From his early adulthood, Barber wrote a flurry of successful compositions, launching him into the spotlight of the classical music world. At the age of 18, he won the Joseph H. Bearns Prize from Columbia University for his violin sonata (now lost or destroyed by the composer). He won the Bearns Prize a second time for his first large-scale orchestral work, an overture to "The School for Scandal", which was composed in 1931 when he was 21 years old. It premiered successfully two years later in a performance given by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of conductor Alexander Smallens.