D. Donald Cervone

D. Donald Cervone, a composer of music, conductor, teacher, and much loved father and husband, died October 18, 2026, peacefully at his home in Webster, NY. He was 94.

Don grew up in Meadville, PA, where he attended Allegheny College, studying piano with Margrethe Hokanson before earning a B.M. at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester (NY). He served his country as the assistant director and composer/arranger of The Second Army Chorus out of Ft. George G. Meade (MD).

In 1959, he married Bernice Kuenzig at St. Agatha Church in Meadville (PA). Lifelong partners, they raised four children and came to celebrate more than sixty happy years of marriage. The two also collaborated on music; he as composer, and she as librettist. In 1960, a Ford Foundation grant sent them to study opera production in NYC; together, they wrote the opera, Melanie. Having earned an M.M. at the University of Illinois, Donald was awarded two further grants from the Ford Foundation, with which he brought his growing family west as composer-in-residence for public schools in the state of Montana as well as Milwaukee, WI. Early in his career, Don taught at several Rochester area schools and colleges: David Hochstein Memorial Music School, Bishop Kearney High School, Nazareth College, St. Bernard’s Seminary. For many years, he was a music professor at SUNY Brockport. During this period, he earned a Ph.D. at Eastman, where his major teachers included Samuel Adler, Louis Mennini, and Howard Hanson. Following a brief stint as ensemble librarian at Eastman, he taught at St. Anselm College (NH), then at Merrimack College (MA). Alongside his teaching, Donald was director of music or organist for Rochester (NY)-area churches, including St. Michael Church, St. Bernard’s Seminary, United Methodist Church, and The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as well as later the First Congregational Church, Haverhill (MA).

Cervone founded and directed a number of music groups, including The Amici della Musica, The Brockport Pro Musica Consort, The Brockport Singers, and the St. Anselm Chorus, among others. With others, he drew musicians from beyond the region for the Brockport Keyboard Festival, which showcased instruments made by John O’Connor. Cervone conducted groups for summer festivals in Brockport, the community-based Brockport Chorus, and later the Polymnia Choral Society (Melrose, MA). Sought after as a guest conductor or composer/conductor, he led orchestras, choirs, and many non-professional choruses, orchestras, bands, and music theatre groups in several states. He had a special talent for bringing new singers up to concert standards rapidly and with ease. In a real tribute to the fondness his students had for him, for his eightieth birthday, former students gathered in Brockport for two days of singing, culminating in a celebratory concert.

Cervone’s musical compositions earned him many awards, from the Edward J. Benjamin Award in 1964 for Canzone II, performed as part of the thirty-fourth American Music Festival by the Eastman–Rochester Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson, to the 2016 Isobel Menton Composition Award given by Australian Catholic University, for his Missa brevis ‘miserere’. While theater was not his main focus, commissions of his work included incidental music for many theatrical productions at SUNY Brockport and Nazareth Academy. His compositions were performed throughout the United States as well as in Japan and Australia and were broadcast on radio programs and non-commercial recordings.

Don was also a skilled master designer, carpenter, and builder, with broad interests, from cooking to furniture repair, farming, county fairs, and all things Italy. He was a consummate story teller who inevitably was the life of the party, and relished the simple pleasure of birdsong at the orchard, farm and woods of his youth. A remarkable, gentle man, he inspired strength and graciousness in those around him. Don made friends easily, and his friends quickly came to feel they were family. Already, he is greatly missed.

Donald is survived by his children, Gian Carlo Cervone (Rochester, NY), Davide P. Cervone (Morgantown, WV, m. Presha Niedermeyer), Maria A. Cervone (Webster, NY), and Cristina Maria Cervone (Memphis, TN), as well as numerous nieces, nephews, grandnieces, and grandnephews. He was predeceased by his wife, Bernice K. Cervone.

Visitation will be held on Friday, October 23, 2026, from 5:00 to 8:00 PM at STEPHEN P. MIZNER FUNERAL HOME & CREMATION SERVICES, INC., 404 CHESTNUT ST., MEADVILLE, where a Scripture Service will be held at 7:30 PM.

A Mass of Resurrection will be held on Saturday, October 24, 2026, at 10:30 AM at St. Agatha Church, 353 Pine St., Meadville, with Fr. Jeff Lucas, Pastor, officiating.

Don will be laid to rest alongside his beloved Bernice in St. Brigid Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Don’s memory to the Eastman School of Music’s Unrestricted Scholarship Fund (26 Gibbs Street, Rochester, NY 14604), or to Allegheny College’s scholarship fund (520 N. Main Street, Meadville, PA 16335).

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