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Tom Cipullo joined the E. C. Schirmer catalog in 2017. As one of America's most performed contemporary opera composers, we wanted to find out more about what makes him tick and the journey he's on.

How did you first become involved with music, and what drew you to composition?

I was lucky enough to be born into a musical family. My father, a jazz bassist, performed in post-war New York in every imaginable venue, and my older brother (who eventually became a rock drummer) and I were exposed to a large dose of listening as well as to live performance. Musicians were always in our home, sometimes for extended stays on our rather small living room couch. Whatever indiscretion landed them in that uncomfortable spot, they were a welcome and exciting resource for me, and their talk of songs, pianists, and bassists with “nice lines” fueled my imagination and inspired me.

Ever wanted to know what goes into an opera, start to finish? PBS did this fantastic video special on the Tri-Cities Opera's production of Glory Denied (music by Tom Cipullo, based on the book by Tom Philpott).

On November 10-12, 17, and 19, Tri-Cities Opera will stage Glory Denied by Tom Cipullo.

On November 6 and 9, Houston Grand Opera presents Tom Cipullo's Glory Denied, as part of the Veterans Songbook Project. Opera attendees can donate a ticket to allow a Houston Veteran to attend the performance for free.

Based on the book by Tom Philpott, Glory Denied takes place during the Vietnam War and tells the true story of Colonel Floyd Joel Thompson, America’s longest-serving Prisoner of War from 1964-73. The opera details Thompson’s imprisonment in southeast Asia and his personal struggles following liberation.

Hailed by the American Academy of Art & Letters for music of “inexhaustible imagination, wit, expressive range and originality,” composer Tom Cipullo is the winner of the 2016 Pellicciotti Opera Composition Prize from SUNY/Potsdam, a Guggenheim Fellowship (2012), the Arts & Letters Award from the American Academy (2013), and the Sylvia Goldstein Award from Copland House (2013).

David Mason is an award-winning poet and novelist. His poetry, prose, and translations have appeared in such periodicals as The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry, Agenda, The New Criterion, The Yale Review, The American Scholar, and others. He has also written the libretti for composer Lori Laitman’s opera of The Scarlet Letter, which premiered at Opera Colorado in 2016, and her oratorio, Vedem, which premiered in Seattle in 2012. He recently won the Thatcher Hoffman Smith Creativity in Motion Prize for the development of a new libretto based upon Ludlow. His one-act opera with composer Tom Cipullo, After Life, premiered