Huw Watkins Awarded Stoeger Prize
CMS is proud to announce Huw Watkins as the winner of the 2016 Stoeger Prize
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s 2016 Elise L. Stoeger Prize has been awarded to British composer Huw Watkins. The Stoeger Prize, a $25,000 cash award and the largest of its kind, is given every two years in recognition of significant contributions to the field of chamber music composition.
Watkins will appear with CMS at Alice Tully Hall on February 21, 2017 as pianist in two works by Mendelssohn, the Andante and Allegro brilliant for Piano, Four Hands, Op. 92, joined by pianist Orion Weiss, and the Sonata in D major for Cello and Piano, Op. 58, with cellist Paul Watkins. During the 2018-2019 season, CMS will premiere a new piano quintet by Watkins.
We are very proud of the Stoeger Prize’s distinguished history of celebrating composers who devote their talents to chamber music, and we are delighted with our jury members’ selection of Huw Watkins to receive the 2016 prize. They were universal in their admiration of his work, praising it as fresh and emotionally gripping, beautifully crafted and endlessly lyrical. He won their full endorsement and we agree that Watkins, as a composer of immense talent, is well suited to join the illustrious ranks of his predecessors.
For as long as I can remember, chamber music has been central to my life: playing it, listening to it and writing it. To be chosen for this prize by the Chamber Music Society is a huge honor - the list of previous Stoeger Prize recipients is indeed an illustrious one - but it is also an inspiration for me to keep writing the music I love most of all.
Click here to learn more about Huw Watkins and watch and listen to his chamber music compositions.