Interview Date: January, September, and November, 2016
Conservatory Affiliation: Chair of Composition Department
Interviewer: Brian Fitzsousa

David Conte (b. 1955) is the composer of over one hundred works published by E. C. Schirmer Music Company, including six operas, a musical, works for chorus, solo voice, orchestra, chamber music, organ, piano, guitar, and harp. He has received commissions from Chanticleer, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Dayton, Oakland and Stockton Symphonies, Atlantic Classical Orchestra, the American Guild of Organists, Sonoma City Opera and the Gerbode Foundation. In 2007 he received the Raymond Brock commission from the American Choral Directors Association. Conte co-wrote the film score for the acclaimed documentary Ballets Russes, shown at the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals in 2005, and composed the music for the PBS documentary, Orozco: Man of Fire,shown on the American Masters Series in the fall of 2007. Conte received his B. M. from Bowling Green State University, and his M. F. A. and. D. M. A. from Cornell University, where he studied with Karel Husa and Steven Stucky. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Paris where he was one of the last students of Nadia Boulanger. He is Professor of Composition and Chair of the Composition Department at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In 2010 he was appointed to the composition faculty of the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, and in 2011 he joined the board of the American Composers Forum. In 2014 he was named Composer in Residence with Cappella SF, a professional chorus in San Francisco.

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Topics

Early years
Early music teachers
Early compositions
Bowling Green State University
Nadia Boulanger
Fountainebleau
Cornell
Aaron Copland
San Francisco
Joining the Conservatory
Friends and colleagues
Teaching
Compositions
Composers
Collaborations
Music criticism
Looking to the future

Audio

Early years

Bowling Green

Nadia Boulanger

Aaron Copland

Joining SFCM

Composing