Ellen Taaffe Zwilich b. 1939

Studied at Florida State and the Julliard School
She was elected to the Florida Artists Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters and, in 1995, was named to to the first Composer's Chair in the history of Carnegie Hall. � Musical America designated her the 1999 Composer of the Year.
Ellen Zwilich is the recipient of numerous prizes and honors, including the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in Music (the first woman ever to receive this coveted award), the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music Prize, the Arturo Toscanini Music Critics Award, the Ernst von Dohnanyi Citation, and Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, four Grammy nominations, and, among other distinctions, she was designated Musical America's Composer of the Year in 1999.
http://dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Composition/Composers/Z/Zwillich,_Ellen_Taaffe/