Neruda Songs wins Grawemeyer music prize
6th December 2007
Lieberson wrote the song cycle in 2005 for his wife, the late mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who was ill with cancer. She performed it with the organizations that jointly commissioned it, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Boston Symphony, before she died in 2006. Each song represents a different stage of love, from first passion to the end of life, said Marc Satterwhite, a University of Louisville music professor who directs the award program. “The piece has beauty and surface simplicity, but great emotional depth and intellectual rigor as well,” he said.
Among his other compositions are three concertos and several solo pieces for pianist Peter Serkin, the concerto Six Realms for cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the operas King Gesar and Ashoka’s Dream
The Grawemeyer Foundation at University of Louisville annually awards $1 million -- $200,000 each – for outstanding works in music composition, ideas improving world order, psychology, education and religion.
Winners of the other 2008 Grawemeyer Awards also are being announced this week.
For more details, see www.grawemeyer.org/
