Born in Brooklyn, New York, 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 the music and libretto for Wise Blood, after the novel Flannery O'Connor. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, Wise Blood presents the shattered war veteran Hazel Motes preaching the Church Without Christ from the hood of his car. Another opera, The Making of Americans, also commissioned by the Walker Art Center, 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 University School of Music. He has received fellowships and awards from the Fulbright Scholar Program (Berlin), New York Foundation for the Arts, the Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Meet the Composer, Inc, an ASCAP Grant to Young Composers; several residencies at the magical Yaddo, The Millay Colony for the Arts, Aaron Copland House, and the Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence program. He is an Associate Professor of Music at City University of New York.
Recent projects include music for the film, A Chest of Drawers, written and directed by Maxwell Nalevansky, presented at the 21st Annual Boston Underground Film Festival, Boston, Massachusetts, (March 2019); What the Film Festival, Toronto, Canada (March 2019); Chattanooga Film Festival, Chattanooga, Tennessee (April 2019); 15th Fantaspoa - International Fantastic Film Festival, Porte Alegre, Brazil (May 2019).
klangfarbenmelodie (for Ornette), commissioned by Duo Montagnard, premiered at Beckwith Hall, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 1/16/2019; other performances include Organ Hall, University of North Carolina at Greensboro,1/18/2019; Bezanson Hall, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 2/13/2019; New York City premiere 6/21/2019 at the Tenri Cultural Center.