Composer Steven Stucky has written commissioned works for many of the major American orchestras (Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minnesota, National, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and others); for institutions such as Carnegie Hall, the Aspen Festival, Eastman School of Music, and the BBC; and for solo artists such as pianist Emmanuel Ax, percussionist Evelyn Glennie, guitarist Manuel Barrueco, baritone Sanford Sylvan, and recorder player Michala Petri. His music can be heard on the Albany, Bis, CRI, Centaur, and Innova labels, and Chanticleer's recording of his Cradle Songs on Teldec won a Grammy in 2000. Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for music for his Second Concerto for Orchestra, Steven Stucky also has earned fellowships or prizes from the Guggenheim Foundation, Koussevitzky Foundation, Barlow Endowment, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Endowment for the Arts, Bogliasco Foundation, and others.

Mr. Stucky is also active as a writer on music (his book Lutoslawski and His Music of 1981 won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award) and as a conductor specializing in contemporary music. In the latter role, in 1997 he co-founded Ensemble X, a professional chamber ensemble based in Ithaca that includes several faculty members from Cornell's music department. He currently shares Artistic Director duties with Xak Bjerken, Cornell professor of piano. He has been closely associated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 1988 -- the longest composer residency of any American orchestra -- and divides his time between Ithaca and the West Coast, where he collaborates with Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen on programming and commissioning, is active in audience education initiatives, and supervises the Green Umbrella new-music series. A sought-after teacher and guest composer on college campuses, he was Composer in Residence at the Aspen Music Festival and School (2001), Visiting Professor at the Eastman School of Music (2001-2), and Ernest Bloch Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (2003).

At Cornell, Steven Stucky teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in composition, music theory and analysis, counterpoint, and orchestration. He chaired the Department of Music from 1992 to 1997.

Photo: Betty Freeman