The Stars and the Roses is a three-movement composition for tenor solo and orchestra set to the poetry of Czesław Miłosz by the American composer Steven Stucky.
Stucky began composing a set of orchestral songs for the tenor Noah Stewart at the suggestion of the conductor Joana Carneiro, then music director of the Berkeley Symphony.
[1]Reviewing the world premiere, Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle called the piece "a short but lushly expressive suite of three orchestral songs" and wrote, "The Stars and the Roses needed no help in making its effect felt.
"[3] Jeff Dunn of the San Francisco Classical Voice similarly lauded, "The orchestration is the immediate strong point of the piece, but unlike the in-your-face symphony, Stucky's motivic content and progression may require repeated listenings for its subtleties to become manifest.
The chamber version of the piece is scored for Flute, Clarinet in Bb, Percussion:, Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Marimba (4 1/3 octaves), Bass Drum, Piano, Solo Tenor, Violin, Violoncello.