John Duffy has composed more than 300 works for symphony orchestra, theater, television, opera, and film. He and his music have received many awards in recognition of his excellent contributions to music: two Emmys, an ASCAP award for special recognition in film and television music, a New York State Governor's Art Award, and the (New York City) Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture.
John Duffy grew up in the Bronx, one of fourteen children of Irish immigrant parents. When he was still a young man, composition studies with Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Luigi Dallapiccola, Solomon Rosowsky, and Herbert Zipper proceeded concurrently with his career and early successes in theater. He credits Rosowsky for insisting uncompromisingly on learning the craft of music composition and developing the discipline and patience necessary to the art.
Duffy's profound regard for language, its beauties, and its powers, suited him ideally for his work in theater, television and film. He acquired a reputation early on as a first-class interpreter of ideas and emotion, a brilliant orchestrator, and a sensitive colleague.
His appointment, in his twenties, to the post of music director, composer and conductor of Shakespeare Under the Stars in Yellow Springs, Ohio, was the first in a succession of similar posts at John Houseman's American Shakespeare Festival (Stratford), the Guthrie Theater, the Long Wharf Theatre, and the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, and for NBC and ABC television in New York City.
He composed some of his notable theater scores for Broadway and Off Broadway productions of The Ginger Man, Macbird, Mother Courage, Playboy of the Western World and many Shakespeare plays, including a memorable collaboration with Houseman for Macbeth.
Duffy has also composed distinguished concert music for a variety of commissions, among them A Time for Remembrance (cantata for soprano, speaker, and orchestra); Symphony No. 1: Utah; Freedom Overture; Concerto for Stan Getz and Concert Band and the award-winning score for the nine-hour PBS documentary, narrated by Abba Eban, Heritage: Civilization and the Jews.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Chicago Tribune called the music "haunting, memorable, and brilliant." Recordings of his music have appeared under the CBS, Albany and Koss labels. As founder and president (1974-1995) of Meet the Composer, an organization dedicated to the creation, performance, and recording of music by American composers, he initiated countless programs to advance American music and to aid American composers.
In April 1997, the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performed Duffy's Unity, a work commissioned by Owens Corning for the opening celebration of its new corporate world headquarters. His opera, Black Water, based on the libretto by writer Joyce Carol Oates and commissioned by the American Music Theater Festival, received its premiere in Philadelphia in April 1997, an event widely reported and reviewed and featured on National Public Radio, and CBS Sunday Morning.
Duffy's Testament for chorus and band, commissioned for the 50th anniversary celebration concert of the Kennebec Valley (Maine) Music Educator's Association, was performed in Skowhegan, Maine in January 1998.
John lives in Camden, Maine. He is currently composing an opera based on the life and times of Muhammad Ali.