Norman Dello Joio
Interview Part One

With Dana Paul Perna

Norman Dello Joio: So, what would you like to know?

Dana Paul Perna: Well, first and foremost, the person who I am interviewing is Norman Dello Joio. So, Mr. Dello Joio, when were you born?

NDJ: I was born on January 24, 1913 — I am now 93 years old which is a pretty long life and I unfortunately am pretty restricted in terms of having to sit in this and can't get around very much.

DPP: Are you still composing? That's a question everyone's going to want to know.

NDJ: I haven't felt any particular need to write anything in the last year.

DPP: ....but up to last year you were still working?

NDJ: I was doing, yes, little choral pieces. I did a little choral piece for an up Island high school on Long Island; It's a school that emphasizes the arts very much; has a very good music department, also, extraordinarily visual arts, too. They commissioned me to do a little work — which I did for them and they recorded it.

DPP: Were you able to attend the performance?

NDJ: Yes, I was able to get up there - wheeled up there - and I was very pleased with the results. Helped a little bit in the preparation of the work and it's published already.

DPP: Wonderful! What was your choice of text?

NDJ: I think it was an original one.

DPP: Something you wrote it?

NDJ: Yes, I do that application, too.

DPP: I didn't know that you also wrote words as well.

NDJ: Yeah.

DPP: While this has been documented, for those readers who are unfamiliar with you, who are some of your teachers that you worked with?

NDJ: I started music with my father who was a church organist when I was about 4 years old on the piano. When I finished High School, I still had not made up my mind as to what I had wanted to do as a career although I played a good deal of music in churches — organ. I substituted a lot for my father in churches, I had my first professional job as an organist. I went to high school and, at the end of that time I still hadn't made up my mind as to what I had wanted to be totally a musician but it came around to, finally, I was forced to write for jazz band to make a living.

DPP: Oh — I didn't know of your stint in jazz, was that a pleasure for you to do?

NDJ: Ah, Ah, yes, sort of — yes — but it was not satisfying musically, but, finally I came to the conclusion that I liked to be serious and I went to the Juilliard School's Under-graduate place and ended up in the graduate school at that time and got a “degree” — they didn't give degrees in those days. My training was in organ, but, in the compositional aspects of it; when I was doing exercises in harmony I began to be intrigued with putting notes on paper and more and more as that went on it became a thing that I felt, well, I like to do this and I was fortunate in having a very and understanding compositional teacher in the undergraduate school who seemed to support that I had talent and who was very supportive of me when I said “I think I want to be a composer.” Then I went to the Graduate school and then, finally met Paul Hindemith and continued at Yale — that was my background but, up to 35, I was always an organist but finally gave up playing for a living, felt a need to give all my time to composition which I did. All the works I have done I came to the conclusion that a lot of people claim to know my name, work being a composer was my final decision of life. I had a large amount of works, of commissions in constant use in choral works, orchestral works — I wrote the music and then I was called on by the networks to do music for backgrounds for many shows and I made my living that way.

DPP: Yeah, I believe I see an Emmy Award up there, and what was that for?

NDJ: That was for a score I did for a series called “Air Power” and that was a series of about 15 shows that developed the use of air power from the beginnings of flight to the end of World War II. It's now in a, what do you call it? You can buy it.....

DPP: Oh, a DVD?

NDJ: Yeah, it's out —

DPP: and you did an orchestral suite from it as well and that's out, also available on CD. When you did a show like that, what was your work schedule like? I mean, did you have a deadline that you had to fulfill?

NDJ: Well, yes, when there was a question of meeting a deadline it was always in television, they had to fix it so I had time to allow me to do it in time before they went to recording was always 2 to 3 months....

DPP: So you had that long?

NDJ: ....but, otherwise, I made my own time in terms of works for orchestra, works - or choral works — I was free to do what I needed.

DPP: Getting back to Air Power, was that recorded in New York or Los Angeles?

NDJ: New York. The network took care of the arming of the musicians and all that thing. I had nothing to do but to just deliver the score.

DPP: You did your own orchestrations and —

NDJ: Yes, that's right!

DPP: excellent

NDJ: I had a machine (e.g. a movieola) do it that I worked with in terms of film which I ran for myself and I looked at and saw what I had to.

