Steven Stucky is widely recognized as one of the leading American composers of his generation. His music is praised for its beauty of sound, imaginative use of color, and clarity of large-scale form, and for its ability to communicate powerfully with a broad concert-going public without sacrificing complexity, artistic integrity, or technical finesse. As influences on his own musical sensibility, Stucky acknowledges several of the great figures of twentieth-century music, chief among them Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, Bartók, Lutoslawski, and Ligeti. Among his most often heard compositions are the chamber works Sappho Fragments (1982) and Boston Fancies (1985), and the orchestral works Dreamwaltzes (1986), Concerto for Orchestra (1987), and Son et Lumičre (1988).

In recent years Mr. Stucky has received commissions from the Boston Musica Viva, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Pennsylvania Wind Quintet, the Chicago Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and Saint Louis Symphony, and from several other organizations. In September 1990 his orchestral work Angelus, co-commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Corporation and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, opened Carnegie Hall's Centennial Season celebration. In 1992 he composed Four Poems of A.R. Ammons, for baritone and chamber ensemble, on a commission from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. Among the conductors most frequently associated with his music have been Leonard Slatkin, André Previn, David Zinman, Kenneth Kiesler, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. In addition to those listed above, his music has been performed abroad by the Camerata Bern Seoul Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, and London Symphony Orchestra, and in the United States by the orchestras of San Francisco, Richmond, Honolulu, Detroit, Syracuse, Denver, Boston, Dallas, Omaha, Cincinnati, Phoenix, San Antonio, Atlanta, Albany, Memphis, Virginia, Long Beach, Columbus, and others.

In addition to composing, Mr. Stucky is active as a conductor, writer, lecturer, and teacher, and he has contributed to many of the major musical publications in America and Britain. He is a frequent guest composer on college campuses throughout the United States. A well-known expert on the music of the late Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski, Mr. Stucky won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Prize for his 1981 book Lutoslawski and His Music (Cambridge University Press). Among his other honors are the ASCAP Victor Herbert Prize (1974), first prize from the American Society of University Composers (1975), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1978), the American Council of Learned Societies (1979), the National Endowment for the Humanities (1979), and the Guggenheim Foundation (1986). In 1989 his Concerto for Orchestra was named one of two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Music.

In September 1988, Mr. Stucky succeeded John Harbison as Composer-in-Residence of the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the auspices of the Meet the Composer Orchestra Residency program, a post he held until August 1992. In Los Angeles he has worked closely with Music Director André Previn and his successor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, to enhance contemporary programming, award commissions, and develop educational programs for school-children and programming for nontraditional audiences in Los Angeles. In addition, he has served as principal artistic advisor to the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, sometimes conducting the Group in concert, and from 1988 to 1990 he worked closely with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, a summer program for conservatory-age musicians and conductors. He now serves as the orchestra's New Music Advisor.

Mr. Stucky was born November 7, 1949, in Hutchinson, Kansas; he grew up in Kansas and Texas. He studied at Baylor and Cornell universities with Richard Willis, Robert Palmer, Karel Husa, and Burrill Phillips. From 1978 to 1980 he taught composition at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Since 1980 he has been on the faculty of Cornell University, where at present he is Professor of Music and Chairman of the Music Department. Mr. Stucky and his wife and two children live in Ithaca, New York.