Chinese-American composer Du Yun has won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her opera Angel’s Bone, which features an amalgam of various musical styles including musical theatre, oratorio and punk.

^{Du Yun}

The panel – which included American composer Jennifer Higdon, herself a Pulitzer Prize winner in 2010, and New Yorker music critic Alex Ross – described the piece as a “bold” work “that integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world.”

The Prize, which is worth US$15,000, honours “a distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year.”

Born and raised in Shanghai, and now based in New York, 39-year old Du Yun is a composer, musician and performance artist. She was chosen from a shortlist of three finalists – coincidentally all women under 40.

Angel’s Bone premiered in January 2016 at the Prototype Festival at the 3LD Arts and Technology Centre in New York City. It tells a story of human trafficking and prostitution in which moments of extreme beauty...