Carmine A. Pepe (?-2019) was a composer of avant-garde music. He had his work performed in New York, Europe, and Vermont. He graduated from NYU and Indiana University (M.A.). A Fulbright Scholar, he studied in France with the legendary composer Nadia Boulanger, and later enjoyed time at MacDowell.
At 16 he began his professional career as a musician, working in the Catskills drumming with jazz orchestras, and continued performing for the next fifteen years in Newark, New York City, and Europe. Hired to teach at the Mountain School, Pepe moved to Vermont in 1965 with his wife and their sons. In 1966 he moved to Putney, while teaching at Mark Hopkins College in Brattleboro, followed by positions at Keene State College and Vermont Academy.
Pepe resided in many places during his life: leaving Vermont after his divorce, he moved to New York City, and then Los Angeles. In the later decades of his life he lived in Maine and Portsmouth, NH, and returned to New Jersey in 2014. Pepe was an avid reader and note taker, an engaging conversationalist, and never stopped aspiring to fulfill his dreams.
