Chris Cerrone
Christopher Cerrone (b. 1984) is internationally acclaimed for compositions characterized by a subtle handling of timbre and resonance, a deep literary fluency, and a flair for multimedia collaborations. His three-time GRAMMY-nominated work balances lushness and austerity, immersive textures and telling details.
Cerrone's recent opera, In a Grove (libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann), jointly produced by LA Opera and Pittsburgh Opera, received its sold-out premiere run in March 2022. The opera had its midwestern premiere at Northwestern University in Fall 2022 and is set for its New York debut at the PROTOTYPE Festival in January 2025. The studio recording was named one of the best recordings of 2023 by The New York Times, which noted: "Not a word or note is without purpose, and both are captured, if not enhanced, in this richly produced recording." His latest release, Beaufort Scales, an oratorio commissioned by Lorelei Ensemble and premiered at Mass MoCA, earned him his third GRAMMY nomination. Other recent projects include The Year of Silence, based on Kevin Brockmeier's story, for the Louisville Symphony and Dashon Burton; A Body, Moving, a brass concerto for the Cincinnati Symphony; Breaks and Breaks, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh and the Detroit Symphony; The Insects Became Magnetic, an orchestral work with electronics for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and The Air Suspended, a piano concerto for Shai Wosner.
Cerrone's first opera, Invisible Cities, was a 2014 Pulitzer Prize finalist, receiving its fully-staged world premiere in a popular production by The Industry in Los Angeles' Union Station. In July 2019, New Amsterdam Records released his GRAMMY-nominated sophomore effort, The Pieces that Fall to Earth, collaborating with Wild Up. The Arching Path, released on In a Circle Records in 2021, earned his second GRAMMY nomination. Cerrone won the 2015-2016 Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition and was a resident at the Laurenz Haus Foundation in Basel, Switzerland from 2022–2023.
Christopher Cerrone holds degrees from the Yale School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. He is published by Schott NY and Project Schott New York and in 2021 joined the composition faculty at Mannes School of Music at The New School. He lives in Jersey City with his wife and their young son.
My wife Carrie and I were delighted to welcome our son, Matteo Sun Cerrone, into the world in March 2025. In the early months of his life, I was struck by how young children are guided so much more by sound than sight, and I tried to take my few spare moments to document the sounds that he must be experiencing so viscerally as a newborn.
At the same time, two pianists had both approached me about writing short piano pieces, and when they heard word of my son's birth, they suggested that I approach the topic of fatherhood somehow. I suggested combining the two commissions into one piece and the result is The Matteo Songbook, a piece for piano and electronics where each of the four movements samples a sound that Matteo experienced. I called them songs because each piece is a “song without words.”
The first song, "Lullaby with Hiccups," features a recording of Matteo's hiccups—something Carrie and I noticed he was prone to even before he was born and that sometimes impeded his ability to fall asleep. The sample became the rhythmic backdrop of a gentle lullaby in ¾ time.
The second song, "B.P.P. (Breast Pump Phase)," features the sound of Carrie's breast pump. The two pumps had a way of going in and out of phase with one another, reminding me of Steve Reich's classic phase pieces. I wrote a rhythmic piece where a series of high muted notes on the piano imitate the rhythmic drive of the pump.
The third song, "Qiao's Song," features a snippet of his grandmother, Qiao, soothing him by singing to him—an accidentally recorded snippet while trying to record his sleeping. She whispers to me "what is this for?" It's a question about my microphone, but also a question that every new parent does have to ask of themselves suddenly.
The last movement, "Still Life with Noise Machine," features the sound "shh" in every way—a way to soothe Matteo to sleep, a way to make sure no one wakes him up, but also the sound of the myriad noise machines in the house to help him stay asleep, a wash of white noise.
Each movement features a motto woven into the texture—A, B, C, A, B, C, D— which inadvertently represents these basic steps of learning in life.
The Matteo Songbook is, naturally, dedicated to Matteo with enormous thanks to his mother and grandmother for helping raise him in these early months, as well as to Timo and Mark for giving me the opportunity to share this music.