Nicolas Flagello

Nicolas Oreste Flagello (March 15, 1928 – March 16, 1994) was an American composer and conductor of classical music. He was one of the last American composers to develop a distinctive mode of expression based wholly on the principles and techniques of late romanticism. Biography Early life Nicolas Flagello was born in New York City, into a musical family. His father Dionisio was an amateur oboist, his mother Genoveffa was a vocalist and his maternal grandfather Domenico Casiello was a composer who is reputed to have studied with Giuseppe Verdi. His brother Ezio Flagello was a bass who sang at the Metropolitan Opera. After his family emigrated to the United States from Salerno, Nicolas continued to enjoy strong family ties with his Italian relatives which created a lasting impression on him. At the age of three, he undertook piano lessons with a maternal aunt, and soon began voice lessons, studies on the violin and lessons on several woodwind instruments. By the age of seven he appeared in public recitals as a pianist and also vocalized as a boy-soprano earning the nickname “Il Poccolo Caruso”. In the 1930s, Flagello embarked upon an Old World apprenticeship with the Italian-America