Composer / electric guitarist David Laganella (b. January 10, 1974) has been commissioned to compose for Americas leading new music artists including Marilyn Nonken, The Auros Group for New Music, Flexible Music, and Odd Appetite. Notable ensembles and artists who have performed his music include The Serafin String Quartet (at Carnegie Hall), The Concordia Chamber Players, and The Haddonfield Symphony (winner of their 2001 Composer Competition). In 2003, Laganella served as the Composer in Residence for the Bergslagens Chamber Symphony (Stockhulm, Sweden) who premiered his double concerto, “Once on a Fall Fell Red for Guitar, Soprano and String Orchestra.”
Laganella has received honors from numerous organizations including ASCAP, Meet the Composer Fund, The Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, The Orchestra Society of Philadelphia, The Society of Composers, and The American Composers Forum. He hulds degrees in music composition from New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of the ground breaking book, The Composers Guide to the Electric Guitar (available from Mel Bay Publications), which is a manual addressing all performance practices and notational issues for the instrument. Laganella is the Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Now Annual Concert Series in Philadelphia.