Composition prize to Adams

Composer John Adams has won the first $100,000 Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition, the Northwestern University School of Music, which confers the award, announced today.

The biennial award, honoring classical music composition, includes a cash prize of $100,000, a performance of an Adams work by the Chicago Symphony during the 2005-06 season and a residency at Northwestern.

“It comes as both a surprise and a delight to know that my music is so highly regarded,” Adams said in a prepared release.

The prize is made possible through a gift from the late Erwin E. Nemmers and Frederic E. Nemmers, who in 1994 created the Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics and the Frederic Esser Nemmers Prize in Mathematics, also awarded by Northwestern University.