Donald Martino, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, died of cardiac arrest Dec. 8, 2005, aboard a cruise ship in the Caribbean. He was 74.
Born in Plainfield, N.J., Martino began lessons in clarinet, saxophone, and oboe at age 9. Soon thereafter, he began composing. Over the course of his apprenticeship, which included an MFA at Princeton, he studied with Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt *92, and Luigi Dallapiccola. Martino capped his teaching career at Harvard, where he remained for 10 years. In 1981 he became a member of the Institute of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1987 a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He retired in 1993 to devote himself to composition.
Considered an unapologetic Modernist, Martino's atonal works were dense and lucid, difficult yet alluring, intellectual as well as dramatic and romantic. His chamber work, "Notturno," won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize. His 1981 "Fantasies and Impromptus" was hailed by one critic as a "landmark of American piano music." At the time of his death, he was happily composing on his laptop and electric keyboard.
Martino is survived by his wife, Lora; their son, Christopher; and his daughter from an earlier marriage, Anna Maria Martino.