American Tropical
Firebird Motel
The Gift of the Magi
The Dreamers

FILM SCORES

Ballets Russes

ORCHESTRA

Of A Summer Evening
A Copland Portrait

ORGAN

Pastorale and Toccata
Soliloquy

CHORUS

Ave Maria
Cantate Domino
Canticle (from Three Sacred Pieces)
Elegy for Matthew
Eos
Good-bye, My Fancy
Hymn to the Nativity
In Praise of Music
Invocation and Dance
Nunc Dimittis
O Magnum Mysterium
Requiem Triptych
September Sun
The Snow Lay On The Ground

OPERAS

America Tropical

"... an ingenious tale dealing with the tumultuous founding of Los Angeles, using a 1930s mural painted by David Alfaro Siquieros in the 1930s as its take-off point... with its emotionally gripping music, timely story and clever, often surprising, staging, it certainly merits a second run."
- Cheryl North, Oakland Tribune

"..ambitious opera premiere connects L. A.'s divided past to a hopeful future...an often compelling folk opera meditation on race, class, and other social divisions...engaging and intriguing..."
- Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

"Conte (whose beautiful, ghostly desert opera Firebird Motel was commissioned and produced by Thick Description) has fashioned a score featuring serrated melody lines and lush choral harmonies to augment the work's three centuries, succinctly blended in Mayer's libretto. The music moves determinedly forward through alternately agitated, wistful, angelic, and angry passages..."
- Robert Avila, The San Francisco Bay Area Guardian

"Conte's score, with its hints of George Gershwin, Kurt Weill, and the chamber music of Dmitri Shostakovich, is as colorful as anything painted by Siqueiros. The composer's use of glittering flute scales... (enthralls) the listener with its beauty..."
- Chloe Veltman, San Francisco Weekly

Firebird Motel

"'...Firebird Motel' weaves a hypnotic spell...Plaintive solos alternate with vibrant duets and lustrous trios, punctuated by Conte's lovely chorales, in an almost seamless creation...Librettist David Yezzi has written some richly evocative lyrics....Conte's 'Firebird' takes flight on the wings of its music."
- Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

"Conte's music is mesmerizing ... an arresting balance between the squalid and the sublime'
- Chloe Veltman, San Francisco Weekly

"Moments of extraordinary beauty ... an intimate, even moving one-act accompanied by lush, appealing music..."
- Chad Jones, Oakland Tribune

"Conte's real strength lies in the ruminating orchestration that fills the space between the dialogue. He demonstrates a knack for convincingly avoiding cadences and prolonging musical phrases, which mightily sustains the tension of the melodrama..."
- Ben Finane - Classics Today Online Guide

"{Conte’s} short opera is clearly the work of an experienced writer for the stage. It is terse dramatically, and because of that makes its impact with maximum effect…The opera is constructed along the lines of a number opera…Conte knows how to use this structure to work towards a climax…this is definitely well worth hearing."
- Colin Clark, Fanfare Magazine

"Mr. Conte pays great attention to melodic vocal writing …Mr. Yezzi’s libretto provides sufficient interest and detail… Firebird Motel is a solidly constructed one-act opera that singers should enjoy singing and audiences should enjoy hearing."
- Jay Batzner, Sequenza21

The Gift of the Magi

"David Conte and his librettist, Nicholas Giardini, have turned (The Gift of the Magi) into a lovely little chamber opera that should give organizations an alternative to Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. Conte's music is very tonal and melodic...his word setting is really quite wonderful."
- John Story, Fanfare Magazine

"The music is well orchestrated, vocally sympathetic, and pleasant to listen to...The level of musical dramatization...becomes simultaneously delicate and intense, and free of cliché..."
- Joshua Rosenblum, Opera News

"Menotti's 'Amahl and the Night Visitors' may now have a companion...Conte has lavished music of grand romantic feelings upon the proceedings, providing this simple tale with a lush spectacle of extravagant lyricism...(with) soaring duets and arias of Puccinian exuberance...Aided by the clarity of {Nicolas} Giardini's articulate libretto, Conte exercised particular skill in integrating specific events, acts, and even the characters' gestures into his orchestation...the work is framed by striking a cappella ensemble numbers, sung off-stage and evoking the guiding spirit of the three Magi."
- Ching Chang, San Francisco Classical Voice

