Category: Music Composition

2024 Grawemeyer Award Winners Announced

UofL, seminary name 2024 Grawemeyer Award winners By Denise Fitzpatrick The University of Louisville and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary announced 2024 recipients of five, $100,000 Grawemeyer Awards Dec. 4-8, 2023. UofL presents the annual prizes in music, world order, psychology, education and religion and gives the religion prize jointly with the seminary. All of the […]

2024 Music Composition Recipient – Aleksandra Vrebalov

Nontraditional choral work wins 2024 music composition prize By Denise Fitzpatrick Serbian-American composer Aleksandra Vrebalov has won the 2024 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition for “Missa Supratext,” a nontraditional choral work for string quartet and girls’ chorus. Kronos Quartet, a group long known for nurturing musical innovation, and San Francisco Girls’ Chorus, […]

Library of Congress Acquires Music Manuscripts and Papers of Composer John Adams

Adams is known for works including the opera “Nixon in China” and concert pieces such as “Shaker Loops,” “Harmonielehre,” “Road Movies,” and more. By: Chloe Rabinowitz Jun. 14, 2023 The Library of Congress has acquired the music manuscripts and papers of contemporary American composer, conductor and writer John Adams. Adams is known for works including the opera […]

Kaija Saariaho, pioneering composer hailed as one of the 21st century’s greats, dies at 70

The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition notes with sadness the death of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, 70.  She won the Award in 2003 for her opera, “L`amour de loin,” (Love From Afar).  (http://grawemeyer.org/2003-kaija-saariaho/). The opera continues to be performed all over the world and was featured in the Metropolitan Opera Live HD Broadcast series in […]

2023 Music Composition Recipient – Julian Anderson

Julian Anderson’s ‘Litanies’ wins 2023 music prize By Denise Fitzpatrick The Notre Dame Cathedral fire and the death of an esteemed colleague influenced the creation of “Litanies,” said Julian Anderson, a British composer named today as winner of the 2023 Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition for the work. “Notre Dame burned while I was writing […]

Passing of Louis Andriessen, 2011 Grawemeyer Award Recipient in Music Composition

The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition announces with sorrow the passing of Louis Andriessen, winner of the 2011 Award for his large scale opera, La Commedia, based on texts by Dante, in 2011.  Maestro Andriessen spent about a week on campus where, among other activities, he gave lessons to University of Louisville composition students, as […]

Passing of Music Composition 1997 Winner, British Composer Simon Bainbridge

It is with great sorrow that the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition announces the death of British composer Simon Bainbridge.  He won the Award in 1997 for his work Ad Ora Incerta (At the Uncertain Hour), a four-movement song cycle for mezzo soprano, bassoon solo, and orchestra, based on Holocaust-themed poems by Primo Levi.  Bainbridge […]

1992 Grawemeyer Award Recipient in Music Composition, Krzysztof Penderecki passes away

A Polish composer known for sending moral and political messages through his music, died on Sunday at his home in Krakow. He was 86. Krzysztof Penderecki won the Grawemeyer award in 1992 for his symphonic piece, “Adagio for Large Orchestra.” Commissioned by Radio France and the French secretary of state for the 200th anniversary of […]

All 2020 Grawemeyer Events Postponed

Due to COVID-19 the 2020 Grawemeyer events scheduled for the week of April 13 including the Banquet and Ceremony have been postponed. We hope to hold the events in the fall and once new dates have been decided an announcement will be made. If there are any questions, please email Charlie Leonard at charlie.leonard@louisville.edu