Hymn&Fuguing Tune: June 2000

Has Winning the Pulitzer Made a Difference?

Wayne Peterson
Winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in Music
http://www.stokar.com/peterson.htm

Wayne Peterson Photo by Jack McDonald, courtesy C. F. Peters Corp.

inning the Pulitzer has meant nothing for the piece that won. Back when Blomstedt was at the San Francisco Symphony, David Zinman conducted it and did a beautiful job. But they never did it again and nobody else has ever played it. It's a very difficult piece. I write chromatic music and chromatic music is not in vogue at the moment. I think that has not helped things.

The Prize has benefited me in other ways, however. You get a lot of notoriety out of it. My commissions have soared and everything I have written since that time has been published. And I am fortunate enough to have some of the best musicians in the world playing my chamber music, which has led to a CD that has just come out.

[Hear a sample of Wayne Peterson's Pulitzer Prize winning piece in our Sonic Gallery of the Pulitzer Prize.]

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