“I first met Steven Stucky at Yaddo, the arts colony in upstate New York, in the summer of 1988,” writes Mark Swed in Tuesday’s (2/16) Los Angeles Times. “He was a 38-year-old composer just beginning to emerge on the national scene. He had been named composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.… Stucky, who tragically died Sunday, turned out to be an essential ingredient in the secret sauce of the Southland’s new music ascendancy nationally and internationally.… Slowly, painstakingly, he brought the L.A. community up to speed, graciously and wondrously encouraging curiosity about what was new in music…. Stucky’s formal involvement with the L.A. orchestra continued for 21 years [after his residency in 1988].… He gave the new music Green Umbrella series an alluring curatorial profile that has gone on to influence many other orchestras. He programmed music that he might not care for but that he believed needed to be heard.… Stucky’s death is a shock to our musical system, and it must not go unattended.… Let the path Stucky paved in L.A. serve as an ongoing example to us and to all.”
Posted February 19, 2016