"(A) touching one act opera...a most valuable addition to the repertoire."
- New Classics Online (UK)

The Dreamers

"The Dreamers...left audiences cheering at each of seven sold-out performances... Sonoma Opera's faith in first-time opera composer Conte was fully justified...he has written much vocal and choral music, and his expertise is relected in The Dreamers ' most powerful, soaring moments, especially in the second half of the two-hour opus."
- Byron Belt, Opera News

"Conte uses the ballast of a staged sing-along of "Old Kentucky Home" to leap to the singular loveliness of each principal player declaring his or her hopes and regrets in small signature vignettes that layer and build upon each other until it is almost unbearably beautiful. The opening night audience responded to this number not only with bravos and bravas, but with the sort of calls ordinarily reserved for the lust of a rock concert."
- Gretchen Giles, The Sonoma County Independent

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FILM SCORES

Ballets Russes

"a subtly effective original score by Todd Boekelheide and David Conte enhance a generally pro tech package..."
- Scott Foundas, Variety

"Since most of the footage lacks sound, it's up to composers David Conte and Todd Boekelheide to create a score that interweaves original and adopted music - they do so seamlessly."
- Rita Felciano, The San Francisco Bay Area Guardian

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ORCHESTRA

Of A Summer Evening

"Of A Summer Evening, a diverting two-part tone poem for double orchestra, emerged a tuneful, evocative, deftly scored work. The harmonies are clear, the melodies are downright luscious."
- Allan Ulrich, The San Francisco Examiner

A Copland Portrait

"This short overture-like composition...is filled with syncopation, vibrant  themes, and just enough dissonance...The composer was present to  receive the prolonged applause for this fine addition to orchestral literature..."
- Andrew Flanigan, The Kettering-Oakwood Times, Dayton, OH

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ORGAN

Pastorale and Toccata

"The Pastorale and Toccata is a skillfully crafted piece that shapes modal melodies, post-Hindemithian harmonies and asymmetrical rhythms into a fresh statement idiomatically written for the organ."
- Wilma Salisbury, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"David Conte's Pastorale and Toccata is a gently polytonal, whimsical showpiece somewhat reminiscent of the grand French organ school - but definitely American in style."
- Wayne Lee Gay, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"The Pastorale and Toccata exploits to the full the resources of the organ with the flowing line of color in the first movement giving way to a brilliant paean in the second."
- William Duncan, Bermuda Times

Soliloquy

"David Conte's Soliloquy...sings in warm-hearted lines."
- Donald Rosenberg, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

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CHORUS

Ave Maria

"In David Conte's setting of Ave Maria ...high art is achieved by deceptively simple means...maintains the high standards his previous choral works have demonstrated."
- Richard Bloesch, The Choral Journal

Cantate Domino

"I hope that I may never be accused of insularity, but our own English choral repertoire is so very good that it is seldom that one feels able to suggest any new work from the other side of the Atlantic as being worthy of consideration by our own church and cathedral choirs. David Conte's anthem Cantate Domino is a notable exception however. His skill as a choral writer is established in the very first bar and there are many deft and felicitous touches throughout the work...Its texture and splendid use of antiphony would suggest it as particularly suitable for use in the major parish churches and cathedrals on a festive occasion."
- Musical Opinion (London)

"Cantate Domino for double chorus is modeled upon the polychoral style of San Marco in Venice at the end of the 16th century...Conte's antiphonal setting of this popular text lasts about four and one-half minutes, utilizes two equally disposed choruses, and would make an ideal selection for combined choirs at a state or regional festival. Cantate Domino is an extremely well-written work suitable for both liturgical and concert use."
- Stephanie Henry, The Choral Journal

Canticle (from Three Sacred Pieces)