DPP: for the synchronization.

NDJ: but I've done a great deal of choral music, several pieces of which have been recorded and, only recently this past year, I received my sixth or seventh honorary degree.

DPP: Did you attend the ceremony?

NDJ: No, but my son, also Norman Dello Joio — he's an equestrian rider and famous in his own right. He's been a representative on our Olympic team as an equestrian rider. I've never been on a horse in my life and, where that talent came from I'll never know but, as a child he became so interested in, when he saw — I remember the first time I took him to a horse show. He looked up at me, he said “I'm gonna be a guy like that someday” — and he was. And, then another son who's also a composer presently now working in New York.

DPP: Justin

NDJ: Justin, yes!

DPP: I want to go back a little bit, but, what was it like to work with Paul Hindemith ’cause there are things that have been written about him that I don't think give a picture as to who he was.

NDJ: He was a man who had very little patience with sloppiness; when I say that, I mean, by that he had to account for every note you put down as valid. He was, at the time, very gifted man who still maintained his faith in tonality. He never became a part of the 12-tone school's thing and that, of course, is typical of my music, too. I never subscribed to any 12-tone kinda approach. I made some attempts but it was not what the music seemed to be called for. My efforts, I never had conviction about what I put down and in terms of a decision almost dictated to me what I should do.

DPP: What I was going to say — what I notice about Hindemith, similar to you, is a certain facility in writing that I mean as a compliment. Some may see that as not but, to me, it's a compliment. Do you feel that you got some of that from Hindemith or that was just you?

NDJ: No, that was just me, and he said to me a determining factor in convincing me as a man to be taken seriously as a composer, “Dello Joio; remember you are a lyric composer. Never forget it!”

DPP: Advice that was well given —

NDJ: Right !!!

DPP: Right! and who did you study orchestration with?

NDJ: I didn't study orchestration with anybody. I felt that the best way to do that was just to go to the scores of composers whose works — and look at what they did. I had a very good sense of sound about instrumentation.

DPP: You feel that the organ helped with that, too? Your background as an organist ’cause that's basically scoring as you play —

NDJ: In a way, but scoring was no problem.

DPP: OK which is leading me to the point I was wanting to make in terms of composers who write for the symphony orchestra, in context of/to educational music and music for band, you have been part of the sound of the American symphonic landscape that is personal and unique. The question I had planned to ask was how did this come about but it looks like it came about on your own.

NDJ: No, it didn't because ones education, one in serious music, the band instrumentation never came up as a subject.

DPP: But now they will but not whey you were studying. In regards to a more personal point that I wanted to make to you face-to-face is a charming story that, I can't even remember the names of the people and all that but I went to a summer camp which was upstate. The singers in the choral group had student singers, then, at the end, the student singers present a concert. We had this one kid who, well I can't really say he was a singer but he was there to enjoy the experience and he felt, well, he would like a song that at least he could perform. Not an operatic voice. Not gonna be that kinda singer anyway but he thought it would be something he would like to do. So his teacher found a song that you had written that kinda had a “pop” flavor to it — kinda jazzy chords and all that - and he did very well — and that was the one stand out song that was different than anything else than had been sung. There was Handel, Verdi, Puccini and Bach and — not that I am bemoaning those composers, but everything was of a certain classicist, romantic period — and then out came your song and it was like “OH!, what a breath of fresh air.” But I can't remember which one of your songs it was. I will segue-way from that to ask you the next question which, 'cause I see Mr. Whitman on your wall there, has literature played a strong roll in your —

NDJ: YES, yes, I am a reader, a luminous reader of poetry — I react very much to great poets and I enjoy reading 'em. They influence all choral works that I do are to usually to very well known poets. Reading them has been a source of great pleasure because, to refer back again to that statement of Hindemith with regard to my lyrical quality, it brought out that quality. In the face of all the 12 toners....

DPP: but you never changed your style despite all the trends that have come

NDJ: I made some attempts to do what they were doing but it was not me and I felt that a system was dictating to me how I should do things so I abandoned that in my career because I knew that I would be faking if I wasn't true to myself, you know.

