Aretha Franklin awarded Pulitzer Prize
The 2019 Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced and they have awarded Aretha Franklin, who we lost last year, a special award for “her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.”
The 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Music went to composer Ellen Reid‘s operatic work p r i s m which was just performed at the 2019 edition of Big Ears. You can listen to excerpts of that work below.
Kendrick Lamar won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for music for his album, DAMN. He was the first non-classical or jazz artist to win the award.
Meanwhile, Ellen Reid has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to compose a new work as part of Project 19, which will feature “19 Commissions by Women Composers, Celebrating the Centennial of the 19th Amendment” and also includes works by Unsuk Chin, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Joan La Barbara, Tania León, Nicole Lizée, Caroline Mallonee, Jessie Montgomery, Angélica Negrón, Olga Neuwirth, Paola Prestini, Maria Schneider, Caroline Shaw, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Joan Tower, Melinda Wagner, Nina C. Young, and Du Yun. Reid’s commissioned work will be performed February 20-22, 2020.
