Synopsis

On today’s date in 1998, in Purchase, New York, the Westchester Philharmonic gave the premiere performance of a new flute concerto by 41-year old composer Melinda Wagner.

Her concerto won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1999 — a gratifying mark of recognition for Wagner, who claims she had developed 20 years of calluses from all the rejections that are the common experience of most young composers in America. Along with the bumps and scrapes, Wagner had picked up a number of other honors along the way, including awards, grants, and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, Meet the Composer and ASCAP, to name just a few.

“Composition is like writing a kind of love letter to performers. They will be interpreting something that is incredibly personal, so it feels like a love affair. As for the audience, to try to try to second-guess them to figure out what they’re going to like, and write that, would be an insult to them. I just hope they can plug into the communication that’s happening between the performers and me,” she said.

Music Played in Today's Program

Melinda Wagner (b. 1957): Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion; Paul Lustig Dunkel, flute; Westchester Philharmonic; Mark Mandarano, conductor; Bridge 9098