Department of Music Lecture: Kevin Puts, Pulitzer-Prize winning composer

About

Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Kevin Puts will visit WashU for a lecture on his work and creative process. He is currently the composer in residence at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Puts is widely known for his opera Silent Night, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and his compositions have been performed by leading orchestras, opera companies, and chamber ensembles around the world. Currently a professor of composition at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, he will share insights into his work and his career as one of today’s prominent American composers.

Biography

Winner of numerous prestigious awards, including the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his debut opera Silent Night, Kevin Puts’ works have been commissioned, performed, and recorded by leading ensembles, and soloists throughout the world, including Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Jeffrey Kahane, Dame Evelyn Glennie, the New York Philharmonic, the Tonhalle Orchester (Zurich), the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Miro Quartet, and the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit, Atlanta, Colorado, Houston, Fort Worth, St. Louis, and Minnesota. His newest orchestral work, The City, was co-commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in honor of its 100th anniversary and by Carnegie Hall in honor of its 125th anniversary. His new vocal 
work Letters From Georgia, written for Soprano Renée Fleming and orchestra and based on the personal letters of Georgia O’Keeffe, had its world premiere in New York in Fall 2016, and his first chamber opera, an adaptation of Peter Ackroyd’s gothic novel The Trial of Elizabeth Cree commissioned by Opera Philadelphia, had its world premiere in September 2017, followed by performances with Chicago Opera Theater in February 2018. Kevin is currently a member of the composition department at the Peabody Institute and the Director of the Minnesota Orchestra Composer’s Institute.