Justin Casinghino

From Wind Repertory Project
Justin D. Casinghino

Biography

Justin D. Casinghino is an American composer, performer and educator.

Dr. Casinghino received his BM from the Hartt School of Music in composition and jazz studies); MM, Longy School of Music (composition); and DMA, Boston University (composition). His studies of composition include work with, amongst others, Gunther Schuller, Lukas Foss, Theodore Antoniou and Richard Cornell.

He is a lecturer in the departments of composition and theory at Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is the Associate Director of the Young Artists’ Composition Program at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

Casinghino composes in a variety of genres, striving to create works that are lyrical, rich in harmony and possess a sound structural integrity. Also a performer in the jazz and popular idioms, this influence is often present in his music, but commonly at subtle levels. Casinghino has had pieces requested and performed by such groups as the Boston Symphony Orchestra Wind Quintet, ALEA III, the Longy Chamber Orchestra, the Rivers Symphony Orchestra, the Arneis String Quartet, the Lorelei Vocal Ensemble and the wind quintet Vento Chiaro, and has recently had works presented at such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, and Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall in the Massachusetts Berkshires. Casinghino is the founder and director of the Boston Composers’ Coalition, a group that is dedicated to the collaborative creation, education and dissemination of new American music.

A firm believer that pedagogy is an art within itself, Casinghino takes great pride in his students of composition, who have won awards including numerous ASCAP Young Composer and Downbeat composition prizes, and have earned commissions and performances by such ensembles as the Boston Pops, the Newton Symphony Orchestra and Dinosaur Annex. Casinghino performs throughout the New England area on piano, Hammond organ, SATB saxophones and as a vocalist with a number of “popular” genre groups, and is regularly recruited as a guest speaker and lecturer on a variety of musical topics.


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