Aaron Jay Kernis, awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1998, is one of the most sought after composers today. He has received commissions from many of the major orchestras in the United States, including the New York Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony. Ecstatic Meditations was composed in 1999 for Philip Brunelle and the Plymouth Music Series Ensemble Singers and Choir. Like all of Kernis' music, it "bears the unmistakable stamp of a wildly fertile musical imaginationŠwith rich poetic imagery." The text is by Mechthild of Magdeburg, translated by Jane Hirshfield