New York Philharmonic Announces Recipients of the 2024 Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music

David Lang and Missy Mazzoli will each write a new work for the New York Philharmonic, while Kate Soper has been named as the prize's Emerging Composer

One of the world's most generous prizes for new music, the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize celebrates composers who are working at the highest level in their field. The prize consists of a $200,000 award, as well as a new commission, to be performed by the New York Philharmonic. The prize is funded from a $10 million gift made by Henry R. Kravis in 2009, in honor of his wife Marie-Josée.

In 2024, the prize has been given to composers Missy Mazzoli and David Lang, with Lang's new piece being included in the 2025/26 season and Mazzoli's in the 2026/27 season. Both composers have appeared on NY Phil programs: the orchestra has performed five different Lang works since 1991 (most recently prisoner of the state), and two works by Mazzoli since 2021 (most recently River Rouge Transfiguration).

The prize also recognizes an Emerging Composer, and in 2024 this honor has been awarded to Kate Soper. She will also write a commissioned work for the orchestra, as well as receive a $50,000 stipend.

The co-founder and co-artistic director of the new-music collective Bang on a Can, David Lang is also a professor of composition at the Yale School of Music. He has received a Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy Award, an Obie Award, a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, a Bessie Award, a US Artists Fellowship Award, and a Doris Duke Artist Award, as well as nominations for the Academy and Golden Globe Awards.

Missy Mazzoli has had works performed by the Berlin and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Atlanta and BBC Symphony Orchestras, Scottish and LA Operas, Opéra Comique, the Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, and many others. She has been nominated for three Grammy Awards and has also served as composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Opera Philadelphia.

Previous winners of the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize include composers Henri Dutilleux, Per Nørgård, Louis Andriessen, and Unsuk Chin.

"I am so grateful to the New York Philharmonic for this incredible honor," said Lang. "I owe the Philharmonic so much already: I learned what a composer does only from seeing a film of Leonard Bernstein conducting a Young People’s Concert, when I was nine years old."

"I deeply appreciate the support, the recognition, and the commitment that the New York Philharmonic has shown me, and I look forward to our close relationship, for many years to come. I should also add that this prize places me in the company of composers I deeply admire and respect: my fellow winners Missy Mazzoli and Kate Soper. Thanks to the New York Philharmonic for putting us all together."

"It is an honor to be named a recipient of this year’s Marie-Josée Kravis Prize, and I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with my hometown orchestra at this thrilling time in its history," said Mazzoli. "I feel privileged to be part of the lineage of previous Kravis Prize winners I deeply admire, in particular my teacher Louis Andriessen. This award, and the New York Philharmonic’s century-old tradition of supporting works that reflect our unique moment in history, inspire me to move forward with energy and conviction."