Rocco Di Pietro
Encyclopedia
Chris Chafe
Christopher David Chafe, born 1952 in Bern, Switzerland, is a musician, scientist, and the director of the Stanford University Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics...
on INet2 and with Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
and Chryssie Nanou. As a guest composer he will show his work to Jonathan Berger
Jonathan Berger
Jonathan Berger is an American composer. His works include orchestral, chamber, vocal, choral and electro-acoustic music. He has been commissioned by some of today’s most exciting chamber ensembles and has enjoyed commissions and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bourges...
and Paul de Marinis and write a new section of "The Comedy of The Real" for Ge Wang
Ge Wang
Ge Wang is a Chinese American musician and computer scientist, known for developing the ChucK audio programming language as a graduate student advised by Perry Cook, and for being co-founder and chief technology officer of Smule, a company making iPhone and iPad music apps...
and the Stanford Lap Top Orchestra at CCRMA (Center for Computing, Research, Music and Acoustics) as well as performing in a public concert and seminar of his music.
Notable works biography
Rocco Di Pietro was born in Buffalo, New YorkBuffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
in 1949. He attended the Berkshire Music Center, Tanglewood, where he won an ASCAP Fellowship to study composition with Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss was a German-born American composer, conductor, and pianist.-Music career:He was born Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany in 1922. His father was the philosopher and scholar Martin Fuchs...
and Bruno Maderna
Bruno Maderna
Bruno Maderna was an Italian conductor and composer. For the last ten years of his life he lived in Germany and eventually became a citizen of that country.-Biography:...
, and where Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
performed his Drafts (1971) for chamber ensemble by the Berkshire Music Center ensemble.
He performed his Acoustic Poems (1972) for piano, at the Creative Associates Evenings for New Music at the Albright Knox Art Gallery, May 1973, Buffalo, New York, for an audience that included Morton Feldman, Lukas Foss, Julius Eastman, Lejarin Hiller and Yuji Takahashi among others. It was reviewed in the Buffalo Courier Express and in the Buffalo Evening News.
Di Pietro was commissioned by Bruno Maderna through Sheldon Soffer for a work for the Nancy Meehan Dance company. His Piece for Bruno (1974) was conducted by Dennis Russell Davies and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra at the American Dance Festival in New London, Connecticut, in 1974.
His Etudes for the Youths Magic Horn (1975–76) for chorus and chamber orchestra, was commissioned by Lukas Foss and conducted by Lukas Foss and the Brooklyn Philharmonic
Brooklyn Philharmonic
The Brooklyn Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, commonly known as the Brooklyn Philharmonic, is an American orchestra based in the borough of Brooklyn, in New York City...
at the Cooper Union in New York and reviewed in the NY Times in 1983.
Melodia Della Terra (1976) for solo violin was written for Christiane Edinger and performed by Edinger at the 92nd Street ‘Y’ in New York on June 26, 1980 and reviewed in the New York Post and the New York Times. Its first European performance was in Madrid, Spain in 1987.
His Piece for Danilo Dolci (1976) was commissioned by Leonard Holvik for Earlham College
Earlham College
Earlham College is a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It was founded in 1847 by Quakers and has approximately 1,200 students.The president is John David Dawson...
. It is for clarinet, string orchestra and chorus, and was conducted by Leonard Holvik and the Earlham College Chorus and orchestra at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York in 1977.
His Homemade Aria (1978) for chamber orchestra was commissioned by Julius Eastman and the CETA Program and conducted by Eastman and the Ceta Orchestra at the Kitchen, in New York in 1978, as well as by Paul Dunkel at Fordham University in a program of Italian and Italian–American Music.
He performed his Aria for Piano (1978) at the Darmstadt Ferien Kurse Für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, Germany in July 1978 where it caused a minor sensation in its re-use of tonality in Gurdjieff
G. I. Gurdjieff
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff according to Gurdjieff's principles and instructions, or the "Fourth Way."At one point he described his teaching as "esoteric Christianity."...
octaves.
Donizetti in Buffalo from ‘Two Orchestral Portraits’ (1978) was commissioned by Julius Eastman. It is for baritone voice and chamber orchestra to a text by Hart Crane and was sung by Eastman and conducted by Jeffery Lohn at La MaMa in New York 1982, it was reviewed in The New York Times.
