Norman Dello Joio: Complete Works for Piano, Vol. 3

The distinguished professional musical career of Norman Dello Joio began for him at age fourteen when he became a church organist and choir director of the Star of the Sea Church on City Island, New York. A descendant of Italian church organists, his father was an organist, pianist, singer and vocal coach. Dello Joio recalls that his father was working with singers from the Metropolitan Opera who used to arrive in their Rolls Royces, and that his childhood was surrounded with music and musicians at home. In 1939, he was accepted as a scholarship student at Juilliard where he studied with Bernard Wagenaar. In 1941, he studied at Tanglewood and Yale with Paul Hindemith who told him "your music is lyrical by nature; don't ever forget that." Dello Joio has won the New York Music Critics' Circle Award in 1948 and again in 1962. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for Meditations on Ecclesiastes for string orchestra and an Emmy for his music to the television special, Scenes from the Louvre. He taught at Sarah Lawrence College, the Mannes College of Music, and was Professor of Music and Dean of the Fine and Applied Arts School of Boston University. From 1959 to 1973, he directed the Ford Foundation's Contemporary Music Project, which placed young composers in residence in high schools with a salary to compose music for school ensembles and programs. In 2001, at the age of 88, Dello Joio continues to compose with no signs of retiring. His life achievements and compositions have enriched the landscape of American music. There are two other volumes available in this series (TROY344 & TROY359).