Douglas J. Cuomo
Encyclopedia
Douglas J. Cuomo is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer.

Biography

Born in Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...

, raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and Amherst
Amherst
- Higher education :*Amherst College, in Amherst, Massachusetts*University of Massachusetts Amherst- People :* Baron Amherst , in particular:** Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, 18th century British army officer...

, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, Douglas J. Cuomo began playing the trumpet in grade school and switched to guitar at the age of 12. While still in high school he studied with jazz greats Max Roach
Max Roach
Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...

 and Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...

 at the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...

.

He began his professional musical career at the age of 18, touring the country with a Las Vegas show band. He alternated years of college with years on the road as a guitarist, studying jazz, world music and ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 in Connecticut. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Miami
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...

 (Coral Gables) with a degree in jazz performance.

Cuomo’s first work to garner significant public notice was Atomic Opera, which was performed at the Ohio Theatre
Ohio Theatre
The Ohio Theatre is a performing arts center located at 39 E. State Street in Columbus, Ohio. Known as the "Official Theatre of the State of Ohio", the historic 1928 movie palace was saved from demolition in 1969 and completely restored...

 in downtown New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. The New York Times wrote that Cuomo's "elegiac and eerie" score "blends electronically treated classical fragments and vintage kitsch, suggests the breaking down and reconstitution of matter into something ominous and uncontrollable." After Atomic Opera, he scored fifteen productions for the Roundabout Theatre, including The Women, Design For Living, Hamlet, The Visit, and the Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

-winning Anna Christie.

In television, Cuomo has scored over 120 episodes for Homicide: Life on the Street
Homicide: Life on the Street
Homicide: Life on the Street is an American police procedural television series chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Homicide Unit. It ran for seven seasons on NBC from 1993 to 1999, and was succeeded by a TV movie, which also acted as the de-facto series finale...

. His credits include numerous series, movies, and documentaries for CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

, HBO and VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...

, among others. He has also scored a number of independent films, including Revolution#9,The Terrorist, and Crazy Love
Crazy Love
"Crazy Love" is a romantic ballad written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison and included on his 1970 album, Moondance. The song was released as a single in May 1970 with "Come Running" as the A side, and again in Holland with "Come Running" as the B side. The cover of the single...

, featuring pianist Billy Childs and trumpeter Chris Botti
Chris Botti
Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...

.
Cuomo also composed the theme to Sex & The City (HBO), praised by The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

 magazine for its "unusual, edgy salsa flavor" and the saxophone quartet music that opens and closes Now with Bill Moyers(PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

).

Cuomo’s collaborators have included the string quartet Ethel
Ethel
Ethel is an Old English word meaning "noble", frequently attested in Anglo-Saxon names. "Ethel" is derived from æthel, also spelled aethel and ethel. In Anglo-Saxon times it was a common first element in names e.g. "Ethelbert", "Etheldreda"...

, the PRISM saxophone quartet, the vocal group Anonymous 4
Anonymous 4
Anonymous 4 is a female a cappella quartet, based in New York City. Their main performance genre is medieval music, although they have also premiered works by living composers such as John Tavener and Steve Reich...

, violinist Mark Feldman
Mark Feldman
Mark Feldman is an American jazz violinist.Feldman worked in Chicago from 1973 to 1980, and in Nashville, Tennessee from 1980 to 1986. He worked in New York City and Western Europe from 1986. Feldman often works with John Zorn, Sylvie Courvoisier, John Abercrombie, The Masada String Trio, Dave...

, trumpeters Frank London
Frank London
Frank London is a New York City-based trumpeter, bandleader, and composer active in klezmer and world music. He also plays various other wind instruments and keyboards, and occasionally sings backup vocals. With The Klezmatics, he won a Grammy award in Contemporary World Music for "Wonder Wheel...

 and Steven Bernstein
Steven Bernstein
Steven Bernstein is a trumpeter, slide trumpeter, arranger/composer and bandleader from New York City. He is best known for his work in The Lounge Lizards, Sex Mob, Spanish Fly and the Millennial Territory Orchestra...

, pianists Oscar Hernandez
Oscar Hernandez
Oscar Hernandez is a Puerto Rican musician, musical arranger and producer.-Early years:Hernandez's family moved to the United States from Puerto Rico in the 1940s, in search of a better way of life. They settled down in the South Bronx, a ghetto, which is a section that is heavily populated by...

 and Brian Mitchell
Brian Mitchell
Brian Keith Mitchell is a former American football running back and return specialist in the National Football League. He was originally drafted by the Washington Redskins in the fifth round of the 1990 NFL Draft...

