A native of Brooklyn, New York, Anthony Gatto has developed a diverse body of music, often informed by literary and visual arts, exploring alternative narrative modes and structures. His cross-media works include the music and libretto for Wise Blood, after the novel Flannery O'Connor. Commissioned by the Walker Art Center, Wise Blood presents the shattered war vet Hazel Motes returning home to a changed country whose twisted ways eventually lead him to preaching the Church Without Christ from the hood of his car. Another Walker commission, his opera, The Making of Americans, presents Gertrude Stein's spectacular novel celebrating generations of American families. Anthony studied music with Ornette Coleman in the 1980s, later founding The Festival Dancing in Your Head, dedicated to presenting his ideas and influences in musics from around the world, in partnership with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He completed a doctorate in composition at the Yale School of Music, and has received numerous fellowships and awards: the Fulbright Scholar Program (Berlin, Germany), New York Foundation for the Arts, the Bush Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Meet the Composer, Inc, an ASCAP Grant to Young Composers; residency fellowships at Yaddo, The Millay Colony for the Arts, Aaron Copland House, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence program. He is an Associate Professor of Music at City University of New York.