Transcripts

TOM: The Pulitzer prizes in journalism and the arts were announced today. The winners include the Philadelphia Inquirer for the big public service prize, The New York Times for coverage of East Africa, and The Huffington Post. Not one, but two Minnesota cultural institutions are celebrating their wins this evening in arts categories. Marianne Combs joins me now with the latest.

Marianne, good afternoon.

MARIANNE COMBS: Good afternoon, Tom.

TOM: So who are these winners here in Minnesota who are celebrating this afternoon?

MARIANNE COMBS: Congratulations go out to the Minnesota Opera for its production of Silent Night, and then also to Graywolf Press for the publication of a book of poetry called Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith.

TOM: Now the prize is actually go to the artists in these two categories, right, the composer of the opera and the writer of the poetry.

MARIANNE COMBS: These are prizes for music and for poetry that went out today. And now if you haven't heard about Silent Night, we actually had a piece on this a while back when it premiered here in the Twin Cities. It was its world premiere. Minnesota opera artistic director Dale Johnson commissioned composer Kevin Puts to compose this piece, and it's the operatic retelling of the World War I Christmas Truce of 1914 when the French and the Germans on either side stopped fighting and--

TOM: Lay down their arms.

MARIANNE COMBS: Yeah, and sang songs across the barrier in the trenches and celebrated for a few hours before that fighting inevitably took up again, so.

TOM: And this is composer Kevin Puts, and it was performed by the Minnesota Opera this past Christmas season.

MARIANNE COMBS: Right, it got its world premiere. So a really fabulous work. And then Life on Mars, this book of poetry by Tracy K Smith, imagine sort of a Sci-Fi future and contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and even references David Bowie in the title Life on Mars. So it's got some really interesting pop star references, sci-fi references, very current, and it has a lot going for it. And it's a third book of poetry she's published with Graywolf Press. They've all been award winners, but this one took the Pulitzer Prize.

TOM: Now how big a deal is this, especially for an arts organization like the Minnesota Opera to have a piece they commissioned on a composer win this prize today?

MARIANNE COMBS: Well, when Dale-- And I spoke to Dale Johnson this afternoon. And I have to say, he was in the middle of violin auditions. He was listening to people and he had to leave them And when the news was announced, he said, I got a little verklempt there, I teared up a little bit, because this is such big news. Now he's been with the company for 28 years. And his 28 years, he does not recall the opera ever winning a Pulitzer. So he thinks there may have been one predating him, but other than that, this has never happened before.

And then Jeffrey Schatz, editor with Graywolf Press, says, you know, we've worked with lots of Pulitzer Prize winners, but we've never had one of our books be a Pulitzer Prize winner that we've published with them. So this is a first for them. And they're hoping that it draws more attention to the work of independent nonprofit publishers and what they can do to represent authors.

TOM: And so Dale Johnson, though, pretty happy about this? What did he tell you today?

MARIANNE COMBS: Yeah, you know, he says that this just shows what the Twin Cities art scene is capable of.

DALE JOHNSON: I think that this is a Twin Cities award even more than a Minnesota Opera award. I think it shows, you know, that new music can really change lives. And so I think it bodes well for more new music, more premieres here at Minnesota Opera, but much more new music around the whole Twin Cities.

TOM: So Minnesota Opera didn't actually compose Silent Night and Graywolf Press didn't actually write the book of poetry. So Marianne, why or how much claim do they really have on these Pulitzers today?

MARIANNE COMBS: It's sort of like when you bring something to a potluck that you didn't make yourself and say, Oh, did you make this? Well, I made it possible. And that's what's happening. Without the Graywolf press, without the Minnesota Opera, would either of these works have come into being? Probably not. So we have them to thank for them happening.

TOM: All right, Marianne Combs, thank you very much.

MARIANNE COMBS: Always a pleasure.

TOM: You can find out more on the State of the Arts blog at mprnews.org.