Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
Year of birth, place
Biography
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich set a definitive tone in a number of ways. In 1975, she became the first woman to receive a PhD from the Juilliard School, and in 1983 she was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. She is also the first female composer to be awarded a residency at Carnegie Hall, in 1995, a position she held until 1999.
Pierre Boulez, who received the ZKM Giga-Hertz Award for Electronic Music in 2011, performed her work »Symposium« with the Juilliard Symphony Orchestra in 1975, which helped her to gain international recognition.
Taaffe Zwilich’s repertoire includes pieces for chamber ensembles, vocal ensembles, choirs, and orchestras, whereby her set of musical and aesthetic tools range from jagged, atonal harmonies to gentle melodies with simple structures.
»Gramophone« magazine lists her in an August 2022 article as one of the ten must-hear female composers. In September 2022, her »Cello Concerto« (2020), performed by Zuill Bailey and the Santa Rosa Symphony under the baton of music director Francesco Lecce-Chong, will be released on Delos Records along with three other well-known works.