Wishing to distance himself from the long outdated sounds of contemporary American academic music, the music of Vincent Calianno (b. 1979, Buffalo, NY) is instead inspired by the renegade eloquence and radical temperament of the American vernacular.  His works often combine a unique confluence of disparate musical colors, muscular rhythms, and complex, virtuosic textures. His music is at once dark and violent as well as introspective and lyrical.  Calianno’s diverse musical corpus includes opera, large ensemble works, chamber music and electroacoustica.  His long-standing interest in visual media has led him to compose music for short and feature-length films, the silent cinema as well as for his own film and media work.   
 

   Following a long creative drought, Calianno's current compostional activity includes several new projects in 2008-09 including: eating filumena lionheart, two cautionary tales for oboe and chamber ensemble, written for oboist Emma Coleman and the UIUC New Music Ensemble; on the threshold of the ocean, a multi-media opera for video, audio and solo violoncello commissioned by cellist Kivie Cahn-Lipman; MEN, a work for solo percussionist playing an array of twelve bass drums commissioned by Jon Hepfer.  He has been commissioned twice (in 2005 for (i am a devil) pissing into the sunset with a raincoat in my hand and 2007 for eyeliner ashtray) by The New York Miniaturist Ensemble, as well as by The Eastman School of Music in 2004 to compose his opera Beckett for Ossia's 2004 concert season.

   From 1999-2004, Calianno founded and directed the new-music ensemble, ensemble:rocketchrist which focused primarily on the performance of minimalist and indeterminate music as well as music by young emerging composers, including a complete performance of his 1445 minute 'ambient opera,' Advent Days. 

   His media and silent cinema works have been exhibited and performed internationally, at places such as The Banff Centre (Canada), Le Poisson Rouge, The Juilliard School, Merkin Concert Hall (NYC), Dickinson College (Penn.), Ohio University, The Here-Here Gallery (Cleveland) and The All-purpose Room (Rochester).  His music has been performed by The International Contemporary Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Ossia, Echoi, The New York Miniaturist Ensemble, The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, and The Greater Buffalo Youth Orchestra and members of the JACK quartet, Callithumpian and eighth blackbird.  

   Calianno received his B.M. in 2001 from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and his M.A. in 2006 from the Eastman School of Music.  His teachers have included Livingston Gearhart, John Luther Adams, Lewis Nielson, Richard Hoffmann, David Liptak, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Zack Browning and Steven Taylor. He is the winner of the 1997 Herbert Zipper Award, the 2004 Paul Sacher Award, and the 2005 Howard Hanson Prize.

   Calianno is a member of ASCAP and the American Composers Forum.  His music is published by Droplid Music.  More information can be found at: www.dangercleveland.com.