Biography
Nino Rota, born Giovanni Rota Rinaldi (3 December 1911 – 10 April 1979), was an Italian composer, pianist and conductor, internationally celebrated for his film scores and especially for his long collaboration with director Federico Fellini.
He was born in Milan into a highly musical family and showed exceptional talent from childhood. By the age of eleven he had composed the oratorio "L'infanzia di San Giovanni Battista", which was performed in Milan and Paris, and during his teenage years he continued to attract attention as both a composer and conductor.
Rota studied music in Milan and later at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome under Alfredo Casella. After completing his studies there, he travelled to the United States with the support of Arturo Toscanini and studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia from 1930 to 1932, where his teachers included Rosario Scalero and Fritz Reiner.
After returning to Italy he also studied literature at the University of Milan, completing a thesis on the Renaissance music theorist Gioseffo Zarlino. Alongside composition, he developed a long academic career and became closely associated with the Conservatory of Bari, where he served as director from 1950.
Rota entered the world of cinema early, composing music for "Treno popolare" in 1933. During the following decades film music became a central part of his career, and he eventually created more than 150 soundtracks.
His most important artistic partnership began in 1952 with Federico Fellini's "The White Sheik". Rota went on to score Fellini films including "La Strada", "La Dolce Vita", "8½", "Juliet of the Spirits", "Fellini Satyricon", "Roma", "Amarcord" and "Orchestra Rehearsal". Their collaboration became one of the most recognizable director-composer partnerships in cinema history.
Rota also worked with many other major directors. His film scores include Luchino Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers" and "The Leopard", Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet", and Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II".
His music for "The Godfather" became especially famous, with its melancholy main theme becoming one of the most recognizable melodies in film history. For "The Godfather Part II", Rota and Carmine Coppola received the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score in 1975.
Although film music brought him international fame, Rota never considered himself only a cinema composer. He wrote operas, ballets, symphonies, concertos, chamber music, piano works and sacred music throughout his career.
Nino Rota died in Rome on 10 April 1979. His ability to combine lyrical melody, melancholy, humor, popular music and classical technique made him one of the defining composers of twentieth-century cinema.
