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. Subsequently the Grawemeyer Award was expanded to other categories: 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, which makes the final prize determination; 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 penultimate 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.

[edit] Recipients of the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition

Year	Recipient	Composition	Notes
1985	Witold Lutosławski	Symphony No. 3 (1973–1983)	for orchestra
1986	György Ligeti	Études (1985)	for piano
1987	Harrison Birtwistle	The Mask of Orpheus (1984)	opera
1988	not awarded
1989	Chinary Ung	Inner Voices (1986)	for orchestra
1990	Joan Tower	Silver Ladders (1986)	for orchestra
1991	John Corigliano	Symphony No. 1 (1991)	for orchestra
1992	Krzysztof Penderecki	Adagio (1989)	for large orchestra
1993	Karel Husa	Concerto for Cello and Orchestra (1988)
1994	Tōru Takemitsu	Fantasma/Cantos (1991)	for clarinet and orchestra
1995	John Adams	Violin Concerto (1993)
1996	Ivan Tcherepnin	Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra (1995)
1997	Simon Bainbridge	Ad Ora Incerta – Four Orchestral Songs from Primo Levi (1994)	for mezzo-soprano, bassoon and orchestra; poems by Primo Levi
1998	Tan Dun	Marco Polo (1995)	opera
1999	not awarded
2000	Thomas Adès	Asyla, Op. 17 (1997)	for orchestra
2001	Pierre Boulez	Sur Incises (1996–1998)	for 3 pianos, 3 harps and 3 mallet instruments
2002	Aaron Jay Kernis	Colored Field (1994)	for cello and orchestra
2003	Kaija Saariaho	L'amour de loin (2000)	opera
2004	Unsuk Chin	Violin Concerto (2001)
2005	George Tsontakis	Violin Concerto No. 2 (2003)
2006	György Kurtág	...Concertante..., Op. 42 (2003)	for violin, viola and orchestra
2007	Sebastian Currier	Static (2003)	for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano
2008	Peter Lieberson	Neruda Songs (2005)	song-cycle for mezzo-soprano and orchestra; poems by Pablo Neruda
2009	Brett Dean	The Lost Art of Letter Writing (2006)	violin concerto
2010	York Höller	Sphären (2001–2006)	for orchestra

[edit] External links

• The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition