VPA’s Billy Joel Visiting Composer Series hosts residency by Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Stucky, culminating with public lecture, performance

VPA’s Billy Joel Visiting Composer Series hosts residency by Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Stucky, culminating with public lecture, performanceMarch 27, 2007Erica Blustesblust@syr.edu

Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) will host a residency by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky March 28-31 as part of the Billy Joel Visiting Composer Series in the Rose, Jules R. and Stanford S. Setnor School of Music. The residency will culminate with a free public lecture Friday, March 30, and performance Saturday, March 31.

“Stucky’s music achieves, probably more than that of any other living American composer, a meaningful synthesis of European and American musical points of view,” says Andrew Waggoner, chair of the Setnor School’s composition department. “His works are technically brilliant, intellectually challenging, sonically beautiful and emotionally powerful.”

Stucky will give a free, informal public lecture on March 30 at 7:30 p.m. in the main auditorium of The Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St. On- and off-street parking is available in areas adjacent to The Warehouse. Setnor faculty and students will give a performance of his music, featuring a mix of chamber and choral works, March 31 at 8 p.m. in the Rose and Jules R. Setnor Auditorium, Crouse College. Free parking is available in Irving Garage.

Stucky is the Given Foundation Professor of Composition at Cornell University and is consulting composer for new music at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His “Second Concerto for Orchestra” won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. His 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 and saxophone with piano.

The Billy Joel Visiting Composer Series was endowed using a portion of a gift from entertainer Billy Joel. VPA was one of seven East Coast institutions awarded gifts in fall 2005 as part of Joel’s long-term commitment to music education and newly established music education initiative.

For more information, contact Waggoner at (315) 443-5843 or abwaggon@syr.edu.