A work by the Philadelphia Orchestra’s former composer-in-residence has won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Picaflor: A Future Myth by Gabriela Lena Frank was co-commissioned and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra with conductor Marin Alsop in Marian Anderson Hall in March 2025.
The work is based on an original story inspired by Andean Peruvian mythology and reimagined in a futuristic setting, the Pulitzer organization said in an announcement. Its 10 movements follow a hummingbird as it attempts to escape cataclysm.
“Along the way over a great expanse of land, the hummingbird has adventures that spawn different races and civilizations,” Frank told The Inquirer in 2020 when the work was still in its “scribbling” stage. “Pre-pandemic and pre-Black Lives Matter, I thought the question of origins could lead to the question of what constitutes a ‘real American,’ especially in the era of Trump and MAGA,” she said.
The piece explores the Incan concept of pachacuti, the belief that worlds periodically undergo cataclysmic transformation.
On Monday, about 45 minutes after receiving news of the prize, Frank reflected on the timing of it all.
“I didn’t predict a Trump 2.0 and MAGA 2.0, but I think I felt the magnitude of the forces that were out in the community that I felt were going to remain even after the Trump presidency that we have to deal with as a country,” she said. “I have more stories I need to tell. While this piece is a big statement, it’s aspirational as well about our possibilities toward peace and reconciliation.”
Frank has had a long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. She was commissioned to write a new work in 2012 for Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s first season as music director — her Concertino Cusqueño — and she was the orchestra’s composer-in-residence from 2019 through 2023.
Picaflor was commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony and the Bravo! Vail Music Festival.