Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1962, Anthony Gatto has developed a diverse body of music, often informed by literary and visual arts, exploring alternative narrative modes and structures. His cross-media works include an opera based on the novel Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor, presenting the shattered war veteran Hazel Motes preaching the Church Without Christ from the hood of his car. Another opera, The Making of Americans, based on the massive, cubist novel by Gertrude Stein, presents the untimely death of David Hersland as a fulcrum for Stein's spectacular, universal language, celebrating generations of American families.
Anthony Gatto studied music privately with Ornette Coleman, and later completed a doctorate in composition at the Yale School of Music in 2001. He has received fellowships and awards from the Fulbright Scholar Program (Berlin), New York State Foundation for the Arts, the Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Meet the Composer, Inc, an ASCAP Grant to Young Composers, many residencies at the most wonderful Yaddo, The Millay Colony for the Arts, Aaron Copland House, and the Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence program is Oysterville, Washington. He is an Associate Professor of Music at City University of New York.
Plastic Facts (rev. 2015), for sax quartet, recorded by New Thread Quartet, is the title cut of their first CD, recently released on New Focus Recordings. Hope is Wanting to Pull Clouds (after S. Polke)(2018), for piano trio, recorded by Olivia de Prato, violin, Mariel Roberts, cello, Jade Conlee, piano; Endtimes (2018), recorded by Hypercube (Erin Rogers, alto sax; Jay Sorce, guitar; Andrea Lodge, piano; Chris Graham, percussion).