Composer Steven Stucky (born 1949) has written commissioned works for many of the major American orchestras, including Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, as well as for Chanticleer, the Boston Musica Viva, the Camerata Bern, the Raschèr Quartet, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, the Howard Hanson Institute of American Music, Carnegie Hall, the BBC, the Aspen Music Festival, recorder soloist Michala Petri, percussionist Evelyn Glennie, baritone Sanford Sylvan, and guitarist Manuel Barrueco. His music has also been performed by the American Youth Symphony, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Handel and Haydn Society, Irish National Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, London Symphony, Nash Ensemble, New World Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony, Toronto Symphony, and many others.
Among the highlights of Mr. Stucky’s 2003-4 season are the world premieres of three new orchestral works: the percussion concerto Spirit Voices (Singapore Symphony, November 2003), Jeu de timbres (National Symphony of Washington, DC, January 2004), and Second Concerto for Orchestra (Los Angeles Philharmonic, March 2004). Also in March 2004, he will conduct mezzo-soprano Janice Felty and the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group in the first performance of his song cycle with chamber orchestra, To Whom I Said Farewell, and in April 2004 pianist Emmanuel Ax and members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will premiere his new work for oboe, horn, and harpsichord at Carnegie Hall. The current season will also see performances of Stucky’s music by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Württemberg Chamber Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony, and many others.
Chanticleer’s recording of Stucky’s Cradle Songs on Teldec won a Grammy award in 2000. The same group released his Whispers in 2002, also on Teldec. Due out in 2004 are a collection of his chamber music performed by the Cassatt String Quartet and Ensemble X (Albany Records), his Son et lumière by the Albany Symphony (also on Albany Records), and Dreamwaltzes by the Singapore Symphony (Bis). His music has also appeared on the Spectrum, CRI, Centaur, and Innova labels.
As a conductor, Mr. Stucky appears frequently with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group and with Ensemble X, a contemporary music group he founded in 1997. With the former, he has led the US premiere of his own recorder concerto, Etudes, with Michala Petri, world premieres by Donald Crockett, William Kraft, and Joseph Phibbs, and works by such composers as Alvarez, Druckman, Harvey, Lutoslawski, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. With Ensemble X, Mr. Stucky recently recorded a disk of music by the Scottish composer Judith Weir due out on Albany in 2004, and the ensemble has also recorded for Koch International.
Mr. Stucky has been associated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for more than 15 years (the longest composer residency of any American orchestra). First appointed Composer in Residence by André Previn in 1988, under his current title of Consulting Composer for New Music he works closely with Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen on programming and commissioning. Mr. Stucky is also active as a writer, lecturer, and teacher. He was Composer in Residence of the Aspen Music Festival and School in summer 2001. A well-known expert on the music of the late Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski, he won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Prize for his 1981 book Lutoslawski and His Music (Cambridge University Press). Among his other honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship (1986), a Bogliasco Fellowship (1997), and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2002). Mr. Stucky has taught at Cornell University since 1980, where he serves as Given Foundation Professor of Composition, and where he chaired the Music Department from 1992 to 1997. He was Visiting Professor of Composition at the Eastman School of Music in 2001-2, and Ernest Bloch Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2003.
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