Carolyn Gianturco - Biography#

Carolyn Gianturco studied piano and composition at Marywood College (B. Mus.1955) and after working as a free-lance accompanist in New York City (1955-59, including at Manhattan School of Music, Third St. Settlement School of Music) and as associate music director of the Turnau Opera Company (1961), she became a teaching assistant (1963-66) and instructor (1966-67) in the music dept. of Rutgers University, where she obtained an M.A. in music history in 1964. At Oxford she obtained her doctorate in 1970 with a dissertation on the operas of Alessandro Stradella (supervisor Sir Jack Westrup) and was subsequently appointed lecturer of music history at the University of Pisa (1971-79), and contemporaneously was associate prof. at the Pisa extension of the State University of New York at Oswego (1970-78) and at the Syracuse University Program in Florence (1973). She was made associate prof. of music history at Pisa University in 1979 where she remained until 2004. It was during this period that she founded the Associazione Toscana per la Ricerca delle Fonti Musicali which carried out music research in the region; in order to publicize the findings of ATMus, Gianturco also founded the double series Studi Musicali Toscani: Research and Catalogues, and Music. Her 25 years of research on the life and music of the major Italian Baroque composer Alessandro Stradella resulted in the first documented biography of the composer, as well as the first thematic catalogue of the 800 sources of his 312 musical compositions (compiled with E. McCrickard); in 2000 the Italian government recognized her work by assigning to her the Directorship of the National Edition of Stradella's complete works, a project of 42 volumes (11 vols. have been published to date, the last in 2011).

Because of the necessity of understanding the several different genres of Stradella's music, Gianturco has investigated several of them and was able to contribute to a new understanding of the role of the poet/poetry in directing the composer's music choices. This was a new approach in musicological studies, as was her clarification of what constituted the difference between sacred and moral cantatas and operas. Because of her conviction that music history must deal with "music", she was able to convince the Univ. of Pisa in 2000 to allow her to found a University Choir and in 2010 a University Orchestra: both groups are open to students, faculty and staff of the university and have had an enormous impact on the university and on the city of Pisa.

Gianturco has held visiting professorships at Queen’s University, Belfast, 1995, Oxford University, Faculty of Music, 1994, the University for Foreign Students, Perugia, July of 1975-1982, the Summer School of Early Music, Perugia, July 1980, and New York University Graduate School, Summer Programs, July of 1977-1979

Biographical entries on C. Gianturco are found in such music publications as the following:

• Howard Smither, Introduction [Laudatio] in Florilegium Musicae. Studi in onore di Carolyn Gianturco, Pisa 2004, xxxiii-xxxvi
  
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., London 2001
  
• The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, London 1992
  
• La Nuova Garzanti Enciclopedia della Musica, Milan 1983
  
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London 1980
  
• Enciclopedia Garzanti della Musica, Milan 1974
  

A full list of the publications may be accessed through her website at: http://www.edizioniets.com/carolyn_gianturco.