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Lilacs (Walker)
''Lilacs for voice and orchestra'' (or ''Lilacs'') is a musical composition by George T. Walker Jr. (1922–2018) that was awarded the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Music. The work, scored for soprano soloist and orchestra, was the unanimous choice of the Pulitzer prize jury.Fischer, Heinz Dietrich and Fischer, Erika J. (2001). ''Musical Composition Awards 1943-1999'', p.xlvi. .Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich (1988). ''The Pulitzer Prize archive'', p.278. . Walker was the first African-American composer to be awarded the prize. Walker set the 1865 poem, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", by poet Walt Whitman. Whitman wrote the poem as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ... after his death on 15 April 1865. The composition was premi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Walker (composer)
George Theophilus Walker (June 27, 1922 – August 23, 2018) was an American composer, pianist, and organist, and the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, which he received for his work ''Lilacs'' in 1996.De Lerma, Dominique-Rene"African Heritage Symphonic Series" Liner note essay. Cedille Records CDR061. Walker was married to pianist and scholar Helen Walker-Hill (May 26, 1936 – August 8, 2013) between 1960 and 1975. Walker was the father of two sons, violinist and composer Gregory T.S. Walker and playwright Ian Walker. Biography Walker was first exposed to music at the age of five when he began to play the piano. He was admitted to the Oberlin Conservatory at 14, and later to the Curtis Institute of Music to study piano with Rudolf Serkin, chamber music with William Primrose and Gregor Piatigorsky, and composition with Rosario Scalero, teacher of Samuel Barber. He received his doctorate from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Roche ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulitzer Prize For Music
The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted into a prize: "For a distinguished musical composition of significant dimension by an American that has had its first performance in the United States during the year." Because of the requirement that the composition have its world premiere during the year of its award, the winning work had rarely been recorded and sometimes had received only one performance. In 2004 the terms were modified to read, "For a distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year." History In his will, dated April 16, 1904, Joseph Pulitzer established annual prizes for a number of creative accomplishments by living Americans, including prizes for journalism, novels, plays, historie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a long poem written by American poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892) as an elegy to President Abraham Lincoln. It was written in the summer of 1865 during a period of profound national mourning in the aftermath of the president's assassination on 14 April of that year. The poem, written in free verse in 206 lines, uses many of the literary techniques associated with the pastoral elegy. Despite being an expression to the fallen president, Whitman neither mentions Lincoln by name nor discusses the circumstances of his death in the poem. Instead, he uses a series of rural and natural imagery including the symbols of the lilacs, a drooping star in the western sky (Venus), and the hermit thrush, and he employs the traditional progression of the pastoral elegy in moving from grief toward an acceptance and knowledge of death. The poem also addresses the pity of war through imagery vaguely referencing the American Civil War (1861–1865), which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection ''Leaves of Grass'', which was described as obscene for its overt sensuality. Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman resided in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. Later, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, ''Leaves of Grass'', was first published in 1855 with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy. Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky and was raised on the frontier, primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. Congressman from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his successful law practice in central Illinois. In 1854, he was angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened the territories to slavery, and he re-entered politics. He soon became a leader of the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the 1858 Senate campaign debates against Stephen A. Douglas. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, the BSO performs most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at Tanglewood. Since its founding, the orchestra has had 17 music directors, including George Henschel, Serge Koussevitzky, Henri Rabaud, Pierre Monteux, Charles Munch, Erich Leinsdorf, William Steinberg and James Levine. Andris Nelsons is the current music director of the BSO. Seiji Ozawa has the title of BSO music director laureate. Bernard Haitink had held the title of principal guest conductor of the BSO from 1995 to 2004, then conductor emeritus until his death in 2021. The orchestra has made gramophone recordings since 1917 and has occasionally played on soundtrack recordings for films, including ''Schindler's List''. History Early year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faye Robinson
Faye Robinson (born November 2, 1943) is an African-American soprano. A native of Houston, Robinson received her bachelor's degree from Bennett College before beginning her musical studies at Texas Southern University under Ruth Stewart; further studies followed at North Texas State University and in New York with Ellen Faull, after which she debuted as Micaëla at the New York City Opera in 1972. While with the company she also sang Liù, Violetta, and the Queen of Shemakha in ''Le Coq d'Or''. She auditioned for the San Francisco Opera, receiving first prize. For Washington Civic Opera she performed as Violetta and Juliette in 1973; for Opera/South she was Desdemona in 1973 and Adina in 1974. 1975 found her in Aix-en-Provence, where she appeared to great acclaim in a double-bill of ''The Impresario'' and ''La serva padrona''; that same year she returned to her hometown to essay the title role in ''Lucrezia Borgia''. For Buenos Aires, in 1980, she sang the three soprano roles in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compositions By George Walker
Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature * Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include visuals and digital space *Composition (music), an original piece of music and its creation * Composition (visual arts), the plan, placement or arrangement of the elements of art in a work * ''Composition'' (Peeters), a 1921 painting by Jozef Peeters * Composition studies, the professional field of writing instruction * ''Compositions'' (album), an album by Anita Baker * Digital compositing, the practice of digitally piecing together a video Computer science * Function composition (computer science), an act or mechanism to combine simple functions to build more complicated ones *Object composition, combining simpler data types into more complex data types, or function calls into calling functions History * Composition of 1867, Austro-Hung ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulitzer Prize For Music-winning Works
Pulitzer may refer to: *Joseph Pulitzer, a 20th century media magnate * Pulitzer Prize, an annual U.S. journalism, literary, and music award *Pulitzer (surname) * Pulitzer, Inc., a U.S. newspaper chain *Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-profit organization for journalists See also *Politzer (other) *Politz (other) Politz or Pölitz may refer to: * Politz an der Elbe, a town in North Bohemia, now a district of Děčín, Czech Republic * Politz an der Mettau, a city in north Bohemia, Czech Republic * Politz Day School of Cherry Hill, a private Jewish school in ... * Pollitz, Germany {{disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
