The Grawemeyer Award for Music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 Composition

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

is an annual prize instituted by H. Charles Grawemeyer

Charles Grawemeyer

Charles Grawemeyer , industrialist, entrepreneur, astute investor and philanthropist, created the Grawemeyer Award at the University of Louisville in 1984...

, industrialist and entrepreneur, at the University of Louisville

University of Louisville

The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...

 in 1984. The award was first given in 1985. Subsequently the Grawemeyer Award

Grawemeyer Award

The Grawemeyer Awards are five awards given annually by the University of Louisville in the state of Kentucky, United States. The prizes are presented to individuals in the fields of education, ideas improving world order, music composition, religion, and psychology...

 was expanded to other categories: Ideas Improving World Order (instituted in 1988), Education (1989), Religion (1990) and Psychology (2000). The prize fund was initially an endowment of US$9 million from the Grawemeyer Foundation. The initial awards were for $150 000 each, increasing to $200 000 for the year 2000 awards.

The selection process includes three panels of judges. The first is a panel of faculty from the University of Louisville, who hosts and maintains the perpetuity of the award. The second is a panel of music professionals, often involving conductors, performers, and composers (most frequently the previous winner). The final decision is made by a lay committee of new music enthusiasts who are highly knowledgeable about the state of new music. This final committee of amateurs makes the final prize determination because Grawemeyer insisted that great ideas are not exclusively the domain of academic experts.

The award has most often been awarded to large-scale works, such as symphonies, concerti, and operas. Only two Award-winning pieces (György Ligeti

György Ligeti

György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...

's Piano Etudes and Sebastian Currier

Sebastian Currier

Sebastian Currier is an American composer of music for chamber groups and orchestras. He was also a professor of music at Columbia University from 1999 to 2007.-Life:...

's Static) do not require a conductor in performance.

