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Louis Chiappetta

composer

Louis Chiappetta (b. 1989) is an American composer whose works have been performed across the United States and abroad in venues including the Helsinki Music Centre, London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and at the Aspen Music Festival, Dartington International Summer School, Aldeburgh Music Festival, Musica nova Helsinki, and Tanglewood Music Center. Ensembles that have performed his music include the Helsinki Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, Britten-Pears Contemporary Ensemble, Music from Copland House, and New Fromm Players.

Adrift, Chiappetta’s first work for orchestra, was commissioned by Kaija Saariaho with funds from the Saariaho 60th birthday fund administered by Chester Music. The work, published by Chester Music, was premiered on the opening concert of the 2015 Musica nova Helsinki festival by John Storgårds and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, which was televised live in Finland and webcast internationally. More recently Chiappetta completed Circle Limit, a solo cello piece for Utah Symphony principal cellist Rainer Eudeikis inspired by Escher etchings, and This is no less curious for piano, written in memory of Steve Stucky, which will be recorded by pianist Gloria Cheng for a forthcoming disc released by Bridge records.

To date Chiappetta’s work has been recognized by ASCAP (2010 Morton Gould Young Composer Award) and The American Academy of Arts and Letters (2011 Charles Ives Scholarship), and the Cleveland Institute of Music (2011 Donald Erb Prize). In 2012 he was also the recipient of a Fulbright grant awarded by the U.S. Department of State, and spent a year in London as a Fulbright postgraduate scholar at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Chiappetta began his formal composition training at the Mannes College of Music Preparatory Division at the age of thirteen, and holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Cornell University. His principal instructors have been Julian Anderson, Steven Stucky and Keith Fitch. He has also taken part in workshops and courses mentored by Kaija Saariaho, Oliver Knussen, Michael Gandolfi and Derek Bermel amongst others. In March 2012 he participated in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute professional training workshop lead by Kaija Saariaho and the cellist Anssi Karttunen which included the premiere of his string trio Loops, Clocks, and Shadows at Zankel Hall. In 2016 Chiappetta was the recipient of the Patricia Plum Wylde composition fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center.