Brett Dean, an Australian composer, has won the 2009 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, the university announced today. The award, which is given by the Grawemeyer Foundation, carries a cash award of $200,000.

Mr. Dean, who is artistic director of the Australian National Academy of Music, was honored for “The Lost Art of Letter Writing,” a four-movement concerto for violin and orchestra that was commissioned by symphony orchestras in Stockholm and Cologne, Germany. The composer conducted its premiere in 2007 in Cologne.

The Grawemeyer awards, created in 1984 by Charles Grawemeyer, a University of Louisville alumnus, honor creative works and ideas in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Winners in the other award categories — education, improving world order, psychology, and religion — will be announced later this week.

More information about the Grawemeyer Awards and Foundation can be found on the organization’s Web site. —Charles Huckabee