Douglas J. Cuomo

Biography

Douglas J. Cuomo has composed highly acclaimed and original music for concert and theatrical stages, television, and film. His music, with influences from jazz, world music, classical, and popular sources, is as personal, distinctive, and recognizable as it is wide-ranging. His compositions range from well-known television themes — for Sex and the City and Now with Bill Moyers, among others — to evening-length works for theater, including the operas Doubt and Arjuna's Dilemma. Cuomo's expressive musical language, with its arresting juxtapositions of sound and style, is a natural outgrowth of his eclectic background and training. Born in Tucson, Arizona, raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and Amherst, Massachusetts, Cuomo began playing the trumpet in grade school and switched to guitar at the age of 12. While still in high school he studied with jazz greats Max Roach and Archie Shepp at the University of Massachusetts. He began his professional musical career at the age of 18, touring the country with a Las Vegas show band. He alternated years of college with years on the road as a guitarist, studying jazz, world music and ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Miami (Coral Gables) with a degree in jazz performance. Upon graduating, he immediately moved to New York and began to tour with jazz singer Arthur Prysock and his brother Red, and to record with pop and jazz acts. After two years on the road as a jazz guitarist, Cuomo decided to focus on composition, and returned to New York City. In search of outlets for his creative work, he composed for downtown theater productions, student films, and television documentaries. In doing so, he developed a notable talent for integrating music, image, and narrative. Cuomo's first work to garner public notice was Atomic Opera, which was performed at the Ohio Theatre in downtown New York City. The New York Times wrote that Cuomo's "elegiac and eerie" score "blends electronically treated classical fragments and vintage kitsch, suggests the breaking down and reconstitution of matter into something ominous and uncontrollable." That breakthrough led to steady work composing music for Broadway productions at the Roundabout Theatre. He scored fifteen productions for the Roundabout, including The Women, Design For Living, Hamlet, The Visit, and the Tony-Award winning Anna Christie. In television, his first major success came with the Peabody Award-winning NBC drama Homicide: Life On The Street, for which he scored 120 episodes over the course of seven seasons. His credits include numerous series, movies, and documentaries for CBS, NBC, ABC, HBO and VH1, among others. He has also scored a number of independent films, including Revolution #9, The Terrorist, and most recently, Crazy Love, with a soundtrack featuring pianist Billy Childs and trumpeter Chris Botti. Cuomo is known for creating some of the most distinctive theme music on television today. Examples include the theme to Sex & The City (HBO), praised by The New Yorker magazine for its "unusual, edgy salsa flavor;" the saxophone quartet music that opens and closes Now with Bill Moyers (PBS), and the keening Middle Eastern vocals and frenetic Turkish drumming combined with a churning synthesizer bed for Wide Angle (PBS). Cuomo has received numerous grants and awards including: OPERA America Opera Fund Grant; two National Endowment of the Arts awards for Artistic Excellence in the Creation and Development of New Work; two NYSCA commissioning grants; American Music Center's Composer Assistance grant; NYSCA recording grant; Argosy Foundation Grant; Mary Flagler Carey Charitable Trust for development, and others. Residencies include the MacDowell Colony, The Hermitage Foundation, and Blue Mountain Artist Colony;. He and has received three BMI Television Music Awards and his theme for Sex and The City was chosen by TV Guide as one of the top 50 television themes of all time. He has lectured widely at institutions including New York University, Wesleyan University (CT), University of Miami (FL), University of California at San Diego, Hunter College, Hofstra University, The Asia Society (NY), and the Rubin Museum (NY), The Guggenheim Museum (NY), Opera America (NYC), The US Navy CNO Strategic Studies Group, and at the Carnegie Hall Choral Institute. Cuomo also performs as a guitarist with his band, playing jazz interpretations of his film and television work at venues including Birdland, The Knitting Factory and others. Douglas J. Cuomo's compositions are published by Schott Music. Filmography Music Department: 2008 Wide Angle (TV series documentary) – China Prep (2008) (music arranger) 2008 AIR: America's Investigative Reports (TV series) – 20,000 Cuts a Day (2008) (composer: additional music) 2008 Sex and the City (composer: main theme) 2004-2007 Now with Bill Moyers (TV series documentary) (music theme - 149 episodes) 2007/I Crazy Love (documentary) (musician: keyboards) 2006 P.O.V. (TV series documentary) – My Country, My Country (2006) (music theme - uncredited) 2005 Once Upon a Wedding (orchestrator) 1998-2004 Sex and the City (TV series) (composer: main title theme - 67 episodes, 1998-2004) (composer: theme music - 1 episode, 2001) (music assistant - 1 episode, 2002) 1993 Household Saints (music arranger: Italian street band music, music producer: Italian street band music) as Composer: 2011 Don't Ask, Don't Tell (video) 2009 Simon Mann's African Coup: Black Beach (TV documentary) 2007-2009 Wide Angle (TV series documentary) - 19 episodes » 2006-2009 AIR: America's Investigative Reports (TV series) - 23 episodes » 2007 Indie Sex: Extremes (TV documentary) 2007 Indie Sex: Teens (TV documentary) 2007 Indie Sex: Censored (TV documentary) 2007/I Crazy Love (documentary) 2006 Honeymoon with Mom 2005 Vampire Bats (TV movie) 2005 Martha Behind Bars (TV movie) 2005 Viva Baseball! (TV documentary) 2005 Chasing the Crown (TV documentary) 2005 Committed (TV series) - 10 episodes » 2005 Love Files: The Anatomy of Love (TV documentary) 2005 Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria (TV series) 2005 Once Upon a Wedding 2004 Terrorists 2004 30 Days Until I'm Famous (TV movie) 2004 Celeste in the City (TV movie) 2004 The Survivors Club (TV movie) 2004 In the Company of Women (TV documentary) 2003 A Pizza Man (documentary short) 2003 See Jane Date (TV movie) 2003 Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt (TV movie) 2003 Queens Supreme (TV series) 2002 Presumed Guilty: Tales of the Public Defenders (documentary) 2002 Who Is Alan Smithee? (TV documentary) 2002 Now with Bill Moyers (TV series documentary) 2002 The American Experience (TV series documentary) – Miss America (2002) 2001 Revolution #9 2001 The Orgasm Special: A Real Sex Xtra (TV movie) 2001 Wake Up and Smell the Coffee 2001 Indie Sex: Taboos (TV documentary) 2000 In the Weeds 2000 Homicide: The Movie (TV movie) 1999 Now and Again (TV series) 1998-1999 Sex and the City (TV series) - 17 episodes » 1994-1999 Homicide: Life on the Street (TV series) - 109 episodes » 1998 Anatomy of a 'Homicide: Life on the Street' (TV documentary) 1997 Violent Planet (TV documentary) (segment "Avalanche!") 1995 Lie Down with Dogs 1994 Hand Gun 1991 My Birthday Cake (music scored by)