The recent loss of our dear friend Steven Stucky has been difficult for all of us in Cornell’s musical community, as in all of the many communities of composers, students, scholars, and performers he touched. Steve was a warm and generous colleague, as well as an inspiring mentor
He possessed a unique combination of enormous creative gifts as a composer, a seemingly boundless knowledge of repertoire, top-notch scholarly skills, and the ability to gently guide his students towards realizing their own compositional voices and to continue to advocate for them years after they had graduated. It’s difficult to overstate what he gave to Cornell’s Department of Music and to our lives as his friends.
Steve believed strongly in encouraging new music and often campaigned to expose his composition students, and our performing students, to the finest musicians possible. He knew that working out compositional ideas with the world’s foremost players would propel our graduate students to their highest musical goals, and that exposure to these musicians would teach and inspire our fine undergraduate and graduate musicians-in-training.
To honor his legacy, we have set the goal of realizing an idea that Steve spent years advocating: to endow an annual resident ensemble on campus that will perform new student works and will exchange ideas with composers and performers in workshops and masterclasses. This residency will bring national prominence to new music composition and performance on campus. The residency will ensure that we continue to recruit the best graduate students from around the world.
To this aim, we have established an endowment for the Steven Stucky Memorial Residency for New Music.
We hope that you will consider making a contribution to this fund, honoring Steve’s generosity with your own, and securing his legacy at Cornell University and beyond. Donations may be made online, or by check, payable to “Cornell University” (Memo: Steven Stucky Endowment) to: Cornell University, Box 37334, Boone, IA 50037-0334.