Ray Lustig
Composer

"Lustig is writing music charged with intensity and leavened with intelligence," wrote the American Academy of Arts and Letters in awarding composer Raymond J. Lustig its prestigious Charles Ives Fellowship. Having recently completed his MM and DMA at the Juilliard School, Lustig has also won ASCAP's Rudolf Nissim Prize for his orchestral work UNSTUCK, the Juilliard Orchestra competition, and the New Juilliard Ensemble competition, and has received commissions from The Academy (A Program of Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, and The Weill Music Institute), Metropolis Ensemble, the New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, and the American Music Center's Live Music for Dance Project.

Lustig's music has been presented in venues ranging from New York City clubs and galleries to major concert halls and festivals around the world—from Le Poisson Rouge and the Stone to Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall and the École Normale in Paris. Other venues include New York's 92nd Street Y and Symphony Space, the Bowling Green New Music Festival, the Norfolk and Caramoor summer music festivals, the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, the New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, Angel Orensanz Center, the Juilliard Beyond the Machine Festival, Yale University, Columbia University, Barnard College, Bard College, and Oberlin College and Conservatory.

Performers have included the Juilliard Symphony, the Bowling Green Philharmonia, Metropolis Ensemble, American Opera Projects, the New Juilliard Ensemble, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Avian Music, Orchestra Insonica, Duo Noire, Opera on Tap, and counter)induction. Metropolis Ensemble has chosen him as their 2010-2011 Wet Ink Composer, and will build their season's programming around his music. He is also part of Blind Ear Music, a real-time composing collective including Jakub Ciupinski, Cristina Spinei, Ryan Francis, and Adam Schoenberg.

Lustig's UNSTUCK, for orchestra, was released last winter on Albany Records, with Emily Freeman Brown conducting the Bowling Green Philharmonia. Avian Music has recorded his YOU CATCHING? for ensemble and narrator. His music has been used for dance at the New York City Ballet's Choreographic Institute, the Juilliard School's Composers and Choreographers concert, and Barnard College's Spring Dances concert. He has collaborated with choreographers Yass Hakoshima, Peter Quantz, Melissa Barak, and Brynt Beitman.

Lustig's teachers have included John Corigliano, Robert Beaser, Samuel Adler, Sebastian Currier, Jonathan Kramer, Derek Bermel, Philip Lasser, Pia Gilbert, Conrad Cummings, and Shirish Korde.

He is currently at work on an opera inspired by the tragic story of pioneering obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis, in collaboration with librettists Matt Gray and Matthew Doherty, medical script consultant Sherwin Nuland, MD, and American Opera Projects.

Passionate about sharing the joy of music with future generations from all backgrounds, he has taught in New York City's public schools and community centers as part of outreach programs with Carnegie Hall, Metropolis Ensemble, and the Juilliard School.

Also a published researcher in molecular biology, Lustig is deeply inspired by science, nature, and the mind. He has helped to co-found and develop the Juilliard Weill Cornell Music and Medicine Initiative, a new collaborative project between The Juilliard School and Weill Cornell Medical College that explores the many intersections of music, the sciences, and the healing arts.

Born in Tokyo and raised in Queens, New York, Lustig received his B.A. from Holy Cross College, where his interests were divided between piano, composition, and biology. He studied cell division, the cell skeleton, and cell polarity at Columbia University and Massachusetts General Hospital before beginning his graduate studies in composition at Juilliard. He lives in New York City and teaches at the Juilliard School.

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