Paul Paccione - Composer

Narrative Biography

Paul Paccione (1952) is an American composer born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His music is noted for its distinctive orchestration, contrapuntal refinement, lyricism, clarity of expression and minimalist sensibilities. Paccione’s love of the popular music of the 1950's and 60’s  awakened his initial musical interests. While studying classical guitar, at the Mannes College of Music (B.M., 1974), his first-year music theory teacher, composer Eric Richards, first introduced him to the world of modern music – inspiring and encouraging him to begin composing. This, in addition to Paccione’s own desire to express himself in sound, led to his decision to begin studies in music composition. He shortly thereafter began private composition studies with composer Harley Gaber – from whom he learned to trust his musical instincts. He continued his composition studies at the University of California, San Diego (M.A., 1977), and studied composition, privately, with composer Kenneth Gaburo.  His studies with Gaburo focused primarily on the numerous potentials in musical text setting. Paccione maintains a sustained interest and attachment to vocal music He later studied composition with composer/conductor William Hibbard, at the University of Iowa (PhD, 1984) and was Hibbard's assistant at the Center for New Music.  It was by way of Hibbard’s impeccable ear for pitch relationships and orchestration that Paccione first began to discover his own compositional voice. Intermittently, he studied composition with Pauline Oliveros, Bernard Rands and Ralph Shapey.

Other than his teachers, the composers of the twentieth-century whose music and thought have had significant influence on his own music and thought include: Igor Stravinsky (for his stylistic diversity, coupled with compositional consistency), Anton Webern (for both the contrapuntal rigor of his music, as well as his belief in musical structure as an organic process), Claude Debussy (for the fluidity of his music and sensual treatment of sound), Erik Satie (for his controlled restraint), Morton Feldman (for his meticulous sense of instrumentation in conjunction with exact pitch placement, as well as his trust in his own musical intuitions), and John Cage (for his never ending sense of experimentation and his openness to all forms of compositional influence that exist outside of music, including literature, painting, and philosophy).   I

He is an active composer whose works are widely and frequently performed, both nationally and internationally.  He has been described as "a composer who has a personality of his own and the ability to express that personality within more than one musical idiom," (Music Web International, 2010). His music has been described as  "consistently compelling and often extraordinarily moving" (Fanfare, 2010) and “his scores can generate an aura of luminosity, and the sensuousness of his music's harmonic motion far transcends its structural geometry. (The Wire, 2024). In December of 2014, Western Illinois University’s Opera Theatre Company presented the first performances of Paccione’s opera “The World Is Round,” based on the book by Gertrude Stein. The opera was a finalist for the American Prize in Opera in 2015.

Paccione’s music is published by Frog Peak Music, Lingua Press, American Composers Edition and SCI Journal of Music Scores. A composer “Portrait” recording of chamber music composed between 1980-1990, was recently released (February, 2024) on the Another Timbre label, performed by the London-based contemporary music ensemble, Apartment House. In 2012, New World Records (www.newworldrecords.org) released a c.d. recording devoted entirely to his chamber and vocal music, titled, “Our Beauties Are Not Ours.” A recording of his most recent solo piano music was released in October, 2021 (“Music for Piano”, Navona Records). Additional recordings of numerous individual compositions are available on the Frog Peak, Navona and Capstone labels. (See reviews under “Recordings.”)  

He has lectured and written numerous articles and reviews on various aspects of modern music and particularly on the interplay of cultural conditions and compositional thought in the 20th and 21st centuries. His writings on music have appeared in Perspectives of New Music, ex tempore, College Music Symposium, American Music, the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy and on liner notes for New World Records. He has been a preconcert lecturer for the Chicago Symphony. 

Paccione joined the music faculty at Western Illinois University in 1984 where he was Professor of Music Theory/Composition. He regularly taught undergraduate and graduate courses in Music Theory, Music Composition, Musical Analysis, Counterpoint, Materials of Twentieth/Twenty-first Century Music and History of American Music. During his teaching career at Western, he received six Faculty Excellence Awards and was named the 1988 Outstanding Teacher in the College of Fine Arts. He was named Western Illinois University's Distinguished Faculty Lecturer for 2002 - the first Music faculty member to do so. His lecture was subsequently published in the music journal "ex tempore," (see Writings). He received the Outstanding Creativity Award from Western’s College of Fine Arts in 1988 and 2012. He was co-founder and co-director of Western's annual New Music Festival. He retired from Western as Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Music Theory and Composition in the spring of 2018.

INTERVIEWS

The Inside Story: Paul Paccione and Music for Piano, Navona Records (12/2021) - Link

Meet the Artist: Interviews With Musicians, Composers and Conductors (1/2021) - Link

 Distant Music - Another TImbre (February 2024) - Link