the GILMAN & GONZALEZ-FALLA
THEATER FOUNDATION

1995 Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Musical Theatre Award recipient. Jeanine is one of the most versatile artists working in musical theatre. She is a composer, record producer, dance arranger, vocal arranger and conductor.

As a composer, she created the musical score for the musical play, Thoroughly Modern Millie which had a sold out run at La Jolla Playhouse this past summer and is scheduled to open on Broadway in 2002. She also wrote an exotic score for Nicholas Hytner’s production of Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center which was honored with a 1999 Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award. With lyricist and librettist Brian Crawley, Ms. Tesori wrote the score to the Off-Broadway musical Violet. Among its many honors were the 1997 Drama Critics Circle Award, the Lortel Award for best Off-Broadway musical, an Obie, a Richard Rodgers Production Award, an AT&T Production Award and seven Drama Desk nominations. Audra McDonald included a song from Violet on her latest CD Lay Down Your Head. Starting this year, Ms. Tesori is an artist-in-residence at the Public Theatre collaborating with Tony Kushner and George C. Wolfe on a new musical play entitled Caroline, or Change. Also, with Mr. Scalan, Ms. Tesori composed the theme song Hold On for a new television series on NBC entitled Kristen starring Kristen Chenoweth, and a new song for Ms. Chenoweth's new solo album for Sony entitled The Girl in 14G.

Current projects include Don Juan De Marco with Tony Kushner and Craig Lucas and the score for Disney’s Mulan II with lyricist Alexa Junge. Other credits include The First Picture Show for the Mark Taper Forum and Galileo for Studio Arena.

Ms. Tesori produced the cast album recording of Violet and Twelfth Night for Resmiranda Records. She is also one of the main record producers for Holt Rheinhardt, Silver Burdett Ginn. Through Silver Burdett Ginn, she produces an educational music series used nationwide in schools comprised of 90 CD’s of all music genres such as world music, classical, rock and ethnic. Ms. Tesori also produced and directed The Scribner Spoken Arts Recordings comprised of poetry, stories, dramatic text and underscoring.

Ms. Tesori has worked extensively as a Broadway arranger and conductor. She has been involved with the following shows: Tommy, The Sound of Music, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (including arrangement of Brotherhood of Man for Lilias White), Dream, Gypsy, Big River, The Secret Garden, and Swing. Ms. Tesori was music director for Tommy, Germany, for the Dodgers.

Ms. Tesori lives in Manhattan with her husband, conductor Michael Rafterm and her daughter Siena.