Michael Gandolfi has a broad range of musical interests encompassing not only contemporary concert music but also jazz, blues and rock, by which route he first became a musician. The span of his musical investigation is paralleled by his cultural curiosity, resulting in many points of contact between the world of music and other disciplines, including science, film, and theater.
A large portion of Mr. Gandolfi’s works are written for orchestra, due to the support and partnerships that he has had with many leading orchestras and conductors. For over a decade he has worked closely with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra as one of its ‘Atlanta School’ of composers, resulting in the creation of several large-scale works. In the mid 1990’s Mr. Gandolfi began a long and productive relationship with with the Boston Symphony Orchestra that has included several commissions. He has also has a fruitful relationship with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, completing several commissions for them as well. Oliver Knussen, Cristian Măcelaru, Mei-Ann Chen, Carlos Kalmar and the Grant Park Orchestra, and Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project have proven to be significant forces in Mr. Gandolfi’s creative output, as has Richard Pittman with the New England Philharmonic, the Concord Orchestra, and Boston Musica Viva. Mr. Gandolfi has also contributed a body of wind ensemble work that has gained a significant position in that repertoire.
Mr. Gandolfi ‘s honors and awards include two National Endowment for the Arts Consortium Commission grants, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation Commission, Massachusetts Cultural Council Composer Fellowship, the 2009 Grammy Award nomination for ‘Best Classical Contemporary Composition,’ for The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, the 2013 Sousa/Oswald Award for Band for Flourishes and Meditations on a Renaissance Theme, two Fromm Foundation Grants, a Meet the Composer/American Symphony Orchestra league Music Alive residency, and a 2013 Composers Award from the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra.
Mr. Gandolfi’s extensive discography includes The Garden of Cosmic Speculation, (Telarc, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano, conductor) inspired by Charles Jencks’ spectacular private garden in Dumfries, Scotland. His BMOP Sound recording Y2k Compliant was cited by the New York Times as a ‘Best CD of 2008,’ and his From the Institutes of Groove (BMOP Sound) received the Boston Globe’s ‘Best Album of 2013’ distinction. Other works are recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon, Telarc, ASO Media, BSO Classics, Reference Recordings, Foghorn Classics, CRI, Innova, Klavier and BMOP Sound labels.
Mr. Gandolfi was Composer-in-Residence at the 2017 Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Cristian Macelaru, Music Director; and the 2016 Chelsea Music Festival, Melinda Lee Masur and Ken David Masur, Directors. He chairs the composition department at New England Conservatory, is Head of Composition at the Tanglewood Music Center, and has been a faculty member at Harvard University, Indiana University, and Boston University.
(click/tap here for career highlights as an educator)
Mr. Gandolfi has also had a long and productive career as an educator. He discovered his love for teaching as a junior-high school student, endeavoring to teach his friends to read music, study music theory, and perform in his jazz and rock bands. While undertaking the creative and problem-solving challenges of private musical-instruction, Mr. Gandolfi developed a more formalized teaching strategy and assumed an adjunct faculty position at Phillips Academy, Andover, which eventually led to his present teaching-status as a college professor. Along the way he has been involved in many unique and experimental educational-initiatives such as the Pinnacle Project, a mentorship program founded by Martin Seligman, former President of the American Psychological Association, in which mentors in various disciplines devise year-long projects with pre-college aged students (mentees) who exhibit extraordinary abilities in their respective disciplines. Mr. Gandolfi mentored two young composers through this program. He also was the focal point of a multi-institutional, educational project involving the Lucy Moses School of New York City (a grade-school for students gifted in the arts), several Manhattan public schools, and the Juilliard School, along with renowned arts-educator Eric Booth. Mr. Gandolfi’s charge was to compose a work for narrator and chamber ensemble, the text of which was written by Boston-based writer Dana Bonstrom. The work was then presented “in progress” to the young students for feedback and dissected and used by Mr. Booth as the principal tool for Julliard students in teaching the grade-school students how to compose. Each grade school composed a joint, short work as a result of this process, and all works, including Mr. Gandolfi’s work Pinocchio’s Adventures in Funland were presented in an all-school event at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. Mr. Gandolfi also completed a half-year residency at the Conservatory Lab Charter School of Boston, Massachusetts, a unique grade-school founded on the educational principles of Howard Gardner, in which the entire curriculum is taught through one of Professor Gardner’s several identified areas of intelligence (in this case, music). The Boston Landmarks Orchestra under the direction of Christopher Wilkins participated in this project, culminating in a work composed by Mr. Gandolfi, assisted by the students, for both the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and the Conservatory Lab Charter School Orchestra. Another educational project that Mr. Gandolfi undertook along with his librettist, Dana Bonstrom, was at the request of the Los Angeles Philharmonic educational division. This produced Gwendolyn Gets Her Wish, a chamber work with narration based on an original story written by Dana Bonstrom. This work was part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s outreach curriculum for several years. Most recently, Mr. Gandolfi was a BandQuest composer. This project placed him in the Roland Hayes School of Music in Boston’s inner city to work with students while he composed a new, wind ensemble work, the purpose of which was to expose the students to the art of music composition, and for Mr. Gandolfi to glean the necessary parameters of writing for young musicians in training. The completed work, titled Steps Ahead is now published by BandQuest.
– Michael Gandolfi and Robert Kirzinger, Associate Director of Program Publications, the Boston Symphony Orchestra
