East Studio Building, JS333
Education
- D.M.A., Doctor of Musical Arts, Yale School of Music, 2012
- M.M., Master of Music, Yale School of Music, 2008
- B.M., Bachelor of Music, Ithaca College, 2006
Biography
Dominick DiOrio is associate professor of music in choral conducting at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
A composer and conductor who has won widespread acclaim for his contributions to American music, whether leading an ensemble or crafting a new score, he brings equal passion and determination to his work in vocal and instrumental music.
As a composer, DiOrio has been hailed for a keenly intelligent, evocative style, which shows “a tour de force of inventive thinking and unique colour” (Gramophone). In 2014, he won the American Prize in Composition, with the judges praising “his depth of vision, mastery of compositional technique, and unique style.” His works have appeared at major venues around the world, including the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall—as well as in Austria, Canada, China, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, South Korea, Sweden, and the U.K. They have been performed by internationally renowned solo artists including Nathan Gunn, Yvonne Gonzales Redman, and Craig Hella Johnson. DiOrio’s recent commissioning partners include the Cincinnati Vocal Arts Ensemble & Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, The Choral Arts Society of Washington, “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, and several universities, including Princeton, Smith, and the universities of Michigan, Oregon, and Illinois.
An equally accomplished conductor, DiOrio made his Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall debut when he was 28 years old. He has conducted performances with ensembles around the world, from the Young People’s Chorus of New York City and the Houston Chamber Choir to Allmänna Sången and Ars Veritas. He has collaborated often with some of today’s leading composers, including Caroline Shaw, Christopher Theofanidis, Tawnie Olson, and Sven-David Sandström. His repertoire spans the gamut of pathbreaking works from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including such major works as James MacMillan’s Seven Last Words, Steve Reich’s The Desert Music, David Lang’s the little match girl passion, Sofia Gubaidulina’s Sonnengesang, and Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion, which he had the honor of preparing for the composer in November 2017. Equally in love with music of all eras, DiOrio has also conducted recent performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Mozart’s Great Mass in CMinor, Mendelssohn’s Psalm 42, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms.
DiOrio’s duties at the Jacobs School of Music include leading the select, new music chamber chorus NOTUS, which has performed across the nation, including invited performances at regional and national conferences and at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. In September 2018, Innova Recordings released NOTUS’s debut album, NOTUS: Of Radiance & Refraction, featuring the world-premiere recordings of five commissioned works. NOTUS is one of 24 choirs in the world invited to perform at the 12th World Symposium on Choral Music in Auckland, New Zealand, in July 2020.
DiOrio earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from the Yale School of Music, and he published his D.M.A. research on Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion in The Choral Scholar. He earned an M.M.A. and an M.M. in conducting from Yale and a B.M. in composition summa cum laude from Ithaca College. He has presented lectures at major conferences, including the Nordic Choral Conference (Malmö, 2015) and the 11th World Symposium on Choral Music (Barcelona, 2017). He has served on the board of directors for Chorus America, as president-elect and treasurer for the National Collegiate Choral Organization, and as chair of the Standing Committee on Composition Initiatives for the American Choral Directors Association.