Search Results - Argento, Dominick

Dominick Argento

Dominick Argento (October 27, 1927 – February 20, 2019) was an American composer known for his lyrical operatic and choral music. Among his works are the operas ''Postcard from Morocco'', ''Miss Havisham's Fire'', ''The Masque of Angels'', and ''The Aspern Papers.'' He is also 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. His music freely combines tonality, atonality, and a lyrical use of twelve-tone writing. Argento's music defies the ''avant-garde'' fashions of the post-World War II era.

In the 1950s, Argento spent his time in both the United States and Italy, allowing his music to be influenced by both cultures. Many of his works were written in Florence, where he spent some time every year. Argento was a professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. He found the city's residents to be 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. He was one of the founders of the Center Opera Company (now the Minnesota Opera). ''Newsweek'' magazine once called the Twin Cities "Argento's town".

Argento wrote 14 operas, several major song cycles, orchestral works, and 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. Provided by Wikipedia