Jeanine Tesori

Jeanine Tesori has been newly appointed as Professor in the Practice of Music and Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. She is a composer of musical theater, opera, and film. Her musicals include Kimberly Akimbo; Soft Power; Fun Home; Shrek the Musical; Caroline, or Change; Thoroughly Modern Millie; and Violet. She is a two-time recipient of the Tony Award for best score and a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama, and in 2015, she and Lisa Kron became the first all-woman team to win the Tony for best score of a musical for Fun Home. The production of Caroline, or Change at the National Theater in London received the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. She has been the recipient of many other honors, including Drama Desk and Obie awards, and was cited by ASCAP as being the first woman composer to have “two new musicals running concurrently on Broadway.”  

Tesori’s operas include A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck; The Lion, the Unicorn, and Me; and Blue, which received the MCANA Award for best new opera. For her opera Grounded, she became one of the first two women to be commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera—and the first woman in the 139-year history of the Met to open a season. Tesori also served as supervising vocal producer on Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. Tesori is the founding artistic director of New York City Center’s Encores! Off-Center series and is on the council of the Dramatists Guild.