Philip Lasser

Philip Lasser is a visionary composer native to French and American traditions. His music, direct and undisguised, creates a unique sound world that blends together the colorful harmonies of French Impressionist sonorities and the dynamic rhythms and characteristics of American music. Recent commissions include works written for Simone Dinnerstein, The American Brass Quintet, Natalie Dessay and Ensