Nino Rota

He is known as the composer of films by Fellini, Zeffirelli and Coppola, but his works are also performed in classical music concerts. The Italian Nino Rota was born in Milan in 1911. A child prodigy, he wrote an opera and an oratorio before he turned 15. He later moved to America to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, before returning to Bari to continue his training. From 1950 until his death, he was director of his alma mater, the Liceo Musicale. Rota first tried his hand in the Italian film industry in 1933, which brought him international fame. Over the next fifteen years he scored music for some thirty films. In 1952, Lo Sceicco Bianco marked the beginning of a series of collaborations between Rota and Fellini. During their thirty-year collaboration, the legendary duo made films such as La Strada (1954), 8½ (1963), Amarcord (1974) and, of course, La Dolce Vita (1960). Rota's international fame as Fellini's co-creator opened up the film industry for him: he scored films by Luchino Visconti, King Vidor and Mario Monicelli. He composed music for Zeffirelli's famous Romeo and Juliet in 1968 and Coppola's trilogy The Godfather in 1972. The music score of the second movie earned the Academy Award for Best Original Score. Rota died in Rome in 1979.