The recipients of the centennial Pulitzer Prizes were announced this afternoon at 3:00 EDT. The final category to be addressed was that of the Pulitzer Prize for Music. And the winner is…
Henry Threadgill, for “In for a Penny, In for a Pound.”
Threadgill, 72, studied at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. He is a composer, saxophonist and flautist, whose compositions have pushed boundaries for the past 50 years. His orchestral, chamber, and solo instrumental works have been performed at BAM, Bang on a Can, and Carnegie Hall. Peter Watrous of The New York Times described Threadgill as “perhaps the most important jazz composer of his generation,” though Threadgill has distanced himself from any such easy categorization.
You can read a review of the recording here. Threadgill plays sax in the embedded video
Here’s another sample of his work (NOT “In for a Penny,” which has not, to my knowledge, been posted), this time with the composer on flute and sax, from the Library of Congress in Washington, DC:
And a conversation with Threadgill, also from the Library of Congress:
In other music news, Lin-Manuel Miranda was recognized with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his Broadway juggernaut “Hamilton.”