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Celebrating Composer Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Introduction to Mario & Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco. 1:35 min. Design: Raymond Elman.

I first met Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco at a Tribute Concert for her grandfather, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, at Florida International University in 2017. The concert was part of the Miami International GuitART Festival which celebrated the musical legacy of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968), one of the foremost guitar composers in the 20th century. Born in Florence, Castelnuovo-Tedesco was descended from a prominent Jewish banking family that had lived in Florence since the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. Castelnuovo-Tedesco was first introduced to the piano by his mother, and he composed his first pieces when he was just nine years old. He fled Italy in 1939, and migrated to the U.S., where he became a film composer for MGM Studios for some 200 Hollywood movies and wrote almost 100 compositions for guitar, some of which were written for and dedicated to the legendary Spanish guitarist Andrés Segovia, a frequent collaborator.

Born in Los Angeles, Diana Castelnuovo-Tedesco grew up near the California home of her grandparents, Mario and Clara Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Diana studied art history and Italian at Smith College in Massachusetts before settling in New York City. Diana dedicates herself to making her grandfather’s vast catalog of compositions more accessible to performers, scholars, and the general public. In 2015, the Castelnuovo-Tedesco family began a collaboration with Edizioni Curci (edizionicurci.it) and the Comitato Nazionale Italiano Musica (CIDIM) to publish a number of works for the first time, including vocal, chamber, and piano music. In addition, Diana continues to augment the Castelnuovo-Tedesco Collection at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., which encompasses more than 7,000 documents, including hundreds of original musical manuscripts. She has participated in conferences and seminars in the United States and in Europe that have explored different aspects of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s music, life, and legacy. In 2016, Diana, her sister, and cousins accepted the Mi Ricordo (I Remember) Award from the Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles on behalf of their grandfather. In 2018, the family participated in a ceremony at the Italian House of Representatives in Rome which honored Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s memory. The composer was awarded Il Premio del Presidente della Repubblica Italiana, the Presidential Medal, eighty years after Italy’s racial laws prompted Castelnuovo-Tedesco to emigrate to the United States.

Diana brings to her role as representative for her grandfather’s legacy many years of experience in public relations and communications. She founded and managed her own New York-based firm, Fraîche PR, for 12 years, where she developed marketing and communications programs for lifestyle brands and cultural organizations. In 2011 she was a winner of the British Airways Face-of-Opportunity Contest, a program recognizing internationally-minded entrepreneurs. Previously, she was head of global communication for the Smirnoff brand at the premium drinks company Diageo. She also served as vice president of press and public relations for the global beauty leader Coty, based in Paris.

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OVERCOMES CHALLENGES TO SUCCEED: 0:33 sec.