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The 2023 Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Music

Finalist: Perspective, by Jerrilynn Patton

Recording by Third Coast Percussion released on May 13, 2022 by Cedille Records, an artful work that uses technology to create a musical language of shifting textures, driving grooves and floating melodies that morph over seven movements, generating connectivity as well as difference.

Nominated Work

Perspective

By

Jerrilynn Patton

First movement of Jerrilynn Patton's "Perspective" as performed by Third Coast Percussion on their 2022 album "Perspectives." (Third Coast Percussion/Cedille Records)

GRAMMY®-Award winning Third Coast Percussion presents an album exploring the myriad ways that classical music is being created today. Perspectives features four new works, each a world premiere recording, written for — and with — Third Coast Percussion by Danny Elfman, Philip Glass, Jlin, and Flutronix.

There are so many ways to create classical music, and this album explores four very different approaches that all, in their way, eschew the paradigms of the genre. The rich sonic universes created in these pieces reflect those approaches, as well as the identities of the music's creators, and the unique creative processes that formed the works.

-- from the ensemble's website

Perspective was written for Third Coast Percussion through a highly collaborative process. After exploring and sampling instruments from TCP’s vast collection of percussion sounds at their studio in Chicago, [Jlin] created an electronic version of each of the work’s seven movements using these samples and other sounds from her own library.

The members of Third Coast Percussion then set about determining how to realize these pieces in live performance. Diving into each of the audio tracks, the percussionists found dozens of sonic layers, patterns that never seem to repeat when one would expect them to, and outrageous sounds that are hard to imagine recreating acoustically. Even typical percussion sounds like snare drum, hi-hat, or kick drum exist in multiple variations, subtle timbral shades in counterpoint or composite sounds.

In pursuit of the broad expressive range of Jlin’s original tracks, TCP’s live version of this piece incorporates mixing bowls filled with water, bird calls, and a variety of gongs and tambourines, as well as many variations of drum set-like sounds: instruments that are like a hi-hat but not a hi-hat, or serve the function of a snare drum but are not a snare drum.

Jlin named her piece Perspective as a reference to this unique collaborative process, that this work would exist in two forms, the same music as interpreted through different artists and their modes of expression.

In addition to concert performances, Third Coast Percussion will feature the full 7-movement Perspective in its Carnegie Hall debut in January 2023, as part of a collaboration with Movement Art Is. That project features choreography by MAI founders Lil Buck and Jon Boogz, and new music by Tyondai Braxton in addition to Jlin’s work and TCP’s arrangements of music by Philip Glass.

Perspective by Jlin was commissioned for Third Coast Percussion by the Boulanger Initiative, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, Carnegie Hall, the Lester & Hope Abelson Fund for the Performing Arts at the Chicago Community Foundation, the DEW Foundation, and Third Coast Percussion’s New Works Fund.

-- from Brushwood Center program notes

Biography

A math lover, a former steel factory worker and a proud resident of Gary Indiana, Jlin (née Jerrilyn Patton) has risen to become one of the most distinctive composers in America and one of the most influential women in electronic music. Jlin’s introduction to producing music stems from Chicago footwork, but diverse influences ranging from Igor Stravinsky and Philip Glass to Miles Davis and Eartha Kitt, give Jlin’s complex percussion-driven work a sophisticated polyrhythmic sound all its own.

Jlin’s thrilling, emotional, and multidimensional works have earned her a rank as “one of the most forward-thinking contemporary composers in any genre” (Pitchfork). Jlin’s signature sound builds on a Chicago footwork style, expanded and warped into a frequency that is solely hers. Her albums Dark Energy (2015) and Black Origami (2017) received critical acclaim and have been featured “best of” in The New York Times, The Wire, LA Times, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and Vogue. Referencing a wide range of musical movements and techniques, Jlin’s collaborations with contemporary artists are just as relevant to her practice exemplified by “JSLOIPNIE,” the product of Jlin and the late, iconic SOPHIE. Additional collaborators include William Basinski, Dope Saint Jude, Holly Herndon, and Zora Jones. Jlin has since remixed works for major artists including Björk, Max Richter, Martin Gore (of Depeche Mode), Galya Bisengalieva, Marie Davidson, Nina Kraviz, Ben Frost, and others. Inspired by movement, Jlin has also collaborated with legendary choreographers Wayne McGregor (2017) and Kyle Abraham (2021).

Winners

Prize Winner in Music in 2023:

Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels

Premiered on May 27, 2022 at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C., an innovative and compelling opera about enslaved people brought to North America from Muslim countries, a musical work that respectfully represents African as well as African American traditions, expanding the language of the operatic form while conveying the humanity of those condemned to bondage. Music

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Music in 2023:

Tyshawn Sorey

First premiered on February 19, 2022 at the Rothko Chapel, Houston, Texas, an exquisitely crafted composition that balances density with fragile detail using chords and singing, particularly a strong bass voice, a masterful blend of sound and contemplative silence.

The Jury

John V. Brown, Jr.(Chair)

Vice Provost for the Arts and Professor of the Practice of Music, Duke University

Raven Chacon*

Composer, Red Hook, N.Y.

Du Yun*

Composer, New York, N.Y.

Arturo O’Farrill

Founder/Artistic Director, Afro Latin Jazz Alliance; Professor, Global Jazz Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

Carol J. Oja

William Powell Mason Professor of Music, Harvard University

Winners in Music

2022

Raven Chacon

Premiered on November 21, 2021 in Milwaukee, Wis., a mesmerizing, original work for organ and ensemble that evokes the weight of history in a church setting, a concentrated and powerful musical expression with a haunting visceral impact.
2021

Tania León

Premiered at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City on February 13, 2020, a musical journey full of surprise, with powerful brass and rhythmic motifs that incorporate Black music traditions from the US and the Caribbean into a Western orchestral fabric.
2020

Anthony Davis

Premiered on June 15, 2019 at the Long Beach Opera, a courageous operatic work, marked by powerful vocal writing and sensitive orchestration, that skillfully transforms a notorious example of contemporary injustice into something empathetic and hopeful. Libretto by Richard Wesley.
2019

Ellen Reid

A bold new operatic work that uses sophisticated vocal writing and striking instrumental timbres to confront difficult subject matter: the effects of sexual and emotional abuse. Libretto by Roxie Perkins. Prism was commissioned and produced by Beth Morrison Projects in association with Trinity Wall Street, presented in a rolling world premiere with LA Opera and the PROTOTYPE Festival.
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2023 Prize Winners

Commentary

Kyle Whitmire of AL.com, Birmingham

For measured and persuasive columns that document how Alabama's Confederate heritage still colors the present with racism and exclusion, told through tours of its first capital, its mansions and monuments–and through the history that has been omitted.
Investigative Reporting

Staff of The Wall Street Journal

For sharp accountability reporting on financial conflicts of interest among officials at 50 federal agencies, revealing those who bought and sold stocks they regulated and other ethical violations by individuals charged with safeguarding the public’s interest.
See All 2023 Winners