Henry Mollicone
Composer
A graduate of the New England Conservatory, Henry Mollicone has studied composition with Donald Martino, Ron Nelson, Daniel Pinkham, Gunther Schuller, and Seymour Schifrin. He has been a professor at Santa Clara University (1985-1999) and is currently teaching at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont.
His one-act operas, Emperor Norton, Starbird, The Face on the Barroom Floor, and The Mask of Evil, commissioned by the Central City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, the Kurt Herbert Adler Award Fund, and The Minnesota Opera, have been performed extensively. The Face on the Barroom Floor, a recipient of the American Composers' Recording Award, is one of America 's most oft-performed contemporary operas, and has also been produced in various European countries. His full-length opera Coyote Tales (with libretto by Sheldon Harnick), commissioned by the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, was premiered there in March, 1998, and is available on CD (Newport Classic). His full-length opera Hotel Eden was premiered at Opera San Jose in 1989, and has since been produced in New York and Baltimore.
Mr. Mollicone has been a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow since 1997, and has served on various panels for The National Endowment for the Arts. He is associate director of the Ernest Bloch Music Festival in Newport , Oregon , and director of its composers' symposium, and in the summer of 1999, he was composer-in-residence at the Brevard Music Festival. His opera Gabriel's Daughter written in collaboration with playwright William Luce, was premiered in July 2003 at the Central City Opera in Colorado.
In addition to opera, Mr. Mollicone has written works for orchestra, voice, chorus, ballet, and various chamber combinations, as well as music for film, television, and theater, including the Guthrie Theater ( Minneapolis ) and the Old Globe Theater ( San Diego ). He has worked with several distinguished actors as a conductor, composer, and pianist, including Jean Stapleton, David Ogden Steirs, Tovah Feldshuh, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Angela Lansbury. Orchestral works include Celestial Dance (commissioned by the Long Beach Symphony), Inner Light (composed for the Eastman School Orchestra), the overture Kathy's White Knight (commissioned by the Santa Cruz Symphony and the Fremont Symphony), and A Rat's Tale: The Pied Piper Revisited, in collaboration with the playwright, William Luce, premiered by Charles Nelson Reilly (commissioned by the El Camino Youth Symphony). Dansa Trimbula, a work for saxophone and accordion soli with string orchestra, was commissioned and premiered by the San Jose chamber Orchestra. His works have been performed by many distinguished artists, including JoAnn Falletta, Frederica Von Stade, Erie Mills, and Maria Spacagna.
Mr. Mollicone has guest-conducted at several American opera companies including those in Baltimore , Portland , Augusta , Lake George and Central City. In 1976, Mr. Mollicone was a musical assistant to Leonard Bernstein for the show 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and from 1971 to 1976 was an assistant conductor at the New York City Opera. He is music director of the Winchester Orchestra of San Jose and the South Valley Symphony.