Steve Reich's Double Sextet Wins 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music

Congratulations to Steve Reich for winning the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Double Sextet. The Pulitzer music citation lists the Double Sextet as "a major work that displays an ability to channel an initial burst of energy into a large-scale musical event, built with masterful control and consistently intriguing to the ear." The Double Sextet was conceived as either a work for 12 soloists or as a sextet that plays against the other recorded sextet. Here's a video of eighth blackbird recording the 2nd sextet part (Lisa Kaplan on piano):



Some info from the Pulitzer site on the other finalists for the 2009 music prize:

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: “7 Etudes for Solo Piano,” by Don Byron (nottuskegeelike music/BMI), premiered on March 15, 2008 at Hallwall’s Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, NY, a deft set of studies that display rhythmic inventiveness and irresistible energy, charm and wit; and “Brion,” by Harold Meltzer (Urban Scrawl Music Company), premiered on April 23, 2008 at Merkin Hall, New York City, a sonic portrait of a cemetery in northern Italy painted with the touch of a watercolorist and marked by an episodic structure and vivid playfulness that offer a graceful, sensual and contemplative experience.

(Via Iron Tongue of Midnight)

More about the Pulitzer Prize in Music from Wikipedia