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. His studies of composition include work with, amongst others, Gunther Schuller, Lukas Foss, Theodore Antoniou and Richard Cornell. Casinghino has had pieces requested and performed by such groups as the Boston Symphony Orchestra Wind Quintet, ALEA III, the Longy Chamber Orchestra, the Rivers Symphony Orchestra, the Arneis String Quartet, the Lorelei Vocal Ensemble and the wind quintet Vento Chiaro, and was the featured composer on the Rivers School Conservatory’s 34th Annual Seminar on Contemporary Music for the Young.

Casinghino’s music has been funded via grants through the Free For All Concert Fund and the New England Federation for the Arts, and has been featured at such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, and Seiji Ozawa Hall in the Massachusetts Berkshires. Dr. Casinghino is a lecturer in the departments of composition and theory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University, and is the Assistant Director of the Young Artists’ Composition Program at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Casinghino is the founder and director of the Boston Composers’ Coalition, a group that is dedicated to the collaborative creation, education and dissemination of new American music. 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 performs throughout the New England area on piano, Hammond organ, SATB saxophones and as a vocalist with a number of “popular” genre groups. Media links and a list of upcoming events can be found at www.jdcas.com and more information about the Boston Composers’ Coalition can be found at www.bostoncomposers.org.

DMA, Boston University; MM, Longy School of Music; BM, Hartt School of Music

Performance Tours

Music Festivals

New Music