At the ceremony at Sprague Hall in New Haven, Stoltzman will perform Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint, which was written for the clarinetist in 1985.

Stoltzman, who received his master's degree from Yale, has achieved an unprecedented level of stardom for a clarinetist: He was the first to give recitals at Carnegie Hall and the Hollywood Bowl on the instrument, and he was the first wind player to win the Avery Fisher Prize.

The Stanford Prize is named for pianist Samuel Simons Sanford, a member of the Yale faculty from 1894 to 1910 and a driving force behind the establishment of the Yale School of Music.