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For distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

p r i s m, by Ellen Reid

A bold new operatic work that uses sophisticated vocal writing and striking instrumental timbres to confront difficult subject matter: the effects of sexual and emotional abuse. Libretto by Roxie Perkins. Prism was commissioned and produced by Beth Morrison Projects in association with Trinity Wall Street, presented in a rolling world premiere with LA Opera and the PROTOTYPE Festival.

Ellen Reid accepts the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Music from Columbia University President Lee Bollinger. (Eileen Barroso/Columbia University)

Winning Work

p r i s m

Performance excerpts are available at Ellen Reid's website.

Locked away in a sterile room, a sickly child Bibi and her doting mother Lumee are each other’s sole protectors from the unknown. When a mysterious illness lurking outside their door leaves Bibi unable to walk, her youthful curiosity begins to simmer and a seductive external existence can no longer be ignored. p r i s m, by Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins, is a haunting, kaleidoscopic new work of opera-theatre that traverses the elasticity of memory after trauma. Composer Ellen Reid’s music erupts with color, using choral and orchestral manipulation to deliver an eerily distinct sonic world.

-- from the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater website

 

Biography

Ellen Reid is one of the most innovative artists of her generation. A composer and sound artist whose breadth of work spans opera, sound design, film scoring, ensemble and choral writing, she recently became the first composer to have works premiered by Los Angeles’ four leading musical institutions — the Los Angeles Philharmonic, LA Opera, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Los Angeles Master Chorale — all within one year.

This season, Ellen presented her first opera, p r i s m, which opened to universal acclaim in sold-out runs on both the east and west coasts, as a part of New York’s Prototype Festival and the LA Opera’s Off Grand series. Upcoming highlights include a new work for the New York Philharmonic, and a collaboration with Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller on a sound installation for the LA Phil’s Walt Disney Concert Hall. In the fall of 2019, Ellen begins a three-year appointment as Creative Advisor and Composer-in-Residence for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Ellen was listed as one of Musical America’s 30 Professionals of the Year in 2016 for her work with Luna Composition Lab, a mentorship program for young self- identified female, non-binary, and gender non-conforming composers that she co- founded with composer Missy Mazzoli. She received her BFA from Columbia University and her MA from California Institute of the Arts. Ellen splits her time between her two favorite cities – Los Angeles and New York.

-- from the composer

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Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Music in 2019:

Andrew Norman

Premiered by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, an absorbing orchestral work rich with mesmerizing textures and color, including washes of clustered string sounds and cascading winds, creating a virtual sound installation in which perceptions of time are suspended (Schott Music).

James Romig

Released by New World Records, a hypnotic solo-piano work comprised of 43 individual sections whose striking harmonic implications and subtly dramatic effects distill music to its barest essences.

The Jury

Scott Cantrell(Chair)

classical music critic, Dallas, Texas

John V. Brown, Jr.

Director, Jazz Program; Professor of the Practice of Music, Duke University

David Harrington

Artistic Director/Violinist

Raymond J. Lustig

composer and instructor of composition

Winners in Music

Kendrick Lamar

Recording released on April 14, 2017, a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African-American life.

Du Yun

Premiered on January 6, 2016, at the Prototype Festival, 3LD Arts and Technology Center, New York City, a bold operatic work that integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world. Libretto by Royce Vavrek.

Henry Threadgill

Recording released on May 26, 2015 by Zooid, a highly original work in which notated music and improvisation mesh in a sonic tapestry that seems the very expression of modern American life (Pi Recordings).

Julia Wolfe

A powerful oratorio for chorus and sextet evoking Pennsylvania coal-mining life around the turn of the 20th Century.

2019 Prize Winners