Tyshawn Sorey, a Wynnewood resident, has won the Pulitzer Prize in Music for composing Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith), an unconventional concerto for saxophone and orchestra, writes Javier C. Hernández for The New York Times.

Sorey describes his composition as an “anti-concerto,” which aims to provide a “respite from the chaos and intrusiveness of modern life.”

In the score, the composer instructed both the soloist and orchestra to play softly and at a slow tempo of thirty-six quarter notes per minute.

“I’m not interested in having a typical experience,” said Sorey. “I just wanted to create a work that kind of gets us to let the music wash over us, and lets us take our time in listening to it.”

The roughly 20-minute work was commissioned by the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Sorey wrote the piece as a tribute to Smith, the celebrated trumpeter and composer.

The Pulitzer committee praised the composition as an “introspective saxophone concerto with a wide range of textures presented in a slow tempo, a beautiful homage that’s quietly intense, treasuring intimacy rather than spectacle.”

Read more about Tyshawn Sorey winning the Pulitzer Prize in Music in The New York Times.

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