Editing Pulitzer Prize for Music (section)

== Criticism ==

In 2004, [[Donald Martino]], the 1974 winner, said, "If you write music long enough, sooner or later, someone is going to take pity on you and give you the damn thing. It is not always the award for the best piece of the year; it has gone to whoever hasn't gotten it before."<ref name="Dyer 2004">{{cite news
|url=http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2004/06/01/changes_to_definition_of_pulitzer_for_music_spark_dissonance/
|title=Changes to Definition of Pulitzer for Music Spark Dissonance
|first=Richard | last=Dyer
|author-link=<!-- DON'T link; [[Richard Dyer]] is the wrong person -->
|date=June 1, 2004
|work=Boston Globe
|page=E2
|issn=0743-1791
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040707101730/http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2004/06/01/changes_to_definition_of_pulitzer_for_music_spark_dissonance/
|archive-date=July 7, 2004
|access-date=July 17, 2015
}}</ref>

[[John Corigliano]], the 2001 winner, said that although the prize was intended for music that meant something to the world, it had become a very different kind of award, "by composers for composers" and "mired in a pool of rotating jurors."<ref name="earbox1"/>

Composer and [[music critic]] [[Kyle Gann]] complained in his essay "The Uptown Prejudice Against Downtown Music" that the judges for the Pulitzer and other top awards for composition often included "the same seven names over and over as judges": [[Gunther Schuller]], [[Joseph Schwantner]], [[Jacob Druckman]], [[George Perle]], [[John Harbison]], [[Mario Davidovsky]], and [[Bernard Rands]]. Gann argued that "Downtown" composers like himself did not win awards because the composer-judges were all "white men, all of them coming pretty much from the same narrow [[Eurocentrism|Eurocentric]] [[Aesthetics|aesthetic]].... These seven men have determined who wins the big prizes in American music for the last two decades. They have made sure that Downtown composers never win."<ref name="Gann-Downtown">{{cite web
|url=http://www.kylegann.com/downtown.html#dt3
|title=Breaking the Chain Letter: An Essay on Downtown Music
|work=Kyle Gann: Composer and Author
|first=Kyle |last=Gann |author-link=Kyle Gann
|date=April 18, 1998 |access-date=July 17, 2015}} In his list of writings, Gann includes this essay under the heading "On Gann's music".</ref>

After winning the Pulitzer in 2003, [[John Adams (composer)|John Adams]] expressed "ambivalence bordering on contempt" because "most of the country's greatest musical minds" have been ignored in favor of academic music.<ref name="earbox1"/>

Schuller welcomed the broadening of the eligibility criteria for the prize in 2004: "This is a long overdue sea change in the whole attitude as to what can be considered for the prize. It is an opening up to different styles and not at all to different levels of quality."<ref name="Dyer 2004"/> Composer [[Olly Wilson]] agreed that the changes were "a move in the right direction" because they acknowledge "a wider spectrum of music, including music that is not written down."<ref name="Dyer 2004"/> Some other former prize winners disagreed. Harbison called it "a horrible development", adding, "If you were to impose a comparable standard on fiction you would be soliciting entries from the authors of airport novels."<ref name="Dyer 2004"/> According to Martino, the prize had "already begun to go in the direction of permitting less serious stuff" before the 2004 changes.<ref name="Dyer 2004"/> [[Lewis Spratlan]], who won the prize in 2000, also objected, saying "The Pulitzer is one of the very few prizes that award artistic distinction in front-edge, risk-taking music. To dilute this objective by inviting the likes of musicals and movie scores, no matter how excellent, is to undermine the distinctiveness and capability for artistic advancement."<ref name="Dyer 2004"/> In 2018, 1970 winner [[Charles Wuorinen]] denounced the jury for awarding the music award to Lamar, telling the ''New York Times'' the decision constituted "the final disappearance of any societal interest in [[high culture]]."<ref name="Associated Press">{{cite news |title=Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Charles Wuorinen dies at 81 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/pulitzer-prize-winning-composer-charles-wuorinen-dies-at-81/2020/03/12/32d49530-64dd-11ea-8a8e-5c5336b32760_story.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200314140335/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/pulitzer-prize-winning-composer-charles-wuorinen-dies-at-81/2020/03/12/32d49530-64dd-11ea-8a8e-5c5336b32760_story.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 14, 2020 |access-date=March 13, 2020 |newspaper=Washington Post |agency=Associated Press |date=March 12, 2020}}</ref>