Editing Nino Rota (section)

==Early career==
[[File:Nino_Rota_1923.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Rota at age 12]]
Giovanni Rota Rinaldi was born on 3 December 1911 into a musical family in [[Milan]], Italy.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> Rota was a renowned [[child prodigy]] – his first ''[[oratorio]]'', ''L'infanzia di San Giovanni Battista'', was written at age 11<ref>Nicholas Slonimsky, ''The Concise Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Composers and Musicians'' (Simon & Schuster, London, 1988, {{ISBN|0-671-69896-6}}), p. 1063</ref> and performed in Milan and Paris as early as 1923; his three-act lyrical comedy after [[Hans Christian Andersen]], ''Il Principe Porcaro'', was composed when he was just 13 and published in 1926. He studied at the Milan conservatory there under [[Giacomo Orefice]]<ref name="NinoRota.com - Biography"/> and then undertook serious study of composition under [[Ildebrando Pizzetti]] and [[Alfredo Casella]] at the [[Conservatorio Santa Cecilia]] in [[Rome]], graduating in 1930.<ref name="Slonimsky, p. 1063">Slonimsky, p. 1063</ref>

Encouraged by [[Arturo Toscanini]], Rota moved to the United States, where he lived from 1930 to 1932. He won a scholarship to the [[Curtis Institute]] of [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|Philadelphia]], where he was taught conducting by [[Fritz Reiner]] and had [[Rosario Scalero]] as an instructor in composition.<ref name="Slonimsky, p. 1063"/> Returning to Milan, he wrote a thesis on the [[Renaissance music|Renaissance]] composer [[Gioseffo Zarlino]]. Rota earned a degree in literature from the University of Milan, graduating in 1937, and began a teaching career that led to the directorship of the Liceo Musicale in [[Bari, Italy|Bari]], a title he held from 1950 until 1978.<ref name="Slonimsky, p. 1063"/>