Director Gabriela Lena Frank the Recipient of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Music
GLFCAM Director Gabriela Lena Frank is the recipient of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her orchestral work “Picaflor: A Future Myth”! In her words:
“Picaflor: A future myth is an original story born of my fancy, told in the language of a fable. It draws on the mythology of Andean Perú, the object of my lifelong fascination – The existence of a sky kingdom under the dominion of a creator sun god, and a mischievous hummingbird, the “picaflor,” who leaves the kingdom by ripping the sky. The story also draws on the existence of personages such as the chaski, the runner from the pre-Conquest Tawantinsuyu Empire who delivered messages along the Inca Road. All are portrayed against the backdrop of pachacuti, the longstanding indigenous belief that cataclysmic changes of era-worlds occur every several hundred years.
What happens, I wonder, when we imagine these ideas as taking place in the future rather than the past? And in a future that will bear the mark of our attitudes towards Mother Earth? How do mythologies change in such a future? As a generational daughter of indigenous Perú, Picaflor is what has stirred inside me, musically rendered here for the symphony orchestra.”
Congratulations, Gabriela!