, 1923, d. Fort Myers

Fort Myers, Florida

Fort Myers is the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. Its population was 62,298 in the 2010 census, a 29.23 percent increase over the 2000 figure....

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, October 4, 2001) was an Italian-born U.S. composer.

Born in Capestrano, in the Abruzzo province of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Santini immigrated to the United States at the age of 14, where he attended public schools in White Plains

White Plains, New York

White Plains is a city and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. He was inducted into the U.S. Armed Forces and served in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, eventually settling in Valhalla, New York

Valhalla, New York

Valhalla is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place that is located within the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, in Westchester County. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census...

. Following the war, the G.I. Bill of Rights

G.I. Bill of Rights

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 , known informally as the G.I. Bill, was an omnibus law that provided college or vocational education for returning World War II veterans as well as one year of unemployment compensation...

 allowed him the opportunity to study composition at Manhattanville College

Manhattanville College

Manhattanville College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college offering undergraduate and graduate degrees, located in Purchase, New York. Founded in 1841 it was known initially as Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart...

 and the Mannes College of Music

Mannes College of Music

Mannes College The New School for Music is The New School university's music conservatory. While the university's main campus is located in Greenwich Village, New York City, Mannes maintains its main academic building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan....

. Santini studied composition with Felix Salzer

Felix Salzer

Felix Salzer was an Austrian-American music theorist, musicologist and pedagogue. He was one of the principal followers of Heinrich Schenker, and did much to refine and explain Schenkerian analysis after Schenker's death....

 and Tadeusz Kassern

Tadeusz Kassern

Tadeusz Zygfryd Kassern was a Polish composer.Born in Lvov, he studied at the conservatory of the Polish Music Society in Lviv and later at the conservatory in Poznań. In 1931 he escaped from Nazism to Paris and later to the United States. Kassern had been serving as a cultural attaché in New York...

, and conducting with Milton Forstat.

Santini developed a system of composition using 21-tone rows. This system is similar to the more familiar 12-tone system

Twelve-tone technique

Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...

 of serial composition

Serialism

In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...

, but the rows Santini used as the basis of his 21-tone compositions also include all alternative enharmonic spellings for each note in the chromatic scale (except the notes D, G, and A, which have no enharmonic spellings). Thus, the available tones for a 21-tone row would include B-sharp, C, C-sharp, D-flat, D, D-sharp, E-flat, E, F-flat, E-sharp, F, F-sharp, G-flat, G, G-sharp, A-flat, A, A-sharp, B-flat, B, and C-flat. In order to generate 21-tone rows, Santini utilized a specially printed deck of cards (each card representing one of the aforementioned pitches), "dealing" himself rows until he found the row or rows he wished to use as the basis for a particular composition.

Other of Santini's innovations include the use of circular notation (in his Continuum for accordion), as well as quarter tone

Quarter tone

A quarter tone , is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale, an interval about half as wide as a semitone, which is half a whole tone....

s (which he referred to as "quasi tones"). His 2+4,+ calls for inside-the-piano playing as well as other techniques so avant-garde as to approach the theatrical, reminiscent of a John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

 "happening."

Many of Santini's other works are composed in a gentle, tonal, and more accessible style. Much of his output is for piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

, and his numerous accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

 works have been performed worldwide. His most widely performed composition, Ave Maria, has been recorded by the duo of vocalist Mary Mancini and accordionist Mario Tacca.

Santini's many works for orchestra include The White Peaks of Forca and Canti Gabrieleschi. These works are also tonal, though modern in style, and draw on Santini's Italian heritage. His Canticum Angelicum was performed by the orchestra of the Teatro dell'Opera San Carlo in Naples. Among his last works is a concerto for viola

Viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

 and orchestra, composed with the 21-tone system.

A devout Roman Catholic, much of Santini's output is sacred in nature, often with Latin texts. His Magnificat was selected for performance at the 1992 Incontri di Musica Sacra Contemporanea festival in Rome, Italy.

Santini's music was self-published by his own company, DelSan Publications. Upon his retirement in 1981, Santini moved to Cape Coral

Cape Coral, Florida

Cape Coral is a municipality located in Lee County, Florida, United States, on the Gulf of Mexico. Founded in 1957 and developed as a master-planned, pre-platted community, the city grew to a population of 154,305 by the year 2010. With an area of , Cape Coral is the largest city between Tampa and...

, in Southwest Florida

Southwest Florida

Southwest Florida is a region of Florida , United States located along its gulf coast, south of the Tampa Bay area, west of Lake Okeechobee and mostly north of the Everglades...

, and died in nearby Fort Myers in 2001.

External links

• Dalmazio Santini page from New Music Jukebox site