Justin Casinghino composes in a variety of genres, striving to create works that are lyrical, rich in harmony and possess a sound structural integrity. Also a performer in the jazz and popular idioms, this influence is often present in his music, but commonly at subtle levels. Dr. Casinghino is a lecturer in the Department of Composition and Theory at Boston University and the Music Department at Brandeis University, is the Director of the Young Artists' Composition Program and Electroacoustic Composition Workshop at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and teaches on the faculty of the Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, MA. He has also held positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Keene State College, and is regularly recruited as a guest speaker on a variety of topics including composition, popular music and music education. His studies of composition include work with, amongst others, Gunther Schuller, Lukas Foss, Theodore Antoniou and Richard Cornell. Dr. Casinghino has had pieces requested and performed by groups including the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Family Concert Series, Boston Musica Viva, the Rivers Symphony Orchestra, ALEA III, the Longy Chamber Orchestra, the Lorelei Vocal Ensemble and Vento Chiaro. His music has been commissioned via the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Free for All Concert Fund, has been features on programs of the Rivers School Conservatory's Annual Seminar on Contemporary Music for the Young, the International Trumpet Guild and the North American Saxophone Alliance, and has received recent premieres and performances in venues such as The Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, multiple appearances in New York's Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood's Seiji Ozawa Concert Hall and the Symphony Center in Chicago. A firm believer that pedagogy is an art within itself, Casinghino takes great pride in his students of composition, who have won awards including numerous ASCAP Young Composer and Downbeat composition prizes, and have earned commissions and performances by such ensembles as the Boston Pops, the Newton Symphony Orchestra and Dinosaur Annex. Casinghino also performs throughout the New England area on piano, Hammond organ, SATB saxophones and as a vocalist with a number of "popular" genre groups. Justin lives outside of Boston with his wife and four daughters.
DMA, Boston University; MM, Longy School of Music; BM, Hartt School of Music
Click for CV.