Ellen Taaffe Zwilich is an American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s, she had shifted to a postmodernist, neoromantic style. She has been called "one of America's most frequently played and genuinely popular living composers." She was a 1994 inductee into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. Zwilich has served as the Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.
Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York City at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony (1990) won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music. In this regard, she was the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first being Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983. Ran was a professor of music composition at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 2015. She has performed as a pianist in Israel, Europe and the U.S., and her compositional works have been performed worldwide by a wide array of orchestras and chamber groups.
Alfred Whitford (Fred) Lerdahl is the Fritz Reiner Professor Emeritus of Musical Composition at Columbia University, and a composer and music theorist best known for his work on musical grammar and cognition, rhythmic theory, pitch space, and cognitive constraints on compositional systems. He has written many orchestral and chamber works, three of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Music: Time after Time in 2001, String Quartet No. 3 in 2010, and Arches in 2011.
Steven Edward Stucky was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer.
Joseph Clyde Schwantner is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer, educator and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 2002. He was awarded the 1970 Charles Ives Prize.
Nigel Keay is a New Zealand composer. He has been a freelance musician since 1983 working as a composer, violist, and violin teacher. Nigel Keay has held the following composer residencies: Mozart Fellowship, University of Otago 1986 and 1987, Nelson School of Music 1988 and 89, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra 1995.
Margaret Brouwer is an American composer and composition teacher. She founded the Blue Streak Ensemble chamber music group.
Gary Kulesha is a Canadian composer, pianist, conductor, and educator. Since 1995, he has been Composer Advisor to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (1988–1992) and the Canadian Opera Company (1993–1995). He was awarded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Composer Award in 2002. He currently teaches on the music faculty at the University of Toronto.
Sergiu Natra of international reputation was a most creative and original classical composers.
Juraj Filas is a Slovak composer. His work includes more than 100 compositions: symphonies, cantatas, numerous compositions for chamber ensemble, as well as the prize-winning TV opera Memento Mori; a concerto grosso Copernicus; the opera Jane Eyre (2010); The Wisdom of the Wise Man, a cantata for choir, cello and organ; The Song of Solomon, a cantata for soli, choir and orchestra; and the requiem Oratio Spei, which is dedicated to the victims of terrorism.
Symphony No. 3 is an orchestral composition in two movements by the American composer Christopher Rouse. The work was jointly commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. It was completed February 3, 2011 and premiered May 5, 2011 by the Saint Louis Symphony under David Robertson at Powell Hall in St. Louis, Missouri. The piece is dedicated to Rouse's high school music teacher, John Merrill.
The Second Concerto for Orchestra is a concerto for orchestra by the American composer Steven Stucky. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic while Stucky was their composer-in-residence for the inaugural season of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was completed in 2003 and was first performed on March 12, 2004, with the conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The piece was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Alternative Energy is a symphony for electronica and orchestra in four movements by the American composer Mason Bates. The work was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for whom Bates was then composer-in-residence. It was premiered by the orchestra under conductor Riccardo Muti at Symphony Center in Chicago, February 2, 2012.
Charles Clement Fussell is an American composer and conductor of contemporary classical music. He has composed six symphonies and three operas. His symphony Wilde for solo baritone and orchestra, based on the life of Oscar Wilde and premiered by the Newton Symphony Orchestra and the baritone Sanford Sylvan in 1990, was a finalist for the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Music. He received a citation and award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1992.
The Microsymphony is a single-movement composition for orchestra by the American composer Charles Wuorinen. The work was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra and was completed in 1992. The piece was a finalist for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
The Piano Concerto No. 1 is a composition for solo piano and orchestra by the American composer Peter Lieberson. The work was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for its centennial. Lieberson started composing the piece in 1980 and completed it on March 2, 1983. It was written for the pianist Peter Serkin, who first performed the concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Seiji Ozawa on April 21, 1983. The piece is dedicated to Peter Serkin and Seiji Ozawa. It was a finalist for the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
The Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra is a composition for string quartet and orchestra by the American composer Gunther Schuller. The work was composed between 1987 and early 1988. Its world premiere was given on February 20, 1988, by the Pro Arte Quartet and the Madison Symphony Orchestra conducted by Schuller. The piece was a finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Air Music is a set of ten variations for orchestra by the American composer Ned Rorem. The work was completed in 1974 and was first performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on December 5, 1975. The piece won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Echoes of Time and the River is an orchestral suite by the American composer George Crumb. It was commissioned by the University of Chicago to commemorate the university's 75th anniversary. The piece was first performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Irwin Hoffman at the University of Chicago's Mandel Hall on May 26, 1967. The piece was awarded the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Stride is an orchestral composition by the Cuban-American composer Tania León. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and the Oregon Symphony as part of the New York Philharmonic's "Project 19," an initiative commissioning new works by 19 female composers in honor of the centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It was first performed by the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Jaap van Zweden in David Geffen Hall, New York City, on February 13, 2020. The piece is dedicated “In honor of Susan B. Anthony and to the visionaries Deborah Borda and Jaap van Zweden." The piece was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
