Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (born 1939)
Ellen Zwilich was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
She was born Ellen Taaffe in Miami. She studied violin at an early age and attended Florida State University, where she earned a bachelor of music in 1980. She played violin with the American Symphony Orchestra and later attended Juilliard, becoming the first woman to earn a doctorate in composition there.
Her vibrant Symphony No. 1, also titled Three Movements for Orchestra won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Music. (Interestingly, there was one other finalist, who was also a woman: Vivian Fine.) Following that, she earned a number of commissions for other works. Here’s a 1984 composition, Concerto for Trumpet and 5 Players:
Ellen Zwilich’s Piano Concerto No. 3, also titled Shadows, dates from 2011:
She has said that this music pertains to America’s immigrant experience, including those who came here eagerly and those who were taken by force. She wrote
Shadows is a work evoking the recollection of remnants of the past - the recalling of ancestral, religious, and cultural roots in the constant migration of people around the world. Although Shadows has something of a program, I see it as truly belonging to the listener, who will respond and understand it in relation to his or her own emotional and experiential background.
In the 2nd movement of Shadows, we can hear a type of blues dirge, and in the rollicking 3rd movement, both jazz and klezmer make appearances as well as a type of unrelenting urban rush. (Warning: the video has some sudden noise followed by a little discontinuity in the 2nd movement.)