String Orchestra of Brooklyn

Chris Cerrone

Hailed as “a rising star” by The New Yorker and noted by Wired for his work at “the leading edge of operatic innovation,” Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984, Huntington, NY) is a Brooklyn-based composer of a wide range of orchestral, operatic, chamber and multimedia works.

Cerrone’s first opera, Invisible Cities, based on Italo Calvino’s classic surrealist novel, is a 2014 Pulitzer Prize nominated finalist, and has been praised by The Los Angeles Times as “A delicate and beautiful opera…[which] could be, and should be, done anywhere.” Invisible Cities received its fully-staged world premiere in Fall 2013, in a wildly popular production by The Industry, directed by Yuval Sharon in Los Angeles’s Union Station.  The production, which sold-out twenty-two performances, will be taken on international tour in the 2015/2016 season.  Invisible Cities will be published worldwide by Schott Music, and released as a commercial recording by The Industry’s new in-house label.

Other notable projects include a a new work for soprano Hila Plitmann and the  Los Angeles Philharmonic, to be premiered in 2015; a new work for eighth blackbird; live original scores for installations at the New Museum and the Time Warner Center by artist and filmmaker Marco Brambilla; a staged production of a chamber opera, All Wounds Bleed, by the Tulsa Opera; a violin concerto, commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony for Amadeus Leopold; a Carnegie Hall commission for Ensemble ACJW; and Memory Palace, a solo work for custom-built percussion instruments and live electronics, commissioned by the American Composers Forum’s JFund.

Cerrone has received awards and grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Chamber Music America, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, OPERA America, the Jerome Foundation, the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music, ASCAP, and New Music USA.  He has served as composer-in-residence at the Carlsbad Music Festival and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy.

A co-founder of Red Light New Music, Christopher Cerrone is one-sixth of the Sleeping Giant composer collective, with whom he serves as co-composer-in-residence at the Albany Symphony from 2014-2017, thanks to a Music Alive grant from New Music USA. He holds degrees from the Yale School of Music (M.M., D.M.A.) and the Manhattan School of Music (B.M.). His works are published by Schott NY and Project Schott New York. http://www.christophercerrone.com/