Lilacs for voice and orchestra (or Lilacs) is a musical composition by George Walker that was awarded the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Music. The work, scored for soprano soloist and orchestra, was the unanimous choice of the Pulitzer prize jury. [1] [2] Walker was the first African-American composer to be awarded the prize. [3]
Walker set the 1865 poem, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", by poet Walt Whitman. Whitman wrote the poem as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln after his death on 15 April 1865. The composition was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa, with Faye Robinson as the soloist on February 1, 1996. [4] "The unanimous choice of the Music Jury, this passionate, and very American, musical composition...has a beautiful and evocative lyrical quality using words of Walt Whitman." [1] [2]
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The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year. It recognizes a theatrical work staged in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year.
The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted into a prize: "For a distinguished musical composition of significant dimension by an American that has had its first performance in the United States during the year."
George Theophilus Walker was an American composer, pianist, and organist, and the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, which he received for his work Lilacs in 1996. Walker was married to pianist and scholar Helen Walker-Hill between 1960 and 1975. Walker was the father of two sons, violinist and composer Gregory T.S. Walker and playwright Ian Walker.
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a long poem written by American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was written in the summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the aftermath of the president's assassination on 15 April of that year.
Donald James Martino was a Pulitzer Prize winning American composer.
Meriwether Lewis Spratlan Jr. was an American music academic and composer of contemporary classical music.
Ralph Shapey was an American composer and conductor.
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd: A Requiem for those we love(An American Requiem) is a 1946 oratorio by composer Paul Hindemith, based on the poem of the same name by Walt Whitman. It is the first musical work to include the entirety of Whitman's 1865 poem. Conductor Robert Shaw and the Robert Shaw Chorale commissioned the work after the 1945 death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It received its world premiere on May 14, 1946, at New York City Center, with the Collegiate Chorale conducted by Shaw and soloists Mona Paulee, contralto, and George Burnson, baritone. Paulee performed the work again with bass-baritone Chester Watson and the CBS Symphony Orchestra for the work's first recorded broadcast on CBS Radio on June 30, 1946.
The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861-1865 is a two-volume nonfiction history book by American historian Fred Albert Shannon. The book is about Union Army history, including recruitment and enlistment during the American Civil War. It was published in 1928, and Shannon won the Pulitzer Prize for History for the book in 1929.
Giants in the Earth is a 1951 Pulitzer Prize-winning opera in three acts and four scenes by composer Douglas Moore. The work uses an English libretto by Arnold Sundgaard (1909–2006) after Ole Edvart Rølvaag's 1924-5 novel of the same name. The idea for the opera was originally conceived by Sundgaard, and depicts a story of tragedy and romance among Norwegian American settlers of Dakota Territory in 1873. Composed during 1949-1949, the work was premiered on March 28, 1951 at Columbia University's Brander Matthews Theatre by the Columbia Opera Workshop.
Stringmusic is a musical composition for string orchestra by the American composer Morton Gould. It was commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra and was premiered at the Kennedy Center by the NSO on March 10, 1994. The piece is dedicated to the conductor Mstislav Rostropovich upon his leave.
Gary Cohn is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and adjunct professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Wind Quintet IV (1984–85) is George Perle's (1915–2009) fourth wind quintet. He was awarded the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Music for the piece.
Whispers Out of Time (1984) is a composition by Roger Reynolds for string orchestra. He was awarded the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for Music for the piece, causing Kyle Gann to quip that it was the first time it was being given to an experimental composer since Charles Ives in 1947. It premiered on December 11, 1988, at Buckley Recital Hall, Amherst College, Massachusetts, with Harvey Sollberger conducting.
Symphony No. 4 Op. 34, "Requiem" (1943) by Howard Hanson (1896–1981) is Hanson's fourth symphony. It was inspired by the death of his father, taking its movement titles from sections of the Requiem Mass. He was awarded the 1944 Pulitzer Prize for Music, unanimously selected by the jury, for the piece. Hanson regarded it as his finest work.
Secular Cantata No. 2: A Free Song is a cantata for chorus and orchestra by William Schuman, using text by Walt Whitman, that was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1943, after it was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky. Music Sales Classical describes it as containing, "granite-like blocks of dissonant harmony and sharp-edged counterpoint."
The Canticle of the Sun is a musical composition by Leo Sowerby (1895–1968) setting Matthew Arnold's English translation of Francis of Assisi's "Canticle of the Sun" for chorus and orchestra in 1945; the work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music the following year. The first performance was in New York at Carnegie Hall by the Schola Cantorum and the New York Philharmonic on April 16, 1945. The first recording of it by Chicago's Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus under Carlos Kalmar was released in June 2011. The piece was commissioned by the Alice M. Ditson Fund.
Elegiac Ode, Op. 21, is a musical composition by British composer Charles Villiers Stanford (1852–1924) written and first performed in 1884. It is a four-movement work scored for baritone and soprano soloists, chorus and orchestra, Stanford's composition is a setting of Walt Whitman's 1865 elegy, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", mourning the death of American president Abraham Lincoln. According to musicologist Jack Sullivan, Stanford's Elegiac Ode likely had reached a wider audience during Whitman's lifetime than his poems.
Variations for Orchestra is a single-movement composition for orchestra by the American composer Leslie Bassett. The piece was first performed in Rome in 1963 by the RAI National Symphony Orchestra under the conductor Ferruccio Scaglia. It was later given its United States premiere at the Philadelphia Academy of Music on October 22, 1965 by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. The work was awarded the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
The Concerto for Cello, Piano, and String Orchestra is a composition for solo cello, piano, and a large string orchestra by the American composer Ralph Shapey. The work was composed for the cellist Joel Krosnick and the pianist Gilbert Kalish and was first performed at Tanglewood in 1989. It was first performed by Krosnick, Kalish, and the Berkshire Music Chamber Orchestra under the composer on July 31, 1989. The piece was a finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Music and shared the top Kennedy Center Friedheim Award prize with William Kraft for Veils and Variations for Horn and Orchestra.
