Joseph Schwantner
Biography
The career of Joseph Schwantner is perhaps as prestigious as that of any American composer at the end of the 20th and early 21st centuries. His honors include a Pulitzer Prize (Aftertones of Infinity), a Guggenheim Fellowship, and several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. His commissions include compositions for the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and many others. New Morning for the World (1982), composed in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., is among the most often-performed and well-known pieces for narrator and orchestra since Copland's Lincoln Portrait. Since 2002, he has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His Violin Concerto (2021) was premiered that year by violinist Yevgeny Kutik with Leonard Slatkin leading the Detroit Symphony.