Christopher Cerrone

About Christopher Cerrone

Winner of a 2015 Samuel Barber Rome Prize and finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize, Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984, Huntington, NY) is a Brooklyn-based composer whose work is characterized by a ringing clarity of sound, a deep literary fluency, and an innovative approach to the architectural structure of music.

His work, The Pieces That Fall to Earth (2015), for soprano Hila Plitmann and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, was hailed as “the evening’s hit” by Mark Swed in The Los Angeles Times. Upcoming and recent highlights include a setting of James Wright poems for Present Music; a piano work for Vicky Chow; a song set for Theo Bleckmann and the Albany Symphony’s Dogs of Desire; a collaborative work for eighth blackbird; live original scores for installations at the New Museum and the Time Warner Center by artist and filmmaker Marco Brambilla; a new solo work for flutist Tim Munro; a violin sonata for Rachel Lee Priday, supported by the Fromm Foundation; and Memory Palace, a solo work for custom-built percussion instruments and live electronics.

Cerrone’s opera, Invisible Cities, based on Italo Calvino’s landmark novel, was praised by The Los Angeles Times as "A delicate and beautiful opera...[which] could be, and should be, done anywhere." Invisible Cities received its fully-staged world premiere in a wildly popular production by The Industry, directed by Yuval Sharon in Los Angeles’ Union Station. It was released in 2014 as a commercial recording by The Industry’s in-house label.

A co-founder of Red Light New Music – whose 2015 release, "Barbary Coast" features his haunting work, The Night Mare – Christopher Cerrone is one-sixth of the Sleeping Giant composer collective, with whom he serves as co-composer-in-residence at the Albany Symphony from 2014-2017. He holds degrees from the Yale School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and is published by Schott Music Corporation, New York and PSNY (Project Schott New York).