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Sunday, January 20, 2002

By Andrew Druckenbrod, Post-Gazette Classical Music Critic

Throw everything you know about the music business out the window.

Melinda Wagner

That may not be exactly what composer Melinda Wagner will tell students at the University of Pittsburgh this week, when she speaks as Pitt's 2002 Franz Lehar composer in residence, but she could.

In 1999, quite out of the blue, the Pulitzer Prize board informed Wagner that her Concerto for Flute, Strings and Percussion had received the Pulitzer Prize in Music.

"I didn't think about [the Pulitzer] at all, any more than being on the space shuttle," says Wagner, 44. "I don't remember ever putting energy into wondering about the winner, whether they deserved it or not. People do get involved in heated debates about that."

Wagner's approach to the often-cutthroat world of composing is as refreshing as her music. She's one of only a few women ever to have won the most prestigious American award for composition, and she is not interested in being famous because of it.

"Writing music is really something you do because you are called to do it, because you have to -- to inhabit beauty," she says. "Winning prizes is only the icing on the cake."

Unlike some stars of her field, Wagner -- pronounced as an American would, not like the famous composer of "Ring" cycle -- only accepts a few commissions. Her biggest one at the moment is from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a piano concerto for Emanuel Ax.

	"An Evening with Melinda Wagner" Where: Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Oakland. When: 8 p.m. Tuesday. Tickets: Free; 412-624-4125.

"Of the four or five commissions I have on the docket, only one is the result of the prize," she says, describing her pace of production as "percolating."

Wagner will discuss her career in a concert devoted to her music on Tuesday, with closed master classes taking place Wednesday.

Virginia Woolf pointed out that women need a room of their own, away from everyday duties, to be creative. As a mother of two, Wagner has found she can only rent it. Her family commitments have slowed her output significantly, leaving her with a diminutive catalog.

"I am really lucky if I get 45 minutes of quiet time a day," she says. "I am doing the traditional mom role, but I am not alone [ her husband is percussionist James Saporito]. If you do something as important as being there for other human beings, you have to give up something. I decided I would give up quantity but try hard not to give up quality."

It's hard to argue with the results. The Flute Concerto is one of the best works the Pulitzer board has picked in years. Known as much for handing out lifetime achievement awards as for awarding great music, the committee this time chose a great work by an obscure composer.

Though Wagner's music is not tonal and is academically rigorous, even here she doesn't follow trends. Her works are infectious and joyous rather than the normative stark and rough output of the atonal and post-modern ages. Indeed, the Flute Concerto is a sinuous work that seems to be having fun, something not heard enough in classical music.

But the flow of ideas and the air of grace belie a tremendous amount of labor. Beethoven's torturous sketchbooks have nothing on Wagner's. "I find composing to be very difficult," she says. "A lot of the process is deciding what not to do and issuing restraint."

That Wagner bucks the machinations of the music business (she doesn't teach, either) doesn't mean she isn't thankful for the Pulitzer Prize. "It has undoubtedly changed my life. I have name recognition now. People are more willing to sit down and listen to my music. I just don't want to think I have to live up to a prize."

So what will she tell composition students this week about awards?

"It is very important that they don't write music to win prizes," she says. "That is not why we do it. Sometimes [awards] can be helpful to put someone down a path, but you must keep it in perspective."