Category: Award Categories

1993 – Karel Husa

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and conductor Karel Husa won the 1993 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Husa, the Kappa Alpha professor at Cornell University, won the award for his “Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra.” The work was commissioned by the Frank Kerze Jr. Fund and was premiered March 2, 1989, by the University […]

1992 – Ralph Harper

The 1992 winner Ralph Harper, wrote an insightful and timely essay on the meaning and experience of “presence.” It is timely because, as Harper sees so clearly, ours is an age longing for deep and lasting relationships, between people and with divine transcendence. Intuitively, we know the importance and personal significance of being present for […]

1992 – Samuel Huntington, Herman Daly and John Cobb

  One explores the reasons behind and the future for worldwide democratization; the other suggests the “growth is good” mentality of modern society is leading to the demise of the human race. Both are ideas that will be vital to world order in coming years. For that reason, Samuel Huntington, author of The Third Wave: […]

1992 – Krzysztof Penderecki

A Polish composer known for sending moral and political messages through his music has won the 1992 award. Krzysztof Penderecki won the award for his symphonic piece, “Adagio for Large Orchestra.” Commissioned by Radio France and the French secretary of state for the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the work […]

1991 – John Harwood Hick

Dr. John Harwood Hick, Danforth Professor and Chairman of the Department of Religion at Claremont Graduate School (California), is the 1991 award winner. He is also Director of the James A. Blaisdell Programs in World Religions and Cultures at Claremont. Based on his 1986-87 Gifford Lectures, Professor Hick, in “An Interpretation of Religion: Human Responses […]

1991 – The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development

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 […]

1991 – John Corigliano

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 […]

1990 – E.P. Sanders

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 […]

1990 – Robert Jervis

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 […]

1990 – Joan Tower

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 […]