The MAKING of americans

A native of 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 (2015) presents the shattered war veteran Hazel Motes preaching the Church Without Christ from the hood of his car. Also commissioned by the Walker Art Center, his opera The Making of Americans (2008), based on the novel by Gertrude Stein, presents Stein's spectacular, universalist language celebrating generations of American families.

 Anthony studied music privately with Ornette Coleman in the 80s, later founding The Festival Dancing in Your Head celebrating his ideas and influences. Completing 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 Foundation for the Arts, the Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Meet the Composer, Inc, an ASCAP Grant to Young Composers; residency fellowships at Yaddo, The Millay Colony for the Arts, Aaron Copland House, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, 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 A Chest of Drawers, a film written and directed by Maxwell Nalevansky, an Official Selection at Brooklyn Film Festival 2019, and other international film festivals; and klangfarbenmelodie (for Ornette), commissioned by Duo Montagnard, performed in the U.S., South America and Europe. In 2020, New Focus Recordings released albums of his operas: The Making of Americans and Wise Blood.