Current projects

The 2010-11 season saw the world premiere of Cacioppo’s string quartet “Kinaaldá: the Rite of Changing Woman” by the Borromeo Quartet on the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music series in Tucson. The quartet is the last in his four-quartet cycle entitled WOMB OF THE SACRED MOUNTAINS, based on the Navajo creation legend. His music was also performed at distinguished venues such as Shatto Chapel in Los Angeles, the Taos Chamber Music Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society series, and the Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia.

Cacioppo (ctr) with The Quartetto di Venezia – June, 2006,
following performance at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles

Further performances took place at Yale University, The Temple Church, London, and at various locations throughout Italy in Umbria and the Veneto, and on radio, including a prominent interview on KUSC’s “Arts Alive” show. As a pianist, Cacioppo performed his own works, and those of 5 fellow composers, at the American Academy in Rome’s Villa Aurelia, and at Palazzo Albrizzi in Venice. At the Bad Harzburg Festival, he played the Brahms F-minor Quintet with the Quartetto di Venezia, who also gave the German premiere of his “Impressioni venexiane.” The 2011-12 season starts with the premiere of a major new choral work by The Crossing, a commission for the New York Chamber Brass, performances by Lyric Fest, the Borromeo Quartet, and pianist Emanuele Arciuli. His organ music is featured on the Navona Records disc “Heavy Pedal,” just released.

For presenters and prospective collaborators, here are titles of some past productions that he has been involved in, reflective of various themes. For a complete annotated program of any event or series, please contact him through this site and material will be furnished in PDF or other formats as requested.

• “The West” – major festival sponsored by the ACF and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Joseph Horowitz, artistic advisor
• “American Roots” –major festival of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the Newark Museum, Joseph Horowitz, artistic advisor
• “Fantasies and Reflections” – a program of premieres of new works, including the major piano cycle Three American Fantasies
• “A Celebration of Native American Ceremony: the Navajo Coyoteway” – week long residency with Navajo John Co’ií Cook & premiere by Moscow Quartet
• “The Distant Native Voice” – CD & Symposium highlighting the crossover of Native American and Euro-American musics
• “Incroci di Millennio/Millennium Crossings” – CD & tour – Italian and American piano music from the last quarter of the 20th century, a trans-Atlantic venture
• “Italy in Music, Verse and Vision” – a multi-media event, with international participation, centered on the work of Gabriele D’Annunzio
• “Liszt in Italy” – a multi-media realization of Liszt’s Italian-inspired solo works, with Kenneth Fearn, piano
• “Viva Vivaldi” – the premiere of oboe concerto, written for the International Venice Festival at the Chiesa della Pietà, based on Vivaldi’s famous Gloria
• “Beethoven for Bosnia” – all of the sonatas for piano and violin in a series of three benefit concerts to aid student refugees
• “German American Day” – featured artist for the 17th annual day of friendship, sponsored by the Deutsch-Amerikanischer Freundeskreis Niederrhein in Duisburg, Germany
• “Expressionist Miniatures” – a multi-media show combining music, art and poetry from early 20th century Germany and Austria

Past Collaborators

Artists and people of letters

Christopher Cairns (sculptor)
Renato D’Agostin (photographer, NY & Venice)
Retha & Steve Gambaro (sculptor & photographer)
Martha Kent (painter)
Hee Sook Kim (print maker, painter, installation artist)
Ying Li (painter)
Charles Stegeman Sr. (painter)
Kofi Agawu (musicologist)
Stanislaw Baranczak (Polish poetry)
Nancy Omaha Boy (the Native American experience)
Luigi Cerantola (Italian poet)
John Co’ií Cook (Navajo elder and spiritual leader)
Oliviero Corbetta (Italian actor)
George Dameron (history of medieval Italy)
Susan Dean (Native American Literature)
Ada Deer (Cherokee tribal leader, activist)
Ted Fernald (Athapaskan linguistics)
Richard Freedman (musicologist)
Ashok Gangadean (global philospher)
Berkant Haydin (president, Jospeh Marx Society)
Joseph Horowitz (author in music)
Paul Humphreys (ethnomusicologist)
Frederica de Laguna (anthropologist)
Frederick Mauk (musicologist)
David McAllester (ethnomusicologist)
Renzo Oliva (artist, author, Italian consul)
Owen Owens (environmentalism & human rights)
Vera Bauer Palmer (Native American studies)
John Peters (Supreme Medicine Man, Wampanoag Nation)
James Ransom (Native American Literature)
Joseph Russo (classics, Sicilian folklore)
Harvey Sachs (author in music)
Claudio Saltarelli (Italian poet)
Christopher O. Scaife (poet, actor, educator, academic leader)
Michael Sells (Islamicist & religion professor)
John Sessions (contemporary Italian music)
Inés Talamantez (Native American religion)
Vladimir Tamari (visual artist, physicist, inventor)
Friedrich Thiel (poet & writer, German & English)
Margot Villecco (design critic)
Barbara Wall (Peace & Justice Education)
Paul Zolbrod (Navajo language and legend)

Venues, festivals, conferences

Curt Cacioppo has appeared at 60 or more venues on the U.S. college/university circuit, at 40 or more gallery/library/community venues, at more than 16 prominent domestic venues, and at close to 50 foreign venues. He has participated in various roles at more than 40 festivals/residencies/conferences internationally.

Commissions

For those individuals and organizations who might wish to commission future works, please consult the works page to get a sense of his track record with commissions, grants, awards and prizes.