Festival
An Exotic Love Ritual For Ochestra
Dominic Frontiere and His Orchestra
Columbia CL 1273
1959
From the back cover: For some time now, I have watched with interest the professional progress of Dominic Frontiere, whom I consider one of the most promising young men carving a place for himself in the music world today.
His dedicated approach to his career, the exciting contributions he has already made to the arts of composing, conducting and arranging, single him out as a talent to be reckoned with.
In this album, I think you will note the rare combination of keen musical perception, the delicate blend of sensitive feeling and exciting tempo, and the attention to detail that Dominic brings to his work. It reveals to me a talent which will undoubtedly carry him a long way in the field of contemporary music.
ALFRED NEWMAN
When Dominic Frontiere was only two, he was already studying the violin. At the age of four, he had added the piano and the accordion to his accomplishments. Three years later, he was making regular trips to New York from his New Haven, Connecticut, home to study harmony with the famed accordionist Joseph Biviano.
If any child can be said to have virtually been born to music, it was Dom. His father, a native Neapolitan, was a violin concert master, his mother a skilled pianist. From the very be- ginning, the Frontiere establishment was properly tuned to just the right kind of harmony for creating a virtuoso.Never one to waste precious time, Dom turned "professional" when he was only six. With the accordion he had received as a fifth birthday gift from his dad, he began entertaining regularly at a tavern in New Haven's Italian district.
The name of Frontiere gained considerable stature at 12 when he made his initial solo appearance at Carnegie Hall; there were three further Carnegie engagements and one at Boston's Symphony Hall. In 1945, when he had just turned 14, Dom was chosen out of thousands of contestants from America and abroad as one of the world's leading accordionists.
While still attending New Haven High School, Dom studied classical music intensively. Though a career as solo accordionist offered enough security for most, Dom already had more serious musical plans.
In 1949, he replaced Dick Contino with Horace Heidt's Orchestra and Iwas not only featured with the band but also became musical arranger for all of Heidt's TV and radio shows. During the next four years, he traveled all over the world – from the Orient to Europe and Africa – with this group.
Festival
In this album, I think you will note the rare combination of keen musical perception, the delicate blend of sensitive feeling and exciting tempo, and the attention to detail that Dominic brings to his work. It reveals to me a talent which will undoubtedly carry him a long way in the field of contemporary music.
ALFRED NEWMAN
When Dominic Frontiere was only two, he was already studying the violin. At the age of four, he had added the piano and the accordion to his accomplishments. Three years later, he was making regular trips to New York from his New Haven, Connecticut, home to study harmony with the famed accordionist Joseph Biviano.
If any child can be said to have virtually been born to music, it was Dom. His father, a native Neapolitan, was a violin concert master, his mother a skilled pianist. From the very be- ginning, the Frontiere establishment was properly tuned to just the right kind of harmony for creating a virtuoso.Never one to waste precious time, Dom turned "professional" when he was only six. With the accordion he had received as a fifth birthday gift from his dad, he began entertaining regularly at a tavern in New Haven's Italian district.
The name of Frontiere gained considerable stature at 12 when he made his initial solo appearance at Carnegie Hall; there were three further Carnegie engagements and one at Boston's Symphony Hall. In 1945, when he had just turned 14, Dom was chosen out of thousands of contestants from America and abroad as one of the world's leading accordionists.
While still attending New Haven High School, Dom studied classical music intensively. Though a career as solo accordionist offered enough security for most, Dom already had more serious musical plans.
In 1949, he replaced Dick Contino with Horace Heidt's Orchestra and Iwas not only featured with the band but also became musical arranger for all of Heidt's TV and radio shows. During the next four years, he traveled all over the world – from the Orient to Europe and Africa – with this group.
Dom resigned from the Heidt organization in 1952 to begin studies in Hollywood with such teachers as composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, conductor Felix Slatkin and arranger Robert Van Eps.It was during this period that Alfred Newman, General Music Director at 20th Century-Fox Studios, met this intense, dark-haired youngster, then just turned 21. His reputation as a performing musician had, of course, been known to Newman. But now he became acquainted with Dominic's prodigious ambition to learn all there was to know about composition and arrangement. It was apparent to Newman that anyone who would abandon a perfectly sensible and remunerative career to chance a comparatively new road in a very difficult field deserved encouragement.This sponsorship was happily given to Dominic by Newman. Dom was especially intrigued when he found that they had been born just one half block from one another in New Haven and had attended the same grammar school.
George Adams, the head music cutter at 20th Century-Fox Studios, and Lionel Newman, brother of Alfred Newman, now took a personal interest in Dom's continuing education. He learned fast, so fast that within a short time he was acknowledged the youngest and most promising arranger in Hollywood.