Melodia Assoluta (1978–80) was written for Frances Marie Uitti for solo cello and was premiered by Uitti at the Conservatorio San Resertorio, Naples, Italy in 1980.
Una Macchinetta Infernale (1978) was written for Frances Marie Uitti for cello, piano and magnetic tape and was played by Uitti and Yvar Mikhashoff at the American Academy in Rome, Italy, and at the De Ijsbreker in Amsterdam, Holland in 1980.
Punto Vivo (1979) for chamber orchestra, was written for Bruno Di Pietro (3 years old) first performed by Lukas Foss, the Sequoia String Quartet and ensemble ‘Sonor’ at the OJAI Festival, Ojai, California on May 23, 1980 and reviewed in the Los Angeles Times.
Bel Canto Duo (1980–81) for violin and piano was commissioned by violinist Christiane Edinger and pianist Gerhard Pulchelt, and premiered by this duo on November 1, 1981 in Munich, Germany for the Bavarian Radio, and reviewed in the München Merkur.
Aria Grande (1980–81) for violin and wind orchestra, was commissioned by Christiane Edinger and Bavarian Radio Orchestra conducted by Cristobal Halffter on February 25, 1983 in the Herkulessal der Residenz, Munich, Germany. It was broadcast on radio stations throughout Germany and Europe, and reviewed in the Süddeutsche Zeitung
Süddeutsche Zeitung
The Süddeutsche Zeitung , published in Munich, is the largest German national subscription daily newspaper.-Profile:The title literally translates as "South German Newspaper". It is read throughout Germany by 1.1 million readers daily and boasts a relatively high circulation abroad...
.
Overture (1980–81) for orchestra of 100 percussion instruments was written for Jan Williams and performed by Williams and the University of Buffalo Percussion Ensemble at Baird Hall in 1980 and reviewed in the Buffalo Evening News.
Melodia Arcana (1980–83) for mallet percussion and tape was written for Anthony Miranda and performed at the Composers Forum Concert in New York at the DIA Foundation on December 4, 1987, and reviewed in the Village Voice. Its first European performance took place on August 25, 1988 at the American School in Paris, France by Miranda.
Melodia Nera (1980–82) for solo timpani was written for Jan Williams, and first performed at the Jetske Conservatory, Denmark, and recorded for Danish radio on March 10, 1981.
Phantom Melos (1981) commissioned by Russell Link for saxophone quartet. It was written for the Amherst Saxophone Quartet on the occasion of the sesquicentennial of the city of Buffalo and first performed at the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts on February 23, 1982. It was reviewed in the Buffalo Evening News.
Legende for the 13 of November (1982) for piano trio, was written for the tenth anniversary of Maderna’s death and first performed by the Seoul Contemporary Music Ensemble at the National Theater, Seoul, South Korea in 1986.
Three Popular Songs (1984) for voice, piano and percussion, was written for Juli Douglass and first performed by her with Anthony Miranda, Jan Williams, and Mary Lou Manaher, at the Dia Art Foundation in New York in 1987 and reviewed in the Village Voice.
Paragone (1985) for solo guitar was first performed by David Maglia, at the Villa Maria College
Villa Maria College
Villa Maria College is a private college located in Cheektowaga, New York specializing in music and the arts. It was founded in 1961 by the Felician Sisters of Buffalo....
in Buffalo, New York in 1986.
Three Black American Folk Songs (1987) for voice, saxophone, piano and tape. It was commissioned by Russell Link for the students of the Buffalo Arts Academy on Martin Luther King’s birthday. It was performed by Pam Smith and the Bang on a Can All Stars, at Bang on a Can Festival at the Society for Ethical Culture in New York and reviewed in the Village Voice in 1992.
Annales Sans Condition; Solo for Homeless Percussionist (1987) was written for Anthony Miranda and first performed by him at Slee Hall at the SUNY at the University of Buffalo in 1997.
He completes his first monograph, the book; A New Peasant Consciousness: Menocchio The Precursor (1988). This work is presented to Vermont College as his thesis and he is granted a Master of Arts in Music and Social History. It includes the musical works: Etudes for Menocchio (1985–87) written for Juli Douglass and first sung by her with David Maglia, Eva Botai and Mary Lou Manaher at the Erie County Public Library Auditorium, Buffalo, NY. 1987. It also included Annales For Menocchio, both after Carlo Ginzburg’s book:” The Cheese and the Worms.” Di Pietro corresponds with Natalie Zemon Davis, historian and author of” The Return of Marin Guerre,” and travels to Los Angeles to Visit Carlo Ginzburg to discuss an opera on the life of the peasant, Domenico Scandella known as Menocchio. The final work ends up transformed into an interdisciplinary gloss: opera, film, lecture, book, slides and music, presented at once or piece meal.
He begins a new chapter teaching ‘Annales’ historiography and ‘Micro-Storia’ in prisons throughout New York (for Medaille College), Ohio (for Ashland College and Urbana University), and California as a guest of the William James association. Emerging to the post-modern he tests himself against reality and becomes an interdisciplinary scholar in prison where he is asked to research and teach courses in Sociology, Anthropology and Abnormal Psychology, which he does for eleven years. Later he would add to this: Critical Theory, Philosophy, Musicology and Art Theory which all added up to his own form of a Cultural Studies approach. He often aimed at examining his subjects in terms of their relationship to ‘power’. In the end he finds he has made a grinding machine in which all these influences are ground down into a fine powder and he does the same thing with sound. With literature leading the way he finds his way back to music; which he discovers like LaDurie’s shepherd Pierre Maury, had never gone away. His destiny became a destination.
Homemade Aria with Black Melody (1991) for timpani and chamber orchestra was conducted by Timothy Russell and the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra at Weigel Hall at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio in 1993 after receiving a Greater Columbus Arts Council grant.
Prison Dirges model version A- (1993–95) for life stories, magnetic tape and TV monitor, had its first performance at the Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California in 1995. He was invited to attend a conference on the state of US prisons called:” What Next” in San Francisco after winning an Ohio Arts Council grant. He became artist in residence at the Headlands Center in 1995.
46 Injured Birds (1995) for magnetic tape was first performed on Alcatraz Island
Alcatraz Island
Alcatraz Island is an island located in the San Francisco Bay, offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. Often referred to as "The Rock" or simply "Traz", the small island was developed with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, a military prison, and a Federal...
with Richard Kamler’s ‘A Table of Voices’ exhibit, Alcatraz, San Francisco, CA. 1996.
A Network of Radiation(1995) for speaker, accordion, and boom-boxes was commissioned by the Headlands Center and performed as an interactive music walk at the army barracks of the Presidio at the Headlands Center’s “Next Time Festival,” San Francisco, CA. August 1995.
While teaching in prison, he completes five years of conversation (1996–2000) in Chicago and Cleveland with Pierre Boulez. He publishes his second book: Dialogues with Boulez, (Scarecrow Press) in 2001. He wanted to ask the maestro, ‘where the new music went’? He travels to Paris to present the book to IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique Musique) and is guest lecturer on the book at the invitation of Mills College and Stanford University, in California 2002-2003. He also attends the Stockhausen Summer Course for Music, in Kürten
Kürten
Kürten is a village and a municipality in the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Neighbouring places:Nearby cities include Bergisch Gladbach, Overath, Wermelskirchen, and Wipperfürth...
, Germany and writes an essay on his experiences there in Musician Without Notes.
Tears of Eros/ Torso Version B/ Multiple (2001) for piano and magnetic tape, was first performed by Rocco Di Pietro, piano at the Now Music Festival, Goat Hall, San Francisco, CA. December 2001.
Mobile Phone Dream B with Lost (2002) for piano, celletto and electronics was first performed at a missing persons concert, by Chris Chafe, celleto and Rocco Di Pietro, piano, Goat Hall, San Francisco, CA. June 2002.
Chamber Orchestra Lost (2002) conducted by Rocco Di Pietro with the Stanford U. Ensemble at the Cantor Arts Museum, Stanford University, CA. September 2003, and by Mark Applebaum and his students at Stanford in 2004.
Prison Dirges model version B- (1993–95) for life stories, accordion and magnetic tape, was performed at the Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey Festival, Los Angeles, CA. March 2005.
Wave Fugue with Electronic Lost (2003) for piano and digital electro-acoustic sound, was performed by Rocco Di Pietro, piano at the ISCM World Music Days, Florida International University
Florida International University
Florida International University is an American public research university in metropolitan Miami, Florida, in the United States, with its main campus in University Park...
, Miami, Florida April 2005.
Solo Lost 5 with Electric Shadows (2003) for bass flute, candles and fixed media. First performed by Robert Dick at Roulette Experimental Inter-media, May 25, 2007 in New York.
Di Pietro completes his third book: The Normal Exception: Life Stories, Reflections and Dreams From Prison, which he has collected and edited over a ten year period. He documents and video tapes inmate life stories in his classes as a prison habilitationist as part of a larger musical, theatrical and ethnographic project: The Prison Dirges cycle. An interdisciplinary series of detachable diptychs with panels of text and sound and story. These movable islands of spectacle includes the book ‘The Normal Exception’ which he presents piece meal in venues from Alcatraz Island, San Francisco to Roulette Experimental Inter-media, New York.
As his prison work came to an end it over lapped with another venture, and he begins his moonlighting as social worker while teaching in the Humanities as a lecturer for Columbus State Community College
Columbus State Community College
]Columbus State Community College, commonly referred to as CSCC, was first established in Columbus, Ohio as Columbus Area Technician's School in 1963 and was renamed Columbus Technical Institute in 1965...
. He teaches a sequence of electronic music courses and founds an annual electronic music festival while simultaneously playing his music with both Avant-Collective and his own ensemble. It is at this time that years of research into critical theory and post-modern philosophers bears fruit in his teaching of “Music and Art Since 1940". A two CD retrospective of his works comes out in 2004: Multiples and The Lost Project and is reviewed in Fanfare magazine. His Lost Project, based on the musical monograms of lost children was his third large scale project of open ended works and made an attempt to make connections between his social work and his music. He received small grants from the Puffin Foundation for both his endeavors as a ‘social composer’.
The Lost Project is presented at Dartmouth College and Stanford University and on street corners, churches and community festivals and in New York at Roulette in 2007.
The Third Position (2004) From the Comedy of the Real-Cycle. Radio Drama for speaker, various instruments, and electro-acoustic sound. Justin Isom actor, Rocco Di Pietro speaker, David Reed sampler and Jan Williams timpani. First Broadcast by Art@radio Baltimore, New York, Helsinki and Amsterdam 2005.
Later (2004) for guitar and electronics, written for Larry Marotta, guitar, and David Reed electronics was performed at the Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey, Los Angeles, CA. April 2006.
Three Studies for a Finale (2005) (Katrina Youth- hand bell monograms) for hand bells, accordion, el. guitar, voice and electronics was written for Hannah Corbin and performed by Corbin, Rocco Di Pietro, Larry Marotta, David Reed and Rebecca Henkel, at the COMFEST Community Festival, Goodale Park, Solar Tent, Columbus, Ohio, June 2006.
Post Cards From the Impossible (2006) (In memoriam Justin Isom) for reciter and guitar, with hand instruments, was written for Derek Zoladz. It was performed by Justin Isom: reciter, Derek Zoladz: guitar, at the Acme Art Co. Columbus, Ohio, February 2006.
Deconstructed Fountain From Ravel With Derrida Watching (1996) was performed by Cristina Valdes piano, and Rocco Di Pietro, tape at BEAF (Bellingham Electro-Acoustic Festival) in December,2006 at the University of Bellingham, Washington.
Wind Swept Centering and Faust/ from Multiples Piano Pieces (1995) was performed by pianist Cristina Valdes at the ISCM World Music Days at Florida International University, Miami, FL. April, 2007.
Chamber Prison Dirges/Multiple (2005) for chamber ensemble, performed by Paul Pinto and thingNY, ensemble at the Yippie Museum/Café, Greenwich Village, New York on December 7, 2007.
Harmonic Injured Bird/Multiple (2006) for piano, life stories and tape, was first performed by Kathy Supove, piano, at Location One, Roulette Experimental Inter-media, New York City on May 25, 2007.
Caprices for Goya (2007) (Two from The Unquiet Notebook) for piano four hands and tape, performed by Kathy Supove and Rocco Di Pietro at Roulette Experimental Inter-medium, May 25, 2007 in New York City.
A Turning With Frames For Pauline Oliveros (From the Comedy of the Real) (2003–2006) a digital electro-acoustic non-improvisation for instruments ,electronic sounds and erased texts with added texts by Jean Francois Lyotard recited by Rocco di Pietro, and first performed with piano at Roulette Experimental Intermedium, May 2007.
Lamps from Look (2007) (Modified Crippled Hands- Andante) for piano, lap steel guitar and Korg synthesizer, performed by Rocco Di Pietro: piano, Larry Marotta: guitar, and Derek Zoladz, synthesizer at the ISIM (International Society for Improvised Music) Northwestern University, Chicago, IL. December 15, 2007.
He gathers essays for his fourth book Musician Without Notes, and under takes yet another large interdisciplinary cycle: The Comedy Of The Real (2003–2009). It is a series of radio dramas in the form of ‘positions’ emanating outward in a spiral. The Third Position is the first installment broadcast on radio stations in New York, Helsinki and Amsterdam through Art@Radio in Baltimore. The CD came out in 2006, and was announced in The Wire, Signal to Noise, and Fanfare magazines in 2007.
‘The Comedy’, (both human and otherwise) makes reference to La Divina Commedia, (Dante) Le Comedie Humaine (Balzac) and the consciousness studies of Julian Jaynes. It traverses his recent concerns of creating something transgressive within post-modernism, simulation and the hyper-real as well as investigating body traps and entrainment processes in trance experience. The text writing for the Fourth and Fifth Positions are complete and the narration moves from an “I “of the The Third Position with its mistakes left in, to a “He” of the Fifth Position and lastly of a neutered “It” of the in progress Sixth Position without mistakes. His also in progress Rhizome for Evelyn Glennie for percussion and real time electronics with stone instruments,( stones as drops of consciousness that contain world rhythms) and a new series of Chiaroscuros (Caravaggio, Dowland, Colombe) all present a world of authentic feeling, ”a fragment of feeling” (Scoville) within a world of “Can thought Go on Without A Body”? Hence transgressing; the encroaching robotics of the Matrix? He hopes to show that music is also a contestation in “counteracting human alienation in a world of utility.”
In 2006 he was given a grant by Columbus State College to take his students to Stanford University to participate in Chris Chafe’s sophomore college class. Derek Zoladz and Rebecca Henkel performed and presented work at Stanford and Di Pietro performed with Pauline Oliveros. He returned in 2007 with Zoladz to interview John Chowning at CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics) concerning Chowning’s new work “Voices” for soprano and computer. He was interested in asking Chowning questions on the works relationship to consciousness studies. For 2008 four new CD’s are ready to be released.
Works
- "Melodia Della Terra" (1976) for solo violin
- "Melodia Arcana" (1980–83) for percussion and magnetic tape
- "Melodia Nera" (1980) for timpani
- "Prison Dirges" (1996)
- "Etudes for Crippled Hands" (1999) for piano
- "Tears of Eros" (2000)
Discography
- http://www.cdemusic.org/store/cde_search.cfm?keywords=rdipietrocds Multiples/The Lost Project
- http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/roccodipietro2 The Third Position
Awards
- Headlands Center for the Arts Fellowship (1995)
- Yaddo Colony Fellowship (1990)
- The MacDowell Colony Fellowship (1989)
- Puffin Foundation (1989)
- Meet the Composer Grants (1983–85)
- American Dance Foundation (1974)
Archives
- State University of New York at Buffalo, Baird Music Hall Library, Amherst N.Y.
- American Music Center-New York, N.Y.
- Darmstadt Ferienkurse Fur Neue Musik- Library, Darmstadt, Germany
- Mid American Center for Contemporary Music, Bowling Green, OH.
- Electro-Acoustic Society of Great Britain, London, England State University of New York at Buffalo, Baird Music Hall Library, Amherst N.Y.