Recipients of the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition

Year	Recipient	Composition	Notes
1985	Witold Lutosławski	Symphony No. 3 (1973–1983)	for orchestra
1986	György Ligeti György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...	Études Études (Ligeti) The Hungarian composer György Ligeti composed a cycle of 18 Études for solo piano between 1985 and 2001. They are generally seen as one of the major creative achievements of his last decades, and one of the most significant sets of piano studies, combining virtuoso technical problems with... (1985)	for piano
1987	Harrison Birtwistle Harrison Birtwistle Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...	The Mask of Orpheus The Mask of Orpheus The Mask of Orpheus is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Peter Zinovieff. It was premiered in London at the English National Opera on May 21, 1986 to great critical acclaim. A recorded version conducted by Andrew Davis and Martyn Brabbins has also received good reviews... (1984)	opera
1988	not awarded
1989	Chinary Ung Chinary Ung Chinary Ung is a composer now living in the United States. After arriving in the United States in 1964 to study the clarinet, Ung studied composition with Chou Wen-chung and Mario Davidovsky. Ung is noted for combining traditional Cambodian musical elements with western instrumentation...	Inner Voices (1986)	for orchestra
1990	Joan Tower Joan Tower Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by the New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world...	Silver Ladders (1986)	for orchestra
1991	John Corigliano John Corigliano John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...	Symphony No. 1 (1991)	for orchestra
1992	Krzysztof Penderecki Krzysztof Penderecki Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...	Adagio (1989)	for large orchestra
1993	Karel Husa Karel Husa Karel Husa is a Czech-born classical composer and conductor, winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize and 1993 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition...	Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (1988)
1994	Tōru Takemitsu Toru Takemitsu was a Japanese composer and writer on aesthetics and music theory. Largely self-taught, Takemitsu possessed consummate skill in the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre...	Fantasma/Cantos (1991)	for clarinet and orchestra
1995	John Adams	Violin Concerto Violin Concerto (John Adams) The Violin Concerto by the American composer John Adams was written in 1993. It was premiered in 1994 by Jorja Fleezanis with the Minnesota Orchestra. Fleezanis also collaborated with Adams in writing the violin solo....  (1993)
1996	Ivan Tcherepnin Ivan Tcherepnin Ivan Tcherepnin was an experimental, then later modernist/postmodernist, composer. He was born into a highly musical family, his father and grandfather, Alexander and Nikolai, being distinguished Russian composers, and his mother Ming a well-known pianist...	Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra (1995)
1997	Simon Bainbridge Simon Bainbridge Simon Bainbridge is a British composer, and a professor and former head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and visiting professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky in the United States.-Biography:...	Ad Ora Incerta – Four Orchestral Songs from Primo Levi (1994)	for mezzo-soprano, bassoon and orchestra; poems by Primo Levi Primo Levi Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...
1998	Tan Dun Tan Dun Tan Dun is a Chinese contemporary classical composer, most widely known for his scores for the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero.-Early life in China:...	Marco Polo (1995)	opera
1999	not awarded
2000	Thomas Adès Thomas Adès Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor.-Biography:Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London...	Asyla, Op. 17 (1997)	for orchestra
2001	Pierre Boulez Pierre Boulez Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...	Sur Incises Incises (Boulez) Incises and Sur Incises are two related works of the French composer Pierre Boulez.Incises is Boulez's first work for solo piano since his third piano sonata of 1955–57/63. Originally written in 1994, it has been revised twice, most recently in 2001... (1996–1998)	for 3 pianos, 3 harps and 3 mallet instruments
2002	Aaron Jay Kernis Aaron Jay Kernis Aaron Jay Kernis is an American composer and professor at the Yale School of Music.-Biography:Aaron Jay Kernis is Jewish, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and studied at the Manhattan School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, and Yale University .,Notable works include the...	Colored Field (1994)	for cello and orchestra
2003	Kaija Saariaho Kaija Saariaho Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer.Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Her studies and research at IRCAM have had a major influence on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by...	L'amour de loin L'amour de loin L’amour de loin is the first opera by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho from a five act French libretto by Amin Maalouf... (2000)	opera
2004	Unsuk Chin Unsuk Chin Unsuk Chin , is a South Korean composer of classical music, based in Berlin, Germany. She was awarded the Grawemeyer Award in 2004 and the Arnold Schönberg Prize in 2005.- Biography :...	Violin Concerto (2001)
2005	George Tsontakis George Tsontakis George Tsontakis is an American composer and conductor.Tsontakis studied composition with Hugo Weisgall and Roger Sessions at the Juilliard School from 1974 to 1978, and later with Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome...	Violin Concerto No. 2 (2003)
2006	György Kurtág György Kurtág György Kurtág is a Hungarian composer of contemporary music.- Biography :György Kurtág was born in Lugoj in the Banat region, Romania.In 1946, he began his studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he met his wife, Márta, and also György Ligeti, who became a close friend...	...Concertante..., Op. 42 (2003)	for violin, viola and orchestra
2007	Sebastian Currier Sebastian Currier Sebastian Currier is an American composer of music for chamber groups and orchestras. He was also a professor of music at Columbia University from 1999 to 2007.-Life:...	Static (2003)	for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
2008	Peter Lieberson Peter Lieberson Peter Lieberson was an American composer. He was ballerina and choreographer Vera Zorina and Goddard Lieberson, president of Columbia Records....	Neruda Songs (2005)	song-cycle for mezzo-soprano and orchestra; poems by Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....
2009	Brett Dean Brett Dean Brett Dean is a contemporary Australian composer, violist and conductor.-Career:Dean studied at the Queensland Conservatorium where he received a Medal of Excellence. From 1985 to 1999, Dean was a violist in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2000, he decided to pursue a career as a freelance...	The Lost Art of Letter Writing (2006)	violin concerto
2010	York Höller York Höller York Höller is a German composer and Professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln.-Biography:Between 1963 and 1970 Höller studied at the Cologne Musikhochschule: composition with Joachim Blume and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, piano with Else Schmitz-Gohrand Alfons Kontarsky, and orchestral...	Sphären (2001–2006)	for orchestra
2011	Louis Andriessen Louis Andriessen Louis Andriessen is a Dutch composer and pianist based in Amsterdam. He teaches composition at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague...	La Commedia (2004–2008)	multimedia opera based on Dante Dante Alighieri Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ... 's The Divine Comedy
2012	Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...	Violin Concerto (2008–2009)

External links

• The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition