John rossini biography

John R. Rossini, who honorably served his country during World War II, passed away on October 6, 2023. A longtime resident of Rye, N.Y., he was 95. 

Born in the Bronx, he was the son of Michael and Bibiana Panzarino Rossini. After graduating from Bronx Vocational High School, he joined the U.S. Army, returning home as a corporal.

On February 25, 1950, he married Ruth Torosian. They raised two sons and were married for 63 years. She died on September 27, 2013.

For over 30 years, he worked as a blacksmith for the New York City Department of Sanitation. Mr. Rossini possessed other invaluable skills. While living in the Bronx, he built his own house. Once the family moved to Rye, he became an avid gardener.

Mr. Rossini is survived by his sons, John M. (Janet) of Mamaroneck, and Mark T. (Katia) of Rye; his grandson, Dagan of Wilton, Conn.; and his brother, Anthony Rossini of Ft. Meyers, Fla.

A funeral service will be held at Graham Funeral Home in Rye on October 11 at 10 a.m. Burial will follow at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Rye Brook. 

Italian opera composer (1792–1868)

"Rossini" redirects here. For other uses, see Rossini (disambiguation).

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.

Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of twelve and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823, he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During this period he produced his most popular works, including the comic operas L'italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia (known in English as The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola, which brought to a peak the opera buffa tradition he inherited from masters such as Domenico Cimarosa and Giovanni Paisiello. He also composed opera seria works such as Tancredi, Otello and Semiramide. All of these attracted admiration for their innovation in melody, harmonic and instrumental colour, and dramatic form. In 1824 he was contracted by the Opéra in Paris, for which he produced an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims (later cannibalised for his first opera in French, Le comte Ory), revisions of two of his Italian operas, Le siège de Corinthe and Moïse, and in 1829 his last opera,

Jon D. Rossini received his PhD in English from Duke University in 1999 and is Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and the Graduate Group in Performance Studies at UC Davis as well as a CAMPSSAH affiliate. He teaches courses in the History of Theatre and Dance, Latinx Theatre and Performance, Race and Ethnicity in Performance, Dramaturgy, Playwriting, Performance Theory, and Performance/Performative Writing. He is the author of two books: Contemporary Latina/o Theater: Wrighting Ethnicity (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008), and the Pragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama (University of Michigan Press, 2024, available open access thanks to UC Davis and the TOME initiative). His current scholarly work combines continued consideration of Latine theatre and performance with new thinking on writing and performance that explores expanded (experimental, creative, performative?) critical writing in relation to performance.

His more than 30 articles and book chapters include: “Considering Diasporican Drama,” in the Routledge Companion to Latine Theatre and Performance; “The Invisible Labor of Setting the Stage,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism; “If Writing…” in CorpoGrafias; “The Latinx, Indigenous, and the Americas Graduate Class: Geography, Pedagogy, and Power” in Theatre Journal; “Zoot Suit: Event, Moment and Possibility” in Aztlán; “Shift2” in Theatre, Performance and Theories of Change; “Thinking the Space(s) of Historiography: Latina/o Ethnicity Theatre” in Theatre/Performance Historiography: Time, Space, and Matter; and “Neoliberalism, Historiography, Identity Politics: Toward a New History of Latino Theatre,” co-authored with Patricia Ybarra, in Radical History Review. His essay “Marisol, Angels, and Apocalyptic Migrations” won the 2001 Amy and Eric Burger Theater Essay Contest. 

Recipient of a UC MEXUS faculty grant, a Davis Humanities

Jon D. Rossini joined the faculty of UC Davis in 2003 as a scholar of Theatre and Performance Studies. Before coming to UC Davis he taught in the Drama Program at Duke University and in the English Department at Texas Tech University. His courses include Modern Aesthetic Movements in Performance, Representing Race in Performance, Contemporary and Experimental Theatre and Drama, and Introduction to Performance Theory. His primary research is in the intersections of ethnicity and performance, especially in contemporary Chicana/o and Latina/o Theatre. 

He is also interested in the epistemology of theater as well as theories of neoliberalism, space, and identity. He has published articles in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Text and Presentation, Gestos,American Drama,Journal of American Drama and Theater,Paso de Gato,Latin American Theatre Review, and in collections such as Codifying the Nation, Mediating Chicana/o Culture, and Death in American Texts and Performance. His book, Contemporary Latina/o Theater: Wrighting Ethnicity (2008), is part of the Theater in the Americas series from Southern Illinois University Press.

Professor Rossini’s dramaturgical experience includes Somewhere in the Pacific (Manbites Dog Theater), Electricidad (Sacramento Theatre Company) and A Dream Inside Another (Sideshow Physical Theatre). He has presented work at national and international conferences including ASTR, ATHE, Comparative Drama Conference, IFTR, LASA, LATT, MELUS and NACCS. He has served on the Board of the Comparative Drama Conference and is currently Focus Group Representative for the ATHE Latina/o Focus Group. His current research includes essays for several collections as well as a book manuscript, The Political Geography of Latina/o Theater, which has been supported by a UC MEXUS grant and a Davis Humanities Institute Fellowship.