From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Grawemeyer Award for music composition is an annual prize instituted by H. Charles Grawemeyer, industrialist and entrepreneur, at the University of Louisville in 1984.

The award was first given in 1985. Other categories have since been added: there are categories for 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 a knowledgeable lay committee; Grawemeyer insisted that great ideas are not exclusively the domain of academic experts. However, in 1998 Kyle Gann wrote that after researching the top composition prizes in America, including the Grawemeyer Award for Music, he discovered that the award panels often included "the same seven names over and over as judges": Gunther Schuller, Joseph Schwantner, Jacob Druckman (now deceased), George Perle, John Harbison, Mario Davidovsky, and Bernard Rands. Gann concluded that since all of these composers are white men, and generally have same "narrow Eurocentric aesthetic" that the prize has been unfairly biased. [1]

The award has most often been awarded to large-scale works, such as symphonies, concerti, and operas. Only two Award-winning pieces (György Ligeti's Piano Etudes and Sebastian Currier's Static) do not require a conductor in performance.

• 1985: Witold Lutosławski (Symphony No. 3)
• 1986: György Ligeti (Etudes for piano)
• 1987: Harrison Birtwistle (The Mask of Orpheus)
• 1988: not awarded
• 1989: Chinary Ung (Inner Voices)
• 1990: Joan Tower (Silver Ladders)
• 1991: John Corigliano (Symphony No. 1)
• 1992: Krzysztof Penderecki (Adagio for large orchestra)
• 1993: Karel Husa (Concerto for Cello and Orchestra)
• 1994: Toru Takemitsu (Fantasma/Cantos for clarinet and orchestra)
• 1995: John Adams (Violin Concerto)
• 1996: Ivan Tcherepnin (Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra)
• 1997: Simon Bainbridge (Ad Ora Incerta -- Four Orchestral Songs from Primo Levi)
• 1998: Tan Dun (Marco Polo)
• 1999: not awarded
• 2000: Thomas Adès (Asyla)
• 2001: Pierre Boulez (Sur Incises)
• 2002: Aaron Jay Kernis (Colored Field)
• 2003: Kaija Saariaho (L'amour de loin)
• 2004: Unsuk Chin (Concerto for Violin and Orchestra)
• 2005: George Tsontakis (Violin Concerto No. 2)
• 2006: György Kurtág (...Concertante... for violin, viola, and orchestra)
• 2007: Sebastian Currier (Static for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano)
• 2008: Peter Lieberson (Five Neruda Songs for mezzo-soprano)

• The Grawemeyer Award