, drummers Robby Ameen and Roberto Rodriguez
Roberto Rodríguez
Roberto Rodríguez Muñoz is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Kansas City Athletics , Oakland Athletics , San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs ....

, tabla giant Badal Roy
Badal Roy
Badal Roy is a tabla player, percussionist, and recording artist known for his work in jazz, world music, and experimental music.-Biography:...

, guitarists Mark Stewart
Mark Stewart
Mark Stewart is the name of:*Mark Stewart , British musician, founding member and vocalist of The Pop Group*Mark Stewart , New York City based multi-instrumentalist who has worked as a guitarist e.g...

 and Dave Fuzinski and many others.

In 2008 Cuomo composed Arjuna’s Dilemma, a 70-minute opera-oratorio incorporating an Indian vocalist, a classically-trained tenor, a four-member female chorus, a tabla player, an improvising tenor saxophonist, and a ten-piece chamber ensemble. Arjuna’s Dilemma has been produced by the Music-Theatre Group, and was performed at BAM
Bam
Bam is commonly used as an onomatopoeia for a sound, mostly that of an impact or collision.Bam or BAM may also refer to:Places:*Bam, Iran, a city*Bam County, an administrative subdivision of Iran*Bam Province, Burkina Faso...

's Next Wave Festival. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

described Arjuna's Dilemma as "an opera with an appealing and unabashedly eclectic score." A recording of Arjuna’s Dilemma, performed by artists including Indian singer Amit Chatterjee, members of Anonymous 4 and the Philip Glass Ensemble
Philip Glass Ensemble
The Philip Glass Ensemble is a musical group founded by composer Philip Glass in 1968 to serve as a performance outlet for his experimental minimalist music. The Ensemble's instrumentation became a hallmark of Glass' early minimalist style...

, tenor Tony Boutté, Badal Roy, Ethel, pianist Kathleen Supove, and bassist Robert Black of the Bang on a Can All Stars, was released on Innova Recordings.

In addition to Arjuna’s Dilemma, his concert works include a Kyrie
Kyrie
Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek κύριε , vocative case of κύριος , meaning "Lord", is the common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, which is also called the Kýrie, eléison ....

 for And on Earth, Peace (2007) commissioned by the vocal ensemble Chanticleer
Chanticleer
- Fiction :*A rooster appearing in fables about Reynard The Fox**The Nun's Priest's Tale, a version of Chanticleer and the Fox told in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales**By metonymy, any rooster**A character in the movie Rock-a-Doodle played by Glen Campbell...

, premiered by the group at the Temple of Dendur
Temple of Dendur
The Temple of Dendur is a temple that was built by the Roman governor of Egypt, Petronius, around 15 BC and dedicated to Isis, Osiris, as well as two deified sons of a local Nubian chieftain, Pediese and Pihor...

 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

, and recorded on Warner Music; and Fortune for The Young People's Chorus under the direction of Francisco Nunez. Cuomo composed Only Breath for cello and electronics, commissioned by Maya Beiser
Maya Beiser
Maya Beiser is an American cellist who lives in New York City. She has an international career as a performer and recording artist. She was raised on a kibbutz in Israel by her French mother and Argentine father, and graduated from Yale University School of Music...

 for an evening-length program titled Provenance, performed at the Arts & Ideas Festival, the Ravinia Festival, and Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

. Other works include A Winter's Journey, a setting of Wilhelm Müller
Wilhelm Müller
Wilhelm Müller was a German lyric poet.-Life:Wilhelm Müller was born at Dessau, the son of a tailor. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native town and at the university of Berlin, where he devoted himself to philological and historical studies...

's text for Schubert's Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...

song cycle, scored for mezzo-soprano, trumpet, cello, and electronics.

Awards

Cuomo has received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

, Mabou Mines
Mabou Mines
Mabou Mines is an avant-garde theatre company founded in 1970 and based in New York City.-History:Mabou Mines is a collaborative, avant-garde theater company based in New York City...

, Meet the Composer
Meet the Composer
Meet the Composer is an American organization founded in 1974 by the composer John Duffy as a project of the New York State Council on the Arts. It seeks to assist composers in making a living through writing music by sponsoring commissioning, residency, education, and audience interaction...

, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Hermitage Artist Retreat, and has received three BMI Television Music Awards. His theme for Sex and The City
Sex and the City
Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...

 was chosen by TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

 as one of the top 50 television themes of all time.

Douglas J. Cuomo’s compositions are published by Schott Music
Schott Music
Schott Music is one of the oldest German music publishers. It is also one of the largest music publishing houses in Europe and is currently the second oldest music publishing house. The company headquarters of Schott Music was founded by Bernhard Schott in Mainz, Germany in 1770.Established in...

.

External links

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