DPP: Now, you were born in New York? or?

NDJ: Yes, born in New York City.

DPP: Were your parents from Italy, a first generation?

NDJ: No, my father was from Italy, my mother was born in this country of Italian parents but he came in a peculiar way. He joined the American Navy in Italy. There was, in Teddy Roosevelt's time, he had sent the fleet around the world and one of its stops was in Naples. My father also played the flute very well so he enlisted in the Navy as a flute player. That's how he had a two year hitch and at the end of the two years they got automatic citizenship and that's how he came to this country.

DPP: Oh, very nice.

NDJ: as a young man

DPP: How many siblings in your family?

NDJ: I was the only child.

DPP: Well we're fortunate that you were. And what did Dad do after his

NDJ: He also was an organist and he was an organist in churches he did that 'til the day he died. Always in Manhattan.

DPP: Now I read this only in one book so it might be incorrect so correct me if I'm wrong but I had read somewhere that you were actually being considered to be a pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers?

NDJ: Oh, oh, that story!

DPP: Well I'd be curious to hear it.

NDJ: It was in my high school days, I played a lot of baseball. We had a team in New York at that time, I forget which newspaper, ran a thing on baseball teams formed in the City would win a prize. I loved playing ball and I was pretty good. At the end of my high school days, I got a job — my first job — at a camp for the alter boys of Saint Patrick's Cathedral and I went there as a baseball coach. And I played up there. At that time there was a semipro league they would have evening games, in other words they'd start about 6:00. They were not formed as major leagues but they had some pretty good players and they came to the camp to see if there were any councilors who could play. So I played second base. One evening, at that game I played way over my head — I made some very good plays. What I didn't know was that a man who was a scout for the Newark minor league team at that time was at the game. He came to me, said would I like to go to their summer training camp? Of course I was very flattered but I didn't. That's long enough as a publicity...

DPP: I just wanted to set the record straight on it if I could and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to do that.

NDJ: But that was the extent of my baseball — the field was opposite where City College is; on 137th Street and Convent Avenue and was open to the public. That's where I played a lot of ball.

DPP: That was fun though, I bet?

NDJ: Yeah

DPP: Did you get to see a lot of ball players at that time like Babe Ruth?

NDJ: Oh, well, I have one extraordinary experience.

DPP: Oh, please.

NDJ: It was about 1925, I guess, the Yankee Stadium had just recently been built and Babe Ruth was on the team in the 20's. One day I decided I would like to go to Yankee Stadium for a half a dollar you could -

DPP: For FIFTY CENTS!!!

NDJ: — get into the bleachers

DPP: You can't get into the bleachers for fifty cents anymore!

NDJ: So I was thumbing my way up from 135th Street to get upwards to the Yankee Stadium and this cab pulls over and the door opens. I got in and this voice said to me — and I looked at him — it was Babe Ruth said “Where ya goin', kid?” Oh my God I was speechless with awe. He was talking to me the whole way up to the Yankee Stadium, which was in very short time, but I really didn't understand a word he was saying, I was so bewildered. What he asked me where I I was going all I could say was “Yankee Stadium,” he says “So am I.”

So we go up and he stopped the cab. He told the cab to stop at the front office, front entrance. He got out with me and said to the gate keeper, “Put this kid in my box.” That was my first big league game.

DPP: and how was it? Do you remember it at all?

NDJ: S U R E !!! I think they played Detroit. Yeah.

DPP: and did they win; by any chance remember?

NDJ: Yes.

DPP: and did you see Babe play?

NDJ: Oh sure, sure, oh sure!

DPP: I'm just asking 'cause the legend of Babe Ruth. I mean, we have film but from someone who was there —

NDJ: but that was the high-point of my life to that time.

DPP: Wow, meeting Babe — Wow, man. Do you still follow the sport at all or you're....?

NDJ: Oh, yes, oh, you betcha!!! I have it on all the time.

DPP: Oh really.

NDJ: Oh sure.

DPP: You have any predictions for this year?

NDJ: Well, looks like we might have a World Series in New York.

DPP: Well I'm hoping so, too. At least we'll know where the pennants are going this year.

Norman Dello Joio
Interview continued, Part Two