Melinda Wagner

Academy Award: Melinda Wagner

Melinda Wagner received her graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied with Richard Wernick, George Crumb, Shulamit Ran, and Jay Reise. Her works have been performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Denver Symphony Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, National Orchestra of Colombia, New York New Music Ensemble, the Syracuse Society for New Music, the Contemporary Chamber Players, and Orchestra 2001. She has been honored with a Guggenheim fellowship, grants from the Illinois Arts Council and Meet The Composer, Inc., three ASCAP Young Composer awards, and resident fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. She has received commissions from the Ernst and Young Emerging Composers Fund for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, the New York New Music Ensemble, and the Syracuse Society for New Music. Falling Angels, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony and premiered in 1993, was performed there again in 1996 under the AT&T American Encore Program. Current projects include works for the American Brass Quintet and the New York New Music Ensemble. Her Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

(Hear a sample of Melinda Wagner's Pulitzer Prize-winning Concerto.)

(Read a comment by Melinda Wagner in this month's edition of Hymn & Fuguing Tune.)