Donald James Martino[1] (May 16, 1931 – December 8, 2005) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer.

He attended Syracuse University, where he studied composition with Ernst Bacon, who encouraged him in that direction.

He then attended Princeton University as a graduate student, where he worked with composers Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt.

Most of Martino's mature works (including pseudo-tonal works such as Paradiso Choruses and Seven Pious Pieces) were composed using the twelve-tone method; his sound world more closely resembled the lyrical Dallapiccola's than his other teachers'.

The pianist Easley Blackwood commissioned Martino's sonata Pianississimo, explicitly requesting that it be one of the most difficult pieces ever written.