to be life-changing. He then earned his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music and received a Guggenheim Fellowship, which allowed him to spend another year in Florence and compose some of his important works.

Career and Achievements

In 1958, Argento moved to Minneapolis with his wife and began teaching theory and composition at the University of Minnesota. For several years, he received commissions from almost every major local ensemble. He felt a constant sense of interest in his work, which made him feel at home in Minnesota, even though he initially did not want to move there and hoped to find a teaching position on the East Coast.

He began writing music for productions at the newly built Guthrie Theatre in 1963 and, in the same year, co-founded the Center Opera Company with Olon-Scrymgeour. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, Argento wrote the short opera "The Masque of Angels," which solidified his reputation as an outstanding choral composer. By 1971, when his daringly surreal opera "Postcard from Morocco" opened at the Center Opera, his fame had reached a national scale.

Argento received commissions from the New York City Opera, Minnesota Opera, Washington Opera, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and many other ensembles. In the mid-1970s, he began writing choral works for the Plymouth Church Choir in Minneapolis, led by his friend Philip Brunelle. The premieres of his works took place at Plymouth Church and the Minnesota Opera, where Brunelle was also the musical director. During this period, Argento created "Jonah and the Whale" in 1973 for the Plymouth Congregational Church and St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral.

In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1975 for his song cycle "From the Diary of Virginia Woolf," Argento received further recognition in 2004. His recording of the song cycle "Casa Guidi" by American mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade with the Minnesota Orchestra earned him a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. In the same year, he published his memoir, "Catalogue Raisonné as Memoir."

Later Life

Dominick Argento currently holds the title of Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota. He still resides in Minneapolis and continues to compose.