Dr. Edward Smaldone (b. 1956) is Professor of Music and (since 2002) the Director of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, City University of New York. His composition teachers include George Perle, Ralph Shapey, Henry Weinberg and Hugo Weisgall. Prof. Smaldone is the recipient of awards such as the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as grants and awards from ASCAP, The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo Corporation, the Charles Ives Center for the Arts, the Percussive Arts Society and the American Music Center. Smaldone's music has been performed by the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Denver Chamber Orchestra, The Memphis Symphony, the Queens Symphony Orchestra, Oberlin  New Music Ensemble, the League/ISCM Chamber Players, the Peabody Camerata, the Stony Brook “Premieres!” Ensemble, Oratorio Sinfonica Japan and many other soloists and ensembles in the United States, Canada, China, Japan and Europe. An active composer for the dance, Smaldone arranged music by and attributed to Pergolesi which has been performed world wide by Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project . Other collaborations have been with the Hartford Ballet and the dancer-choreographer Yin Mei.  His music is recorded on the  CRI, New World, Capstone and Naxos labels.  He is a revising author of A New Approach to Sightsinging, fifth edition, W.W. Norton, 2011. His latest CD “Rituals: Sacred and Profane” was released on the Naxos label in April 2012.