Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jennifer Higdon is best known for blue cathedral, a one-movement tone poem she wrote in memory of her brother, who died of cancer in 1998. It has been performed by more than 400 orchestras around the world since its premiere in 2000. Her Violin Concerto won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Jennifer Higdon has won three Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. She won in 2010 for her Percussion Concerto, in 2018 for her Viola Concerto, and in 2020 for her Harp Concerto.
Jennifer Higdon won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her Violin Concerto. The Pulitzer citation described it as "a deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity." The concerto premiered on the 6th of February 2009 in Indianapolis.
Jennifer Higdon studied flute performance at Bowling Green State University, where she first began composing. She then earned an artist's diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, studying with David Loeb, and later received both a master of arts and a PhD in composition from the University of Pennsylvania under George Crumb.
Jennifer Higdon's first opera is based on Charles Frazier's 1997 novel Cold Mountain, with a libretto by Gene Scheer. It was co-commissioned by The Santa Fe Opera and Opera Philadelphia and premiered in Santa Fe in 2015.
Higdon grew up listening to rock and folk music rather than classical music, which led her to describe her compositional process as "intuitive" and "instinctive." Her early percussion playing fed a rhythmic complexity that runs through her works, including intricate rhythmic passages and rhythmic ostinati, even in pieces with lyrical melodies.