"David Conte's Canticle is an exciting work, filled with both dramatic and sensitive sections...The writing is forceful and commanding, using a tonal, yet adventuresome harmonic vocabulary, and it conveys an effective sense of rhythmic vitality and climax...This five-minute piece is a superbly crafted and highly effective work that should be sought out by conductors..."
- Jerry Blackstone, The Choral Journal

Elegy for Matthew

"...a direct and touching ten minute choral work...its appeal was immediate; its burning emotion all the more powerful for its restraint, articulated by its haunting orchestral colour...for me this was a classic in the making."
- Lewis Forman, Seen and Heard/Music on the Web (UK)

Eos

"Conte...clearly knows what he's about in writing music for amateur chorus...'Eos' shows off the voices to best advantage...its speaks in a musical idiom that is immediately accessble...and it knows how to wring the emotions in an old-fashioned, inspirational way."
- Ellen Pfeifer, Boston Globe

Good-bye, My Fancy

"The program included a beautifully harmonized setting of Walt Whitman's Good-bye My Fancy! by David Conte."
- Allan Kozinn, The New York Times

Good-bye My Fancy! is an opulently voiced, very communicative work... Conte is a fresh and positive voice in contemporary American music."
- Bill Zakariasen, The New York Daily News

Hymn to the Nativity

"Hymn to the Nativity ...is truly celestial in its thematic material and in its voicing for singers and instrumentalists. For these ears, nothing more beautiful has been written for the Christmas season in recent years."
- Bill Zakariasen, The New York Daily News

In Praise of Music

"David Conte's In Praise of Music for women's voices, also had its first local hearing. The hushed fragmentary exaltation of the ending and the rapturous sweep of the work's main portions were caught by the singers..."
- John Henken, Los Angeles Times

David Conte's important and impressive In Praise of Music belongs in the repertoires of every choral society..."
- Norman Lombino, Peninsula Times Tribune (Palo Alto)

Invocation and Dance

"... a sparkling hymn to life." -
- Allan Kozinn, The New York Times

"Conte's appeal is direct and invigorating, and the reassurance of the writing is pleasurable...the jazzy, joyous Dance is undeniably thrilling, and the performers repaid Conte's effort with the kind of unabashed enthusiasm composers dream of."
- Philip Campbell, Bay Area Reporter

Nunc Dimittis

"This gentle and prayerful work uses the text from the Canticle of Simeon. Its shape rises to a wonderfully majestic climax and ends softly."
- James Callahan, Pastoral Music

O Magnum Mysterium

"Filled with hauntingly beautiful harmonies, this fabulous setting of the Matins for Christmas Eve is a significant contribution to both the church and concert repertoire. Conte has always been able to capture the text in surprising and unusual ways ...Filled with shifting harmonies of great beauty, the work begins quietly on homophonic chords of dark but glimmering beauty and as the work expands, the voice parts break out into beautiful counterpoint on large phrase shapes. The closing "alleluias" are a real challenge but very powerful... This is another beautiful composition from this leading American composer. "
- Marie Stultz, Choral Newsletter

This is one of those works that captures the awesomeness of the words...There is a brilliant cascade of "Alleluias" at the end."
- Rollin Smith, The American Organist

Requiem Triptych

"Requiem Triptych was the longest work on San Francisco's Chanticleer program and the most impressive... The In Paradisum section pits high against low effectively in the chorus and has some surpassingly beautiful writing for the piano."
- William Glackin, Sacramento Bee

"Outstanding in the set was a Requiem by David Conte..."
- Eastern Daily Press, King's Lynn, England

September Sun

"...commissioned by Saint Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in New York City in memory of those who perished on September 11th...it is a complicated and thoughtful work, and a poignant reconciliatory response to the inexplicable events of that day...this piece is well worth the challenges presented. It is exquisitely written."
- R. Daniel Hughes, Jr., Choral Journal

The Snow Lay On The Ground

"Many of us know the lovely Sowerby setting, and now it is great to have another one.  David Conte keeps the 6/8 rhythm but has created a new melody that has a lilt and grace that makes it most attractive. There are also arrangements for SSAA and TTBB."
- Philip Brunelle, The American Organist

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