music.wikisort.org - Composer

Search / Calendar

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (/teɪf ˈzwɪlɪk/ tayf ZWIL-ik;[1] born April 30, 1939)[2] is an American composer, the first female composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her early works are marked by atonal exploration, but by the late 1980s, she had shifted to a postmodernist, neoromantic style.[3] She has been called "one of America's most frequently played and genuinely popular living composers."[4] She was a 1994 inductee into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.[3] Zwilich has served as the Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.[5]

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Born
Ellen Taaffe

(1939-04-30) 30 April 1939 (age 83)
Miami, Florida, U.S.
EducationFlorida State University
Occupation
  • Violinist
  • Composer
  • Academic teacher
EraContemporary
Awards
  • Pulitzer Prize for Music
  • Florida Artists Hall of Fame

Biography


Ellen Taaffe was born in Miami, Florida,[3] and began her studies as a violinist, earning a bachelor of music from Florida State University in 1960. She moved to New York City to play with the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski. She later enrolled at Juilliard, eventually (in 1975) becoming the first woman to earn the degree of doctor of musical arts in composition.[3][4] Her teachers included John Boda, Elliott Carter, and Roger Sessions. She first came to prominence when Pierre Boulez programmed her Symposium for Orchestra with the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra in 1975.[3][6]

Some of her work during this period was written for her husband, violinist Joseph Zwilich, who played in the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera.[3] He died in 1979, after which Taaffe Zwilich refocused her compositional efforts on "communicating more directly with performers and listeners," softening her somewhat harsh, jagged style.[3][4]

Her Symphony No. 1 (Three Movements for Orchestra) was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in 1982, conducted by Gunther Schuller.[3] It won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize,[3] after which her popularity and income from commissions ensured that she could devote herself to composing full-time.[4] From 1995-99, she was the first occupant of the Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall;[7] while there, she created the "Making Music" concert series, which focuses on performances and lectures by living composers, a series that is still in existence.[8]

She has received a number of other honors, including the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music Prize, the Arturo Toscanini Music Critics Award, the Ernst von Dohnányi Citation, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and four Grammy nominations. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1999, she was designated Musical America's Composer of the Year.[3] She has been professor at Florida State University, and has served for many years on the advisory panel of the BMI Foundation, Inc. In 2009, she became the chair of the BMI Student Composer Awards following Milton Babbitt and William Schuman. She has received six honorary doctorates.[3][6]


Musical career


Taaffe Zwilich's compositional style is marked by an obsession with "the idea of generating an entire work – large-scale structure, melodic and harmonic language, and developmental processes – from its initial motives."[4] In addition to large scale orchestral works like Symbolon (1988), Symphony No. 2 (Cello Symphony) (1985), and Symphony No. 3 (1992), she has written a number of notable, smaller-scale concertos. These include works for trombone (1988), bass trombone (1989), flute (1989), oboe (1990), bassoon (1992), horn (1993), trumpet (1994) and clarinet (2002). She has also written a small number of choral works and song cycles. Her music was conducted by Pierre Boulez at Juilliard in 1975. Her major breakthrough came after winning the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for her Symphony No. 1. Following this, she was commissioned to work on two more symphonies, for the San Francisco Symphony and for the New York Philharmonic's 150th anniversary. Symbolon has been performed in Europe, Asia, and America.[9]


Symphonies



Other symphonic works



Concertante works



Chamber music



Notes


  1. "Ellen Taaffe Zwilich introduces her Symphony No. 3". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 11, 2021. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  2. Slonimsky, Nicolas (1978). "Zwilich, Ellen Taafe". Baker's Biographical dictionary of musicians (6th ed.). New York: Schirmer Books. p. 1955. ISBN 0-02-870240-9.
  3. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Florida Artists Hall of Fame
  4. Schwartz, K. Robert. "Ellen Taaffe Zwilich." Grove Music Online. Ed. L. Macy. Accessed December 20, 2006. www.grovemusic.com.
  5. Palmer, Anthony J. (Spring 2011). "Interview with Ellen Taaffe Zwilich". Philosophy of Music Education Review. 19: 80–99. doi:10.2979/philmusieducrevi.19.1.80. S2CID 144022907 – via Project MUSE.
  6. "Ellen Taaffe Zwilich." Theodore Presser Online. Accessed December 20, 2006. Available here Archived October 15, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  7. "Women of Historic Note". Washington Post, By Gayle Worl March 9, 1997
  8. Making Music brochure. Carnegie Hall website. Accessed December 20, 2006. Available here Archived February 3, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  9. "Ellen Taffe Zwilich Interview with Bruce Duffie". www.bruceduffie.com. Retrieved November 13, 2018.



На других языках

[de] Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (* 30. April 1939 in Miami, Florida) ist eine US-amerikanische Violinistin und Komponistin. Sie erhielt 1983 als erste Frau den Pulitzer-Preis in Musik.
- [en] Ellen Taaffe Zwilich

[es] Ellen Zwilich

Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (Miami, 30 de abril de 1939) es una compositora y violinista estadounidense, la primera mujer en ganar el Premio Pulitzer de música (1983). Su obra fue atonal en principio para volverse posmodernista y neoromantica.[1]


Текст в блоке "Читать" взят с сайта "Википедия" и доступен по лицензии Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike; в отдельных случаях могут действовать дополнительные условия.

Другой контент может иметь иную лицензию. Перед использованием материалов сайта WikiSort.org внимательно изучите правила лицензирования конкретных элементов наполнения сайта.

2019-2024
WikiSort.org - проект по пересортировке и дополнению контента Википедии