As a national and international award-winning composer, the music of Stella Sung has been performed throughout the United States and abroad.  She served as the first Composer-in-Residence for the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra (2008-2011), and was one of the five composers nationally selected for a "Music Alive" award, a three-year award that allowed Dr. Sung to serve as Composer-In-Residence for the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance (2013-16), sponsored by New Music USA, the League of American Orchestras, ASCAP, the Aaron Copland Fund, and the Andrew Mellon Foundation.  Dr. Sung is Composer-in-Residence for Dance Alive National Ballet (Gainesville, FL).

 

Stella Sung is the recipient of numerous awards including a 2020-21 “Commissioning Grant for Female Composers” from Opera America and a 2021-22 NEA grant for her opera The Secret River (with Pulitzer Prize winning librettist Mark Campbell and commissioned and produced by Opera Orlando). She is the recipient of a Phi Kappa Phi National Artists Award, Florida Individual Artists Fellowships, a fellowship at the prestigious MacDowell Colony, and awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP).

Premieres, performances, and commissions of Dr. Sung's work have included compositions for world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the German Ministry of Culture (Rhineland-Pfalz), the National Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Pops, the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, the Monterey (CA) Symphony, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the Wichita Symphony Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, the Akron Symphony Orchestra, the Sarasota Symphony Orchestra, the Jacksonville (FL) Symphony Orchestra, and other university and regional orchestras, chamber music ensembles, and soloists.  

 

Several documentary films have been made about Sung's work including a film by award-winning documentary film-maker Lisa Mills, which captures the world premiere performance of Sung's large orchestral work, The Circle Closes (2010). This film has garnered a Silver Medal Award from the 2011 Park City Film Music Festival (Park City, Utah), and a 2011 Bronze Telly Award.  Sung's highly acclaimed composition for orchestra, Rockwell Reflections, was excerpted and made into a five-minute film also by Lisa Mills, and was selected for the Cultural Arts Award at the 2009 International MOFILM short film festival. Another award-winning documentary film about Sung's Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra by film-maker Aaron Hosé, was selected for two Telly Awards (2007). 

 

The music of Stella Sung is published by the Theodore Presser Music Publishers (USA), Editions Henry Lemoine (France), Southern Music Company (Keiser, USA), and Sonic Star Music Productions (USA), and is currently available on Koch International Recordings, Naxos, Cambria Master Recordings, Sinfonica (Italy), Eroica Master Recordings, MSR, and Albany Records. Sung's compositions have been broadcast on radio stations world-wide including WGBH-Boston, WBUR-Boston, WNYC-New York, KING FM radio (Seattle, WA), the Bavarian Radio (Munich,Germany), the Swedish National Radio, and Radio Vaticana (Rome, Italy).

 

Sung holds the Bachelor of Music degree (piano performance) from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), the Master of Fine Arts degree (Composition) from the University of Florida, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree (piano performance) from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Sung has been recognized by the University of Florida as a Distinguished Alumna, an Alumna of Outstanding Achievement, and has also received a Distinguished Achievement Award from UF. 

 

Dr. Sung is director of the Center for Research and Education in Arts, Technology, and Entertainment (CREATE) at the University of Central Florida, College of Arts and Humanities. Dr. Sung holds a “Pegasus" Professorship, the highest honor awarded to distinguished faculty members at the University of Central Florida, and is also an endowed  "University Trustees Chair" professor.