Zhou Long Awarded 2012-13 Stoeger Prize

Zhou Long has been awarded the 2012-13 Elise L. Stoeger Prize for composers by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The Stoeger Prize is a $25,000 cash award given every two years in recognition of significant contributions to the field of chamber music composition rather than for a specific work.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and distinguished professor of music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, Zhou Long offers his response to the award, as well as commentary on his musical and cultural influences, in the video below.

Chamber Music Society Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han commented on the announcement:

We are thrilled that Zhou Long has been named the 2012-2013 Stoeger Prize Winner. With his rich and diverse catalogue of chamber music, we cannot think of a more deserving composer for this award. Not only is his voice original and exacting, but his ability to synthesize Western and Eastern sensibilities is unsurpassed in our estimation. He joins a truly stellar roster of contemporary composers who have been awarded the Stoeger Prize, adding luster to an already incandescent list of chamber music’s greatest living advocates.

The Stoeger Prize for composers of chamber music was established by a generous gift from Milan Stoeger as a memorial to his wife, Elise, and in gratitude for the music that had been one of the principal joys of their lives.
A new work by Zhou Long, commissioned by the Chamber Music Society, for clarinet, violin, and piano will receive its U.S. premiere May 6, 2014, at Alice Tully Hall.

(—from the website)