Elise L. Stoeger Prize

About Chris Rogerson

Hailed as a “confident new musical voice” (The New York Times), a “big discovery” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), and a “fully-grown composing talent” (The Washington Post), Chris Rogerson’s music has been praised for its “haunting beauty” and “virtuosic exuberance” (The New York Times). Rogerson’s music is often characterized by its lyricism: recent notable works include Of Simple Grace, for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, his violin concerto, for Benjamin Beilman and the Kansas City Symphony, and Dream Sequence, for Anne-Marie McDermott and the Dover Quartet. Rogerson’s music has been programmed at venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Wigmore Hall in London, Prague’s Rudolfinum, Radio France, and the Musikverein in Vienna.

An avid traveler who has visited over 90 countries around the world, Rogerson's work is frequently evocative of a sense of place: Four Autumn Landscapes, a clarinet concerto written for Anthony McGill, is a portrait of his childhood home in Buffalo, New York; String Quartet No. 4, commissioned for the Escher Quartet, draws from his experience in a remote corner of Afghanistan; and his piano concerto, Samaa', commissioned by Bravo! Vail for Anne-Marie McDermott and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, is inspired by a recent trip to Yemen.

Rogerson also regularly collaborates with artists in other disciplines: recent examples include Sacred Earth, for mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges with video by Emmy-nominated director and National Geographic photographer Keith Ladzinski, and Azaan, a play written for the Oregon Symphony in collaboration with Dipika Guha. His work has been featured in a variety of mediums from comedian Joe Pera’s web series “How to Make It in USA” to ballet by choreographer Claudia Schreier.

Other recent commissions and performances have come from the Atlanta, Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, New Jersey, New World, and San Francisco symphonies, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. This season, Mr. Rogerson also continues as Composer-in-Residence of the Allentown Symphony, which premieres a new orchestral work, as well as Artistic Advisor of the Amarillo Symphony.

Born in 1988, Mr. Rogerson studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, Yale School of Music, and Princeton University with Jennifer Higdon, Aaron Jay Kernis, Martin Bresnick, and Steve Mackey. He is represented by Young Concert Artists, Inc. and served as YCA Composer-in-Residence from 2010-2012. He also is one of two composers on the roster of Manhattan Chamber Players. In 2012, he co-founded Kettle Corn New Music, a new music presenting organization in New York City, and currently serves as its co-artistic director. In 2016, Mr. Rogerson joined the Musical Studies Faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he lives full-time.