Anthony Cirone

2015 PAS Hall of Fame inductee

Anthony J. Cirone received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees from The Juilliard School where he studied with Saul Goodman, solo timpanist of the New York Philharmonic. Upon graduation, he was offered the position of Percussionist with the San Francisco Symphony under Josef Krips and also an Assistant Professorship of Music at San José State University where he has served from 1965 to 2001. During his ensuing tenure at the Symphony, he has performed under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, Edo DeWaart, Herbert Blomstedt and Michael Tilson Thomas as Music Directors and noted guest conductors such as: Leonard Bernstein, Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Eugene Ormandy, Kurt Mazur, Rafael Kubelik and James Levine.

He served as Professor of Music at San José State University where he headed the Percussion Department and taught the Manuscript Preparation/Computer Engraving section of the Music Technology course from 1965 to 2001. Cirone has also been on the faculty of San Francisco State University and Stanford University. His students have gone on to hold positions in major orchestras and universities around the world. Mr. Cirone was Professor of Music and Chairman of the Percussion Department at Indiana University at Bloomington from 2001 to 2007.

A prolific composer, he has over 100 published titles, including textbooks (Cirone’s Pocket Dictionary of Foreign Musical Terms), 3 symphonies for percussion, 4 sonatas, a string quartet, and 7 works for orchestra. He is the Percussion Consultant/Editor for Meredith Music Publications, and is the author of PORTRAITS IN RHYTHM, a collection of 50 studies for snare drum, used worldwide as a standard text for training percussionists in colleges and universities and his most recent title, THE GREAT AMERICAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, is an in-depth look at the music profession in general and the “good” and “bad” of performing in a major orchestra. In 1999, he received a Special Distinction Award from ASCAP for his Pentadic Striations for Orchestra. Anthony Cirone is featured in a video, entitled, “Concert Percussion – A Performers Guide”, distributed by the Alfred Publishing Co; he has also designed two pairs of Signature Snare Drum Sticks for Malletech Corp.; he won The Modern Drummer Magazine Reader’s Poll for Classical Percussionist five years in a row; was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame in 2007; an active clinician for the Avedis Zildjian Cymbal Company, the Yamaha Corp. and the Remo Drum Company.