News

The New York Philharmonic has awarded David Lang the Marie-Josée Kravis Prize for New Music — one of the world’s largest new-music prizes. In addition to a monetary award, the Kravis Prize includes a commission for a new work that the NY Philharmonic will premiere in the 2025–26 season.

Lang’s receipt of the Kravis Prize builds on a decades-long history of premieres and performances by the NY Philharmonic — most recently, in 2019 the NY Phil co-commissioned and premiered Lang’s fully-staged opera, prisoner of the state, with then-Music Director Jaap van Zweden.

David Lang comments on this honor:

I am so grateful to the New York Philharmonic for this incredible honor. 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 9 years old. I was Jacob Druckman’s assistant there from 1985 to 1986. It was the New York Philharmonic that let me rewrite Beethoven’s Fidelio, when they led the commissioning of my opera prisoner of the state. And now, here is this amazing honor, and the opportunity to work together more in the future. 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.