Yehudi Wyner at 90
30th July 2018
Yehudi Wyner
Photo: Michael Lovett
Photo: Michael Lovett
Steven Stucky in The Guardian
Beloved composer, pianist, conductor, and educator Yehudi Wyner turns 90 on June 1, 2019. Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for his piano concerto Chiavi in Mano, the composer's oeuvre contains seven decades' worth of music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, voice, and liturgical services.
On his style and compositional ethos, Wyner writes:
In general my musical thinking is not comfortable with conventional modes of construction, nor does it rely on received conventions of form. While the music is constructed with great attention to contextual unity and formal coherence, it also strives for a sense of the informal, the improvisational, the spontaneous. Increasingly, my music has welcomed the absorption of musical elements from many sources, not for the purposes of quotation or superficial reference, but for the possibility of fusion and transformation.
Wyner illuminates and performs his Three Short Fantasies
Selections from Wyner's body of orchestral music can be found on a GRAMMY-nominated Bridge recording from 2009, critically acclaimed by The New York Times. We invite you to explore scores, sounds, and writings from his distinguished career in music-making below, and hope that you'll join us in celebrating Yehudi Wyner in 2019 and beyond.
Selected orchestral works:
Piano Concerto, Chiavi in Mano (PULITZER PRIZE 2006)
20' – solo piano, 2(pic).2.2.2/4231/timp.perc/str
Listen on YouTube
In honor of Wyner's 90th birthday, a new edition of the score is available for purchase.
Cello Concerto, Prologue and Narrative
25' – solo cello, 2+pic.2+ca.2+bcl.2/432+btbn.1/str
Listen on YouTube
Fragments from Antiquity
25' – Soprano, 2(pic).2.2+bcl.2/4.2.2.0/perc.hp/str
View score
Lyric Harmony
18' – 2(pic).2(ca).2(bcl).2+cbn/422+btbn.1/2perc/hp/str
Listen on YouTube
Epilogue (in memoriam Jacob Druckman)
9' – 2(pic).2(ca).2(bcl).2+cbn/421+btbn.0/timp(crotales)/str
Listen on YouTube
Tuscan Triptych: Echoes of Hannibal
25' – string orchestra
View score
Recommended reading:
Reflections on the Pulitzer Prize – New Music Box
A musical mensch-in-residence, with 'keys in hand' – The Boston Globe
Interview with Bruce Duffie
For more information on Yehudi Wyner, please contact Ed Matthew
