Economic development and sustained growth in the world’s standard of living cannot occur without a strong, global effort to protect the environment. That belief is the basis for Our Common Future, a seminal 1987 report by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, which has earned the 1991 award. Chaired by former Norwegian […]
The pain, anger and frustration of watching friends suffer and die of AIDS led to the creation of John Corigliano’s “Symphony No. 1,” winner of the 1991 award. The piece, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony orchestra, premiered March 15, 1990. Corigliano said the composition was inspired by “The Quilt,” an exhibit of thousands of interwoven […]
Dr. E. P. Sanders, a professor at Oxford University, is the first recipient of the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. This award is presented jointly by Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Louisville. In his 1985 book Jesus and Judaism, Dr. Sanders carefully, clearly and unpretentiously explores a simple but profound idea. Jesus […]
The possibility of mutual destruction of the United States and the Soviet Union in nuclear war has changed the psychology of statesmanship. That’s the concept expressed by Robert Jervis, a political science professor at Columbia University and winner of the 1990 award. In his 1989 book, The Meaning of Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect […]
Flowing instrumental solos combine with tension-building momentum in Joan Tower’s “Silver Ladders,” winner of the 1990 award. The 22-minute orchestral work, commissioned by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Meet the Composer Inc., premiered on Jan. 9, 1987. “Its many upward-moving lines suggest nothing so much as a giant ladder, reaching to the sky and […]
What’s the best way to encourage the nations of the world to cooperate? Economic agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank may offer the most hope, according to Robert Keohane, a political scientist at Duke University and recipient of the 1989 award. In his award-winning book, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in […]
Cambodian folk melodies and Western composition techniques are masterfully fused in Chinary Ung’s “Inner Voices,” winner of the 1989 award. The work, commissioned by the Pennsylvania Arts Council for the Philadelphia Orchestra, premiered in 1986. One music critic who attended the performance called the composition “lavishly colored, and wholly understandable in terms of contemporary American […]
Contemporary political leaders should look to the past for help in tackling the world’s problems. That idea, proposed by two Harvard professors who have both served as top government advisors, claimed the 1988 award. Richard E. Neustadt, a professor of government at Harvard’s JFK School of Government, and Ernest R. May, a history professor at […]
“The Mask of Orpheus,” a modern opera by British composer Harrison Birtwistle, has won the 1987 award. The four-hour opera features masked singers, mimes and electronic music. It was selected from 95 pieces submitted by conductors, critics, publishers and music schools in 20 countries. Birtwistle, 53, was to be notified by telephone today about the […]
A 62-year-old composer who lives in Austria has won the second University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Gyorgy Ligeti, who was born in Hungary and now makes his home in Vienna, received the prize for his “Etudes for Piano,” a set of six short works. None of the pieces are longer than 3 […]