Steven Stucky, the Given Foundation Professor of Music at Cornell and a pre-eminent American composer, has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Membership in the academy is considered the highest formal recognition of artistic merit in the United States.

"It really is a thrill, completely unexpected," Stucky says. "The same thing happened with the Pulitzer a couple of years ago. I not only wasn't expecting to win, I wasn't even thinking about it. When one of these things arises out of the blue, it's exciting."

Stucky won the Pulitzer Prize for music for his Second Concerto for Orchestra in 2005. He has been a Cornell faculty member since 1980 and has served as resident composer of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 1988. Major American orchestras have commissioned Stucky's music, which has been performed across the United States and Europe, and he is host of the New York Philharmonic's "Hear and Now" concerts.

At his induction May 16, Stucky will join the permanent academy membership of artists, architects, writers and composers. Inducted with him will be writers Annie Proulx, Harper Lee, Deborah Eisenberg, Mary Gordon, Allan Gurganus and Jim Harrison; artist Robert Irwin; and architect Billie Tsien.

"The real honor is to be standing on the same platform with those people," Stucky says. "It was a very nice surprise to think that somebody has decided that you could be in the top 250 people in arts and letters in the country. It makes you think that you haven't completely been wasting your time."

Cornell-affiliated members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters include novelist and professor Alison Lurie; composer and professor emeritus of music Karel Husa; and composers Steve Reich and Christopher Rouse, both Cornell alumni.