Rising Composer Honored for Evocative Work “In Air, On Stone,” Impressed by the Château’s Centuries of Stillness and Mild
July 30, 2025 (Napa Valley, CA) — Opus One, one of many world’s most celebrated wineries, and Fontainebleau Colleges of Music and Effective Arts, a mannequin of cross-cultural collaboration inside the international music world for over a century, are happy to announce Sofia Jen Ouyang because the recipient of the inaugural Opus One Worldwide Prize for Composition. Her successful piece “In Air, On Stone,” was chosen from a aggressive group of rising composers collaborating within the 2025 Les Écoles d’Artwork Américaines de Fontainebleau (EAAF) summer season program at Château de Fontainebleau.
Because the inaugural winner, Sofia will probably be formally named Composer in Residence at Opus One on September 13, 2025, when she and her fellow musicians from Fontainebleau will carry out “In Air, On Stone” on the iconic Napa Valley vineyard. She can even compose a brand new work impressed by Opus One’s architectural magnificence and harvest season, which can premiere in September 2026, alongside subsequent 12 months’s prize recipient. Ouyang’s successful composition attracts on the ambiance and structure of the château, channeling the load of its centuries-old historical past and the quiet poetry of its areas.
A rising voice in modern classical music, Ouyang is understood for work that expressively and critically engages with the world. She is a two-time BMI Composer Award winner (2023, 2024), and her music has been carried out at venues corresponding to Lincoln Middle, the Lucerne Competition, and the Arvo Pärt Middle. Ouyang has collaborated with main ensembles together with Ensemble Fashionable, JACK Quartet, and the Juilliard Orchestra. She is presently a doctoral candidate in composition at Columbia College, the place she additionally earned undergraduate levels in Music and Philosophy.
“Château de Fontainebleau is a spot the place historical past lingers in quiet layers, the place mild strikes throughout stone and breath appears to settle into the partitions—In Air, On Stone drifts by way of areas the place time swimming pools and silence gathers,” says Ouyang of her piece. “Mild glides alongside distant corridors, glancing over tapestries and stonework worn by centuries; histories relaxation quietly beneath the floor of partitions that appear to breathe. Inside the stillness, flashes erupt and vanish—sharp bursts of vitality flickering by way of suspended house. Stillness and movement entangle, breath held and launched, as presence—stressed, fragile—hovers in midair, like reminiscence suspended within the château’s huge, listening halls.”
The Opus One Worldwide Prize for Composition was established in 2025 as a part of a transatlantic collaboration between Opus One Vineyard and the Fontainebleau Colleges of Music and Effective Arts. Annually, 5 scholarships are awarded to younger composers to check on the Château de Fontainebleau, with one chosen to obtain the prize and residency.
“Sofia’s piece is an beautiful reflection of place, ambiance, and emotion,” says Diana Ligeti, Creative Director of the Fontainebleau Colleges. “It exemplifies the spirit of this program: merging historical past and creativeness right into a singular creative voice.”
The Opus One Worldwide Prize for Composition initiative builds on Opus One’s long-standing help of the humanities, rooted within the imaginative and prescient of its founders, Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Robert Mondavi. The identify “Opus”—instructed by the Baron himself—symbolizes a masterwork and displays the vineyard’s perception within the intersection of expertise and cultural expression.
For extra data on Opus One go to: www.opusonewinery.com and for extra data on Fontainebleau Colleges of Music and Effective Arts go to: https://fontainebleauschools.org/
About Opus One Vineyard
Opus One was born in 1978 from a visionary partnership between Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Bordeaux and Robert Mondavi of Napa Valley. Assembly on the storied Château Mouton Rothschild, the 2 vintners laid the inspiration for a wine that will transcend borders: a singular Bordeaux-style mix crafted from Napa Valley grapes, delivered to life by way of the collaboration of French and American winemakers. Sure by a shared dedication to excellence and innovation, they weren’t solely creators of remarkable wines but in addition devoted patrons of the humanities. Their partnership was pushed by each craftsmanship and tradition, which led them to call their endeavor Opus One, a mirrored image of their first nice composition as a wine created to be a murals.
