He was natural within New York City and began his musical career as organist and choir director at the Star of the Sea Church within City Island in Future York at age Xiv. His father was an organist, pianist, & vocal coach and coached numerous opera stars from a Metropolitan Opera. He taught Norman piano starting at a age of little joe. Inside his teens, Norman began researching organ sustaining his godfather, Pietro Yon, world health organization was a organist at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Inside 1939, he received a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music, where he exposed composition using Bernard Wagenaar.

When he wwhen the student, he worked as organist at St. Anne's Church, however he shortly decided that he didn't obviously produce his residing as an organist. Within 1941, he began studying by owning Paul Hindemith, who encouraged him to watch his have lyrical bent, like than sacrificing it to the atonal systems then popular.

Per late forties, he was considered one of a first American composers. He received many awards & great deal recognition. He occurs as prolific composer inside the kind of genres, however is mayhap better known for his choral music. Possibly Dello Joio's best known operate in the wind ensemble category is his "Fantasies on a Theme by Haydn", composed for the Michigan State University Wind Ensemble & has since been performed hundreds to thousands of days through the world.

He taught at Sarah Lawrence College from 1944-5& a Mannes College of Music. He was prof & dean at Boston University. Around 1978, he retired and moved to Long Island, in which he continues to compose.