Ned Rorem (born October 23, 1923) is an American composer and diarist. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1976 for his Air Music: Ten Etudes for OrchestraRorem was born in Richmond, Indiana in 1923 as the son and second child of C. (Clarence) Rufus Rorem (1894-1988) and his wife, the former Gladys W. Miller, born in Illinois. They met and married in South Dakota in 1920, where Rufus Rorem was working for Goodyear Rubber. Ned Rorem had an older sister Rosemary.Their paternal grandfather, Ole John Rorem, was an immigrant from Norway; their paternal grandmother, the former Sinnie Thompson, was born in Iowa, as their father was.