John Corigliano

American composer John Corigliano (b. 1938) is one of the most remarkable, compelling, and popular artists of our time. The majority of his work – three symphonies, eight instrumental concerti and over a hundred chamber, vocal, choral, and orchestral pieces have been performed and recorded by leading orchestras, soloists, and chamber musicians all over the globe. John Corigliano was born in New York on February 16, 1938. His father, John Corigliano Sr. was concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic for 23 years, and his mother, Rose was a pianist. Corigliano studied composition at Columbia University and at Manhattan School of Music. Before achieving fame as a composer, he worked as assistant to the producer on the Leonard Bernstein Young People's Concerts. Young Corigliano first came to prominence in 1964, when his Sonata for Violin and Piano was the only winner of the chamber music competition of the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds in Italy. Support followed by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, as did important commissions – for the New York Philharmonic, for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, for flutist James Galway, and for the National Symphony Orchestra. His works of recent years have included the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra: The Red Violin (2003), Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan (2000), a recording for which he won the 2009 Grammy Award for best Classical Contemporary Composition, as well as Symphony No. 2 for String Orchestra (2001), which holds a Pulitzer Prize in Music. Corigliano serves on the composition faculty at the Juilliard School of Music and holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Music at Lehman College, City University of New York, which has established a scholarship in his name.