The Pulitzer Prizes are pleased to launch a new digital archive project. “The Pulitzer Prize in Music: A History Project” brings together documents previously available only to scholars, along with multimedia content from a variety of sources. We aim to paint a vibrant picture of how the prize has evolved over time, and share the stories behind some of the most interesting composers of the 20th century — from Charles Ives to Steve Reich, Aaron Copland to Wynton Marsalis.
We hope you find the selections educational, informative and entertaining. “The Pulitzer Prize in Music” marks the first in a series of explorations of the Pulitzer archive. We will continue to digitize internal files pertaining to every prize category, encourage discourse about prize winners and their work, and broaden the reach of Pulitzer-themed events sponsored by the Federation of State and Local Humanities Councils.
View the Music Prize project here or below.
Interviews with winners, contemporary accounts, drafts of jury reports, press clippings, hitherto unreleased submission lists and internal memoranda are part of this project, and will be fundamental to future digital archive presentations as well. We encourage anyone to create a History Project account and submit materials (including photographs, correspondence, video recordings, personal recollections and programs) on prize winners for possible inclusion. Comments are also enabled on every item.
"The Music prize has managed to interlock in some fashion with nearly every facet of American popular and art music since its inception in 1943," digital content manager Sean Murphy, who edited the project, said. "The full spectrum of winning work, related administrative files and introspective reminiscences from past winners in dialogue offers a nuanced view of the seismic shifts that defined postwar American cultural history."
Many of the items are culled from John Hohenberg's long tenure as administrator of the prizes. According to Murphy, "In addition to taking a respectful interest in the less accessible forms that dominated the prize throughout his time at Columbia, Hohenberg was a dedicated aficionado of opera and jazz. While he did retain the services of a part-time specialist to assist in the administration of the prize — a position that exists to this day — he avidly participated in the Music prize process, frequently consulting with the juries on their work. A substantial chunk of our archive is a testament to his inveterate record-keeping."
One of the most curious items demonstrates that Hohenberg may have planted the seed for a proposed special citation to Duke Ellington in 1965. Murphy continued, "In November 1964, Viola Lomoe, the wife of the editor of the Milwaukee Journal and a friend of Columbia Journalism School dean Edward Barrett, sent a proposal for a special Ellington award to Hohenberg. Although he affirmed in his diary that the jury proposed the Ellington award in lieu of a regular award of their own volition, one wonders if there are a few missing puzzle pieces in the proverbial attic."
The History Project is an Oakland-based documentation tool that enables various types of media (ranging from YouTube videos to PDFs) to coexist in a single environment. Future History Projects will explore such topics as the Pulitzer Centennial, the Civil Rights Movement and stylistic influence among Pulitzer winners. In addition to hitherto unseen documents from the Pulitzer files, they will feature excerpts from interviews of prize winners conducted by Bud Kliment, a deputy administrator of the Pulitzers, who also is a part-time student in Columbia's Oral History Master of Arts program.