David Lang Wins Pulitzer, He and Christopher Theofanidis Appointed to Yale
DAVID LANG WINS MUSIC PULITZER
For his Pulitzer-winning piece, The Little Match Girl Passion, composer David Lang found inspiration in Hans Christian Andersen and J.S. Bach. MATCH GIRL’ Composer David Lang discusses the inspriations behind his Pulitzer-winning piece with NPR’s Tom Cole: Andersen, Bach and the Jewish experience.
A CARNEGIE HALL COMMISSION
By Tom Huizenga
The Little Match Girl Passion
Composer: David Lang
Premiere: Carnegie Hall, October 25, 2007
Performers: Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier, director
Sopranos: Miriam Andersen and Bente Vist
Tenor: Christopher Watson
Bass-baritone Jakob Bloch Jespersen
NPR.org, April 7, 2008 - David Lang, a New York-based composer, has won the Pulitzer Prize for music with his piece, The Little Match Girl Passion, based on the children’s story by Hans Christian Andersen.
Lang’s music makes a big impact with small forces. The piece is scored for only four voices and a few percussion instruments, played by the singers. They sing the sad story of a little girl who freezes to death selling matches on the street during a cold winter’s night. In notes Lang wrote to accompany the Carnegie Hall premiere last October, he says he was drawn to Andersen’s story because of how opposite aspects of the plot played off each other.
“The girl’s bitter present is locked together with the sweetness of her past memories,” Lang says. “Her poverty is always suffused with her hopefulness. There’s a kind of naïve equilibrium between suffering and hope.”
Lang was also intrigued by the religious allegory he saw beneath the surface of the story, and he found inspiration in the music of his favorite composer, J.S. Bach. “Andersen tells this story as a kind of parable,” Lang says, “drawing on a religious and moral equivalency between the suffering of the poor girl and the suffering of Jesus. I thought maybe I could take the story of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and take Jesus out, and plug this little girl’s suffering in.”
Author and former Washington Post music critic Tim Page, a Pulitzer juror, says he couldn’t be more pleased with this year’s winner. “With all due respect to the hundreds of distinguished pieces I’ve listened to as a Pulitzer juror,” Page said, “I don’t think I’ve ever been so moved by a new, and largely unheralded, composition as I was by David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion, which is unlike any music I know.”
The piece was commissioned by Carnegie Hall especially for the vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices and its director, Paul Hillier.
Lang, known for his work with the experimental collective Bang on a Can, says that he has worked at providing a space that can make innovation meaningful. “Bang on a Can,” Lang says, “has been a utopian home for people who are trying to do things that do not have an easy fit any other place in the music world. And we’ve been doing it now since 1987.”
“I’m incredibly happy that someone noticed me and thinks that I am worth supporting, but that in no way means that the job of supporting composers is done.”
COMPOSERS DAVID LANG AND CHRISTOPHER THEOFANIDIS APPOINTED TO FACULTY OF THE YALE SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Press Contacts: Aleba Gartner, 212/206-1450; a@alebagartner.com/ Vincent Oneppo, 203/432-4159; vincent.oneppo@yale.edu/ Visit: www.yale.edu/music/ Photos: http://www.yale.edu/music/downloads
Both Yale alumni, both among America’s most celebrated composers
Aug 26, 2008 | Robert Blocker, Dean of the Yale School of Music, has announced the appointments of David Lang and Christopher Theofanidis, two of America’s most celebrated composers, to the faculty of the Yale School of Music. They will teach graduate students in the School’s composition program, regarded by many as the most prestigious in the country, as well as teach courses and participate in the performances of their works. Both earned masters and DMA degrees from the Yale School of Music before embarking on their illustrious careers. David Lang, professor of composition (adjunct), is the most recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize in music. Christopher Theofanidis, associate professor of composition (adjunct), enjoys a reputation as both a frequently-performed composer and a respected educator.
“I could not be more delighted that both David and Chris will join our faculty this year,” said Dean Robert Blocker. “Their individual and unique perspectives on writing, making, and presenting music will be of great value to our talented young composers and will enrich our already distinguished composition program.” Lang and Theofanidis will join three of America’s most esteemed composers — Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, and Ezra
Laderman — as professor in the School’s composition department. Historically, Yale has enjoyed a leadership role in the creation of new music for over a century largely due to the strength of its composition faculty. Along with several prominent alumni, this faculty has included many of the most successful composers of our time, including a third of the Pulitzer prize winners in music since 1947.
