Graduate Student, Music
Benjamin Franklin PhD Fellow in Music
About
Tony Solitro (b. 1984, Worcester, MA) is a composer of both acoustic and electro-acoustic music and has written for diverse ensembles and instrumentations. His catalog includes compositions for large ensemble, numerous vocal works (opera, art song with piano and other mixed instrumental ensembles, choral), chamber music, fixed and interactive electronic works, and incidental music for theatrical productions (Molière's Learned Ladies and Shakespeare's The Tempest). He has participated in readings with renown ensembles such as the Pacifica Quartet, Daedalus Quartet and counter)induction.
Recent commissions include War Wedding, for tenor and piano, which was commissioned by the American tenor, Justin Vickers, and was awarded The University of Pennsylvanian’s Helen L. Weiss Award for vocal compositions. Upcoming engagements include an opera vignette based on a tale from Boccaccio’s Decameron, commissioned by the American Composers Forum, Philadelphia Chapter, which will be premiered by the International Opera Theater in November, 2010; and a new trio for flute, violin, and violoncello will be premiered by Network for New Music, also in November, 2010.
Tony holds degrees from the Longy School of Music (MM) where he was a recipient of the Nadia and Lily Boulanger Scholarship, and the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford (BM). His principal composition teachers include James Primosch, Jay Reise, Anna Weesner, Paul Brust, Robert Carl, Larry Alan Smith, and computer music with Brad Garton and Jeremy VanBuskirk. Tony also studied as a composition fellow at the Brevard Music Center with Kevin Puts and Robert Aldridge, as a visiting student at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music with David Dzubay, and at the Uzmah International Summer Music School in Croatia with Joel Hoffman; and has participated in master classes with Joan Panetti, Scott Wheeler, Claudio Gabriele and John McDonald.
Tony is currently a Benjamin Franklin PhD Fellow at The University of Pennsylvania, and resides in Philadelphia, PA. For the current academic year, he is also a visiting scholar at the Computer Music Center at Columbia University. To hear recordings, see videos, and to find out about upcoming events, visit www.tonysolitro.com.
