Raymond Lustig

Composer Raymond J. Lustig’s ever-evolving work ranges from symphonic and chamber to technological, multimedia, and lately, theatrical. Commissions, performances, and support have come from the Grand Rapids Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, Town Hall Seattle, the Academy, Metropolis Ensemble, Copland House, American Opera Projects, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute, Norfolk Festival, St. Louis Guitar Festival, New York Festival of Song, Caramoor Music Festival, and numerous others. He has served as composer in residence with the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, the Imagine Science Film Festival, and Copland House’s Compose Yourself project.

Lustig’s awards include the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP’s Rudolf Nissim Prize for his orchestral work UNSTUCK, and the Aaron Copland Award from Copland House. His teachers have included John Corigliano, Robert Beaser, Samuel Adler, Sebastian Currier, Jonathan Kramer, Derek Bermel, Philip Lasser, Pia Gilbert, Conrad Cummings, and Shirish Korde.

Born in Tokyo and raised in Queens, N.Y., Lustig received his BA from Holy Cross College, where he pursued his interests in music and the sciences. Before coming to Juilliard to complete his MM and DMA degrees in composition, he was a published researcher in molecular biology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Columbia University. As a composer, he remains deeply inspired by science, nature, and the mind.

An active music blogger, Lustig’s regular micro-composition series #composagrams has spawned a novel genre and pioneered use of social media feeds as a new 21st-century “concert hall”—an artistic space with its own creative benefits and boundaries. He was invited by TEDx to speak about his habit of looking to the constraints for his new inspirations.