PHILADELPHIA MUSIC PROJECT Professional Development Program
New Frontiers in Music: One on One with Steven Stucky Thursday, June 26, 2008 Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage 1608 Walnut Street, 18th Floor Philadelphia, PA 19103
RSVP Deadline: Thursday, June 19, 2008 To RSVP for this event, please call PMP at 267.350.4960 or email Willa Rohrer at wrohrer@pcah.us RSVP is required. Question? Call PMP.
2:45 to 3 pm Registration 3 to 4:30 pm Discussion 4:30 to 5 pm Reception
This event is free and by invitation only. However, if space is available, PMP will consider public attendance requests. Please contact PMP for more information. This event is produced by the Philadelphia Music Project, a program of the Philadelphia Center for Arts and Heritage, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by The University of the Arts.
Steven Stucky (b. 1949) is widely recognized as one of the leading American composers of his generation. His music is acclaimed for its formal clarity and imaginative use of color—as well as for its ability to communicate powerfully with a broad concert-going public without sacrificing complexity, artistic integrity, or technical finesse. In 2005 Mr. Stucky won the Pulitzer Prize for his Second Concerto for Orchestra, which The New York Times described as an “electrifying display of orchestral fireworks.” In addition to composing, Mr. Stucky is active as a conductor, writer, lecturer, and teacher. Join Steven Stucky for a conversation about his music and career with renowned conductor Gil Rose, Music Director of Opera Boston and winner of Columbia University’s prestigious Ditson Award. Mr. Rose is also the founder of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), a chamber orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Under his leadership, the organization has received eight ASCAP awards and the John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music. During his discussion with Mr. Rose, Mr. Stucky will share samples of his work and take questions from the audience.
“[Stucky’s music is] tinted with half-lights and rich in its middle voices, elegant but rarely showy for showiness’s sake… His music is filled with subtle pleasures and lithe craftsmanship, and is all the more enjoyable in this day and age of in-your-face art for being rather soft-spoken.”—The Orange County Register
Steven Stucky’s extensive variety of works ranges from large-scale orchestral compositions to a cappella choral works, and includes solo piano pieces, an eight-minute work for five percussionists, and chamber music for numerous combinations of instruments from piano quartet and string quartet to wind quintet, voice with piano, saxophone with piano, and many more. Mr. Stucky is also active as a conductor, writer, lecturer and teacher. He has taught at Cornell University since 1980, where he serves as Given Foundation Professor of Composition. He began his relationship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1988, when then-Music Director André Previn appointed him Composer in Residence. Under his current title of Consulting Composer for New Music, he is currently in his 20th season working with the orchestra—the longest such relationship of any American composer. As Consulting Composer for New Music, he works closely with Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen on programming for non-traditional audiences, as well as enhancing contemporary programming, awarding commissions, and developing educational programs for school children. Chanticleer’s recordings of Mr. Stucky’s Cradle Songs and Whispers, both on Teldec, won Grammy awards in 2000 and 2002, respectively. Released in 2004 were: 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 Records). To date, six different performances of his Funeral Music for Queen Mary have been commercially released. The year 2007 saw the releases of Sonate en forme de prèludes by Deutsche Gramophon as an iTunes download (Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center); a performance by Michala Petri and the Danish National Symphony of his recorder concerto Etudes on Da Capo/OUR Records; and a BIS compilation of major orchestral works including Spirit Voices (with Evelyn Glennie), the Second Concerto for Orchestra, and Pinturas de Tamayo. Mr. Stucky was born in 1949 in Hutchinson, Kansas, and raised in Kansas and Texas. He studied at Baylor and Cornell universities with Richard Willis, Robert Palmer, Karel Husa, and Burrill Phillips. ··· Gil Rose is recognized as one of a new generation of American conductors shaping the future of classical music. In 1996, he founded the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the country’s foremost professional orchestra dedicated exclusively to performing and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Under his leadership, BMOP’s unique programming and high performance standards have attracted critical acclaim and earned the orchestra eight ASCAP awards for adventurous programming as well as the John S. Edwards Award for Strongest Commitment to New American Music. In 2007 Mr. Rose was awarded Columbia University’s prestigious Ditson Award and an ASCAP Concert Music award for his exemplary commitment to new American music. Since 2003 Mr. Rose has also served as Music Director of Opera Boston, an innovative opera company in residence at the historic Cutler Majestic Theatre. Gil Rose’s extensive discography includes world premiere recordings of music by Eric Chasalow, Lee Hyla, Tod Machover, Steven Mackey, Steven Paulus, Bernard Rands, George Rochberg, Elena Ruehr, Reza Vali, Evan Ziporyn, John Cage, Charles Fussell, Michael Gandolfi, John Harbison, and Gunther Schuller. His world premiere recording of the complete orchestral music of Arthur Berger was chosen by The New York Times as one of the “Best CDs of 2003.”