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Salvatore Martirano

American composer (1927–1995)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 10, 2025
Entity authorityQ3470396 ↗
Source-derived summary

Salvatore Giovanni Martirano (January 12, 1927 – November 17, 1995) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. Born in Yonkers, New York, he taught for many years at the University of Illinois. He also worked in electronic music and invented electronic musical instruments.

Professional background

Born in Yonkers, New York, Martirano received his undergraduate degree in 1951 from Oberlin College, where he studied composition with Herbert Elwell. A year later he completed his master's degree in composition at the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Bernard Rogers. He then pursued further studies in Florence, Italy with Luigi Dallapiccola from 1952 through 1954.

Martirano worked in Italy from 1956 to 1959, when he was a resident fellow at the American Academy.

Between 1959 and 1964, Martirano received commissions, awards, and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Ford, Koussevitzky, and Fromm Foundations, as well as from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Brandeis University.

In 1963, Martirano joined the Theory and Composition Department at the University of Illinois in Urbana. He served on the faculty until his retirement and death in 1995.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Salvatore Martirano” is american composer (1927–1995). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Salvatore, Martirano and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1927, 1995, 1951, 1952—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1927-01-12. For this dossier, Salvatore, Martirano and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american composer (1927–1995)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 10, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3470396. VIAF identifies the subject as 246969235. The Library of Congress control number is n83176128. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1995, 1951 and 1952.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Salvatore Martirano”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Salvatore Martirano primary sources, Salvatore Martirano archive and Salvatore research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Salvatore Martirano”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Salvatore Martirano” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.