Page "Pulitzer Prize for Music" Paragraph 2

In 1996, after years of internal debate, the Pulitzer Prize board announced a change in the criteria for the music prize " so as to attract the best of a wider range of American music.

" The result was that the following year Wynton Marsalis became the first jazz artist to win the Pulitzer Prize.

However, his victory was controversial because according to the Pulitzer guidelines, his winning work, a three hour long oratorio about slavery, " Blood on the Fields ", should not have been eligible.

Although a winning work was supposed to have had its first performance during that year, Marsalis ' piece premiered on April 1, 1994 and its recording, released on Columbia Records, was dated 1995.

Yet, the piece won the 1997 prize.

Marsalis ' management had submitted a " revised version " of " Blood on the Fields " which was " premiered " at Yale University after the composer made seven small changes.

When asked what would make a revised work eligible, the chairman of that year's music jury, Robert Ward, said: " Not a cut here and there ... or a slight revision ," but rather something that changed " the whole conception of the piece.

" After being read the list of revisions made to the piece, Ward acknowledged that the minor changes should not have qualified it as an eligible work, but he said that " the list you had here was not available to us, and we did not discuss it.