The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS) announces that this year’s winner of the Elise L. Stoeger Prize is composer and pianist Timo Andres.  The Stoeger Prize is a $25,000 cash prize, awarded biennially by CMS to recognize significant contributions to the field of chamber music composition.  

Timo Andres is noted for engaging with music on many different levels, as a composer, arranger, writer, teacher, performer, and collaborator. Recent highlights include a sold-out solo recital debut for Carnegie Hall; the world premiere of a piano concerto for Aaron Diehl at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by John Adams; and a 2024 Tony Award nomination for his orchestrations and arrangements for Justin Peck’s 2024 production of Sufjan Stevens’s Illinoise. Upcoming chamber music dates include performances at Stanford Live with Conor Hanick, and at the Phillips Collection with Aaron Diehl. He also reunites with the Calder Quartet to perform his new piano quintet The Great Span in New York City for the People’s Symphony in May 2025.

A full biography and photos of Timo Andres can be found HERE. 

“We are delighted with our judges’ choice of Timo Andres as winner of the 2025 Stoeger Prize,” said CMS Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han. “His chamber music is highly regarded among both prominent musicians and presenters who have found his works engaging, skillfully composed for the instruments, and attractive for today’s listeners. We offer our congratulations to Timo and hope that this prize not only will reinforce his dedication to chamber music, but also will enable him to travel even further down his high-level artistic path.”

“I grew up hearing the canonical works of chamber music at Norfolk’s summer festival and Music Mountain," said Timo Andres, "and poring over recordings by the Takács Quartet and the Beaux Arts Trio. My favorite pieces by the composers I most admire tend to be their chamber works; these small-to-medium formats can be somehow grand and intimate at the same time, revealing the most specific and sometimes idiosyncratic aspects of their author’s voices. I feel equally challenged and freed to take risks when I write chamber music, and writing it, I’ve learned the most about becoming a better composer and musician. To be recognized in this medium by one of its greatest institutional standard-bearers is a huge and unexpected honor.”

Learn more about the Stoeger Prize and past recipients HERE.