Paul Creston

Paul Creston, born Giuseppe Guttoveggio (October 10, 1906 – August 24, 1985) was an Italian American composer of classical music.

Creston was one of the most performed American composers of the 1940s and 1950s. Several of his works have become staples of the wind band repertoire. Zanoni, Prelude and Dance and the Celebration Overture have been and still are on several state lists for contests across the USA.

Creston was also a notable teacher, with the composers Irwin Swack, John Corigliano, Elliott Schwartz, Frank Felice and Charles Roland Berry, accordionist/composer William Schimmel and the jazz musicians Rusty Dedrick and Charlie Queener among his pupils. He wrote the theoretical books Principles of Rhythm (1964) and Rational Metric Notation (1979).

In 2008 Marco Ciccone had done a version for saxophone and orchestra of the Sonata op.19 (© 2008 by Templeton Publishing, a div. of Shawnee Press, Inc.).