Skip to content
Arts & Culture
Link copied to clipboard
Link copied to clipboard

Philadelphia’s Tyshawn Sorey wins Pulitzer Prize in music

Sorey is a Penn professor and former Opera Philadelphia composer in residence.

Tyshawn Sorey on the Penn campus. "A lot of composers, especially Black composers, go on misunderstood, overlooked or ignored completely, and it’s a blessing to see there’s a lot of meritorious work receiving such recognition by the Pulitzer board and [like-minded] institutions,” he said.
Tyshawn Sorey on the Penn campus. "A lot of composers, especially Black composers, go on misunderstood, overlooked or ignored completely, and it’s a blessing to see there’s a lot of meritorious work receiving such recognition by the Pulitzer board and [like-minded] institutions,” he said.Read moreHannah Price

The winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in music is a Penn professor and former Opera Philadelphia composer in residence. Tyshawn Sorey is receiving the honor for Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith), a concerto for saxophone and orchestra, Columbia University announced Monday.

Sorey, 43, said the reward of being a composer is ultimately in the work itself, “but it’s also nice to be acknowledged in this way. A lot of composers, especially Black composers, go on misunderstood, overlooked or ignored completely, and it’s a blessing to see there’s a lot of meritorious work receiving such recognition by the Pulitzer board and [like-minded] institutions.”

This year’s Pulitzer announcement in music came with other Philadelphia connections. Paper Pianos by Mary Kouyoumdjian was a finalist for the prize; Kouyoumdjian was one of the composers whose music comprised Unholy Wars, premiered by Opera Philadelphia in 2023. Sorey’s winning work, commissioned by the Lucerne Festival and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, was written for and premiered by Timothy McAllister, a member of the Philadelphia-based Prism saxophone quartet.

Sorey — who lives in Montgomery County with his wife and two daughters — said the concerto is an ode to Mississippi-born composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, and the term “Adagio” (which means slow) is a reference to what Smith is “looking to capture in terms of his slowly developing pieces.”

The approach aligns with Sorey’s own music, which he describes as “having a frame of time long enough to get the listener immersed in the experience of music. I’m a composer and artist who likes to take a long look at things, and who likes to take time.”

Born in Newark, N.J., Sorey, in addition to being a composer, is a percussionist, pianist and conductor. He was a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, and, after the 2018 Opera Philadelphia premiere of his Cycles of My Being, a set of songs exploring the African American male experience, he was named the opera company’s composer in residence from 2019 through 2023.

He moved to the Philadelphia region four years ago, and has developed relationships with several local groups and artists.

“I love to teach, I love working with students at Penn, and of course Philly has such strong arts.”

He’s working on a new project with the Prism quartet and has written a piece for Philadelphia pianist Jonathan Biss that he hopes will have its local premiere soon. Even though he has no official current affiliation with Opera Philadelphia, Sorey has been in discussions over a new opera project with the troupe and the Dutch National Opera.

The subject and story?

“We don’t know yet. I’m in the midst of finding a librettist.”

The Pulitzer award was something he “didn’t quite expect,” Sorey said, “but it’s definitely an honor for me. Many of the great composers who I’ve admired have been on that list, as well, including finalists and people I’m colleagues with, and a lot of people who have been my lifetime heroes.”