It has only been a few short years since Dom's advent in the movie capital. He has acquitted himself most admirably with a highly diversified list of achievements: adaptor and arranger for screen hits like "The Young Lions," "Meet Me in Las Vegas," and "10,000 Bedrooms"; TV composing and arranging for stars like Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Dean Martin; conducting for Edgar Bergen, and the Ritz Brothers; special material for such names as Anna Maria Alberghetti, Howard Keel, Sue Carson, and the Skylarks.
His newest work is "Pagan Festival." It is dramatic and unique music largely because it is a direct product of writing for motion pictures and television, a field considered a very vital and distinctly American medium. Illustrious names like Victor Young, Hugo Friedhofer, and Alex North have evolved from this particular area of musical composition.
There are several promising young men around Hollywood just about. ready to join these cinematic pioneers. Among them is a dedicated lad from New England whose latest claim to such fame you now have in your hands.
* * *
The basic theme of PAGAN FESTIVAL is exotic in its interpretation of an- cient Inca rituals, superstitions, and the romance and mysteries of their colorful civilization. The individual selections, each composed, arranged and conducted by Dominic Frontiere, portray many facets of this strange and exciting long-vanished way of life.
Festival with its intriguing tempos and sensuous beat depicts exotic revelry and pagan incantations; House of Dawn is almost mystic and unreal, blending deep feeling with a spiritual quality; Temple of Suicide contrasts sharply with symbolic clashes of light and shadow and fear of the unknown; Moon Goddess reflects an almost un- earthly appreciation of beauty which the Inca culture aspired to. Time of Sunshine has themes of luminous warmth and airy buoyance, exemplifying the more casual details of Inca existence; while Goddess of Love has an inspirational uplift of beauty and reverence. House of Pleasure stresses in more earthy overtones still another aspect of Inca life. The delicate blend of power and joy in The Harvest conveys a time of plenty and rejoicing and Venus Girl contains moments re- vealing a great appreciation of beauty.
George Adams, the head music cutter at 20th Century-Fox Studios, and Lionel Newman, brother of Alfred Newman, now took a personal interest in Dom's continuing education. He learned fast, so fast that within a short time he was acknowledged the youngest and most promising arranger in Hollywood.
It has only been a few short years since Dom's advent in the movie capital. He has acquitted himself most admirably with a highly diversified list of achievements: adaptor and arranger for screen hits like "The Young Lions," "Meet Me in Las Vegas," and "10,000 Bedrooms"; TV composing and arranging for stars like Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Dean Martin; conducting for Edgar Bergen, and the Ritz Brothers; special material for such names as Anna Maria Alberghetti, Howard Keel, Sue Carson, and the Skylarks.
His newest work is "Pagan Festival." It is dramatic and unique music largely because it is a direct product of writing for motion pictures and television, a field considered a very vital and distinctly American medium. Illustrious names like Victor Young, Hugo Friedhofer, and Alex North have evolved from this particular area of musical composition.
There are several promising young men around Hollywood just about. ready to join these cinematic pioneers. Among them is a dedicated lad from New England whose latest claim to such fame you now have in your hands.
* * *
The basic theme of PAGAN FESTIVAL is exotic in its interpretation of an- cient Inca rituals, superstitions, and the romance and mysteries of their colorful civilization. The individual selections, each composed, arranged and conducted by Dominic Frontiere, portray many facets of this strange and exciting long-vanished way of life.
Festival with its intriguing tempos and sensuous beat depicts exotic revelry and pagan incantations; House of Dawn is almost mystic and unreal, blending deep feeling with a spiritual quality; Temple of Suicide contrasts sharply with symbolic clashes of light and shadow and fear of the unknown; Moon Goddess reflects an almost un- earthly appreciation of beauty which the Inca culture aspired to. Time of Sunshine has themes of luminous warmth and airy buoyance, exemplifying the more casual details of Inca existence; while Goddess of Love has an inspirational uplift of beauty and reverence. House of Pleasure stresses in more earthy overtones still another aspect of Inca life. The delicate blend of power and joy in The Harvest conveys a time of plenty and rejoicing and Venus Girl contains moments re- vealing a great appreciation of beauty.
Festival
House Of Dawn (Paccari-Tampu)
Temple Of Suicide (Ixtab)
Moon Goddess (Ixchel)
Time Of Sunshine (Yasmin)
Goddess Of Love (X-Tabai)
House Of Pleasure (Tampa-Anca)
The Harvest (Zax)
Corn Festival (Zabacil Than)
God Of Seasons (Kukulkan)
Jaguar God (Balam
Venus Girl (Ix-Koben)
