Music Meets Drama

May 2026 has been bursting with wonderful news for women in music.   First came the Pulitzer Prize in Music awarded to Gabriela Lena Frank for her work “Picaflor: A Future Myth,” a 10-movement symphonic work.   The composer drew on Incan mythology telling the story of a hummingbird trying to save a future world from ecological disaster.   Commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the performance was conducted by Marin Alsop. The work was grounded in her California experience living on a farm near Mendocino close to the devastating Camp fire of 2018.   While receiving the news of her Pulitzer Prize award, Ms. Frank was at the Metropolitan Opera where rehearsals for her opera “ El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego , ” were happening prior to its opening.    The Pulitzer Prize in Music was established in 1943 with the first award going to William Schuman.   Ms. Frank joins the ranks of great women composer Pulitzer winners among them are...

The recent announcement that the opera,  Angel's Bone,  composed by Du Yun had won her the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music is cause for the continuing celebration of women's musical accomplishments. My sincere congratulations go to Du Yun and past Pulitzer Prize winning women composers, Jennifer Higdon (2010), Caroline Shaw (2013), Julia Wolfe (2015), Shulamit Ran (1991), Melinda Wagner (1999) and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (1983).  These composers' Pulitzer Prize winning compositions span the musical genres of Violin Concerto, Oratorio, Symphonies, Partita for 8 Voices , Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion and now an opera.  Our assignment as supporters of women composers is to listen to their music, celebrate their works and educate, educate and educate continuously that women composers be heard without gender barriers. Along with the Pulitzer Prize for Music announcement, there have been other articles recently written about and by women composers. ...