Nino Rota

Nino Rota composed 150 film scores for the most prominent Italian directors of his time, bestowing an enchanting aura of optimistic nostalgia upon 17 separate Federico Fellini projects. Born Giovanni Rota Rinaldi to a musical Milan family in 1911, Rota wrote a three-act lyrical comedy at age 13 and went on to study composition in the United States and Italy. His first score was Raffaello Matarazzo’s Treno Popolare in 1933; his partnership with Fellini, which began in 1952 with Lo Sceicco Bianco, continued up until Rota’s death in 1979 (while he was working on Fellini’s City of Women). Rota’s best-known music for other Italian films includes Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (1968). He also scored both The Godfather in 1972 and, two years later, The Godfather Part II, for which he won an Academy Award. Alongside his film scores, Rota composed 10 operas, five ballets and numerous orchestral, choral and chamber works.