Quinto Maganini (30 November 1897 – 10 March 1974) was an

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

flautist The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

, and conductor.

Biography

Quinto Maganini was born in

Fairfield, California Fairfield is a city in and the county seat of Solano County, California, in the North Bay sub-region of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is generally considered the midpoint between the cities of San Francisco and Sacramento, approximately fro ...

, but he spent much of his life in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He worked as a flautist in the

San Francisco Symphony Orchestra The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Fr ...

, the

New York Symphony Orchestra The New York Symphony Orchestra was founded as the New York Symphony Society in New York City by Leopold Damrosch in 1878. For many years it was a rival to the older Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York. It was supported by Andrew Carnegie, ...

, and the

Russian Symphony Orchestra The Russian Symphony Orchestra Society (also known simply as the Russian Symphony Orchestra) was founded in in New York CityLeonard Slatkin, ''Conducting Business: Unveiling the Mystery Behind the Maestro'' (2012), Amadeus Press, p. 32. . Accesse ...

.''Quinto Maganini'', John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship
last accessed 15 November 2018. While playing flute and

piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...

in John Philip Sousa's band in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, he was discovered by American conductor

Walter Damrosch Walter Johannes Damrosch (January 30, 1862December 22, 1950) was a German-born American conductor and composer. He was the director of the New York Symphony Orchestra and conducted the world premiere performances of various works, including Ge ...

, who invited him to join the New York Symphony Orchestra."Quinto Maganini, 77, Won Pulitzer," ''New York Times'', 12 March 1974. As a member of the orchestra, he studied

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

with

Georges Barrère Georges Barrère (Bordeaux, October 31, 1876 - New York, June 14, 1944) was a French flutist.Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) Early life Georges Barrère was the son of a cabinetmaker, Gabriel Barrère, and Marie Périne Courtet, ...

. In 1927, he won a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

for several of his compositions, including his

symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''T ...

''Tuolumne, California Rhapsody''; ''A Cuban Rhapsody'' and ''Songs of the Chinese''. In 1928, he received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

to compose a

symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

on the life of

Napoleon I Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

, a

violin sonata A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, often accompanied by a keyboard instrument and in earlier periods with a bass instrument doubling the keyboard bass line. The violin sonata developed from a simple baroque form with no fixed form ...

and an opera based on Bret Harte's ''The Bellringer of Angels''. These awards enabled him to travel to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, where he studied

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

with

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

at the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau. In 1931, he founded the New York Sinfonietta and served as its conductor. Some of their repertoire included

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

works he had found through his research in France."Symphony Group Will Be Heard," ''Asheville Citizen-Times'', 11 September 1932. From 1940 to 1967, he served as principal conductor of the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra. In his tenure, he expanded the symphony's repertoire to include larger works, like the symphonies of

Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...

.The Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, "About the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra"
last accessed 15 November 2018.

Compositions

His principal compositions include ''Tuolumne, California Rhapsody'' for trumpet and orchestra (1926), ''A Cuban Rhapsody'' (1926), ''Songs of the Chinese'' for women's voices and instrumental ensemble (1926), and a flute sonata (1928).Hazel Gertrude Kinscella, ''Music on the Air'' (New York: Viking Press, 1934), 351.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maganini, Quinto 1897 births 1974 deaths 20th-century composers American male conductors (music) Musicians from California American male classical composers American classical composers 20th-century American composers 20th-century American conductors (music) 20th-century American male musicians American Conservatory alumni