Romeo Cascarino

Romeo Cascarino (September 28, 1922, Philadelphia – January 8, 2002, Norristown) was an American classical music composer. Biography Cascarino was born in Philadelphia on September 28, 1922 and graduated from South Philadelphia High School in June 1941. He served for many years as professor of music at the now-defunct Combs College of Music in Philadelphia. He received Guggenheim Fellowships in 1948 and 1949. His 1948 piece Prospice was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem of the same name. Pygmalion (1954) was based on the Greek myth and premiered in 1957 by the Royal Philharmonic. It also premiered as a ballet in 1957 at the Philadelphia Civic Ballet. His music is generally tonal, and his magnum opus is the opera William Penn, whose life had fascinated Cascarino since childhood. The opera took him nearly 25 years to compose, from 1950 to 1975, and it premiered in 1982 at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia with John Cheek of the Metropolitan Opera in the title role. The work evolved from two earlier choral pieces, Prayer for Philadelphia (1950) and The Treaty (1953) with dramatic revisions into the early 1970s. The Acadian Land (1960) developed from an earlier piece, Divertimento,