Christopher Stark is a composer of contemporary classical music deeply rooted in the American West. Having spent his formative years in rural western Montana, his music is always seeking to capture the expansive energy of this quintessential American landscape.

A recipient of the 2010 American Composers Orchestra Underwood Commission, and winner of the 2011 Utah Arts Festival Orchestra Commission, Stark's music has been heard in concert venues around the world from the Neue Synagoge Berlin to Carnegie Hall. His music has been programmed, rehearsed and performed by such ensembles as Brave New Works, the American Composers Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, Dinosaur Annex, the CCM Wind Symphony & Philharmonia, the Israeli Chamber Project, Juventas!, janus trio, the Momenta Quartet, and members of eighth blackbird.

In 2010, Stark was awarded an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, and in 2007, he was winner of the Cincinnati Conservatory Orchestral Composition Competition. Stark has also been selected to attend festivals and courses such as the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, the Buffalo Philharmonic Young Composer Forum, the Dinosaur Annex Young Composer Festival, the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, the Music10 and Music09 Festivals in Blonay, Switzerland, the FUBiS Summer Composition Course in Berlin, the Music06 Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio, an electronic music forum at Stanford's CCRMA, the Mountain Computer Music Festival, and the Oregon Bach Festival.

Stark is currently finishing his DMA at Cornell University where he studies with professors Roberto Sierra and Steven Stucky. Stark has previously studied at the Freie Universität Berlin, the Cincinnati Conservatory, and the University of Montana. At these institutions and abroad in Vienna, he studied with notable composers Samuel Adler, Michael Fiday, Mara Helmuth, Joel Hoffman, David Maslanka, Charles Nichols, Wolfram Wagner, and Patrick Williams. In the spring of 2011, Stark will teach electronic music courses as a visiting professor at the University of Montana.