Gretchen Ehrenberg wrote:

>Gee folks, I was just having a bit of fun.  Yes, I guess I was just being
>a cheering squad but if you knew me, you'd know the Pom-Pom reference is
>WAY wrong.  It is just that after so many years of being a shameful thing
>to be gay (yes, I am of that generation) I was just acknowledging an out
>mans achievement.  By the way, I am not that big a Corigliano fan, but an
>achievement is an achievement, no? And you mean to tell me he's NOT German!
>Himmel.

The Pulitzer Prize for Music is no more an accomplishment than getting the
"Jefferson Davis good citizenship award".

Look at the list of winners - who is missing? Ellington, Mingus, Davis,
Coltrane - to start with.  For most of the history of the prize it was OK
to be a white guy who ripped off black guys, but it was not OK to be a
black guy.

No one can seriously tell me that it was not until the 1990s that there was
a jazz composition worthy of the award.  The military had its first Black
Joint Chief of Staff before the Pulitzer could be bothered to recognise
what is one of America's great contributions to the musical world.

Baseball's MVP award broke the colour barrier before the Pulitzer Prize
did.

Viewed objectively, one has to admit that the prize is tainted with a long
history of racism.

To do a riff on Bartok: when the list of "degenerate" composers came
out, he found he was not on it: it was targetted at Jews.  He then wrote
a scathing open letter saying that because the list contained so many
prominent composers, it was an insult that he was not on it.  The list of
Pulitzer Prize winners excludes so many seminal American musical thinkers,
that it is an insult to receive it.

Stirling Newberry
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http://www.mp3.com/ssn