Norman Dello Joio (January 24, 1913 – July 24, 2008) was an American composer active for over half a century. Best known for his choral music, he won a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1957.
Dello Joio was born in New York City to Italian immigrants. He began his musical career as organist and choir director at the Star of the Sea Church on City Island in New York at age 14. His father, Casimiro Dello Joio, was an organist, pianist, part-time composer, and vocal coach and coached many opera stars from the Metropolitan Opera. He taught Norman piano starting at the age of four. In his teens, Norman began studying organ with his godfather, Pietro Yon, who was the organist at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. In 1939, he received a scholarship to the Juilliard School, where he studied composition with Bernard Wagenaar.
While he was a student, he worked as organist at St. Anne's Church, but he soon decided that he didn't want to make his living as an organist. In 1941, he began studying with Paul Hindemith, who encouraged him to follow his own lyrical bent, rather than sacrificing it to atonal systems.
He received numerous awards and much recognition. He was a prolific composer in a variety of genres, but is perhaps best known for his choral music. Perhaps Dello Joio's best known work in the wind ensemble form is his Fantasies on a Theme by Haydn, which was composed for the Michigan State University Wind Ensemble and has been performed thousands of times internationally. Dello Joio also wrote several pieces for high school and professional string orchestra, including the difficult piece Choreography: Three Dances for String Orchestra. In 1948, he became associated with the dancer Martha Graham, for whom he wrote several works, including Diversion of Angels and Seraphic Dialogue, a recomposition for chamber orchestra of his Symphony: The Triumph of Saint Joan.
He won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Meditations on Ecclesiastes; first performed at the Juilliard School on April 20, 1956. His Variations, Chaconne and Finale won the New York Critics Circle Award in 1948. It is a full-orchestra expansion of the theme and variations in the first movement of his Piano Sonata No. 3.
In 1965, Dello Joio received the Emmy Award for the "most outstanding music written for television in the 1964–1965 Season" for his score to the 1964 NBC television special The Louvre. The composer created a five-movement suite for wind band entitled Scenes from The Louvre. The suite was commissioned by Baldwin-Wallace College for their symphonic band, and was premiered on March 13, 1966 with the composer conducting.
He taught at Sarah Lawrence College from 1944 to 1950, and at the Mannes College of Music. He also served as professor and dean at Boston University's College of Fine Arts. In 1978, he retired and moved to Long Island. He donated his personal archive of manuscripts and papers Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine to the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Despite infirmities, Dello Joio remained active as a composer until his final years, continuing to produce chamber, choral, and even orchestral music. He died in his sleep on July 24, 2008 at the age of 95 at his home in East Hampton, New York.
He had one daughter, performer, teacher and speaker coach, Victoria Dello Joio, and two sons, composer Justin Dello Joio and equestrian Norman Dello Joio.
Dello Joio's early works already reveal certain characteristics of his style. He liked to use traditional early music chants as a cantus firmus with richly contrapuntal settings. Gregorian melodies and jazzy rhythms are blended in a creatively spontaneous texture.
One use of his music is his score for choreographer Martha Graham's Diversion of Angels.
1937 (Began studies at Juilliard in the fall)
Ballad of Thomas Jefferson for voice (words by Louis Lerman; publ. Weaner-Levant 1943)
Quartet for four bassoons (unpublished, now lost)
Sonata [#1] for Violin and Piano (unpublished, now lost)
Sonata for Cello and Piano (unpublished, "Sonatina" manuscript in New York Public Library)
Trio for piano, violin and cello (unpublished, now lost) Winner of the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Award
Colloquy for violin and piano (unpublished, manuscript in New York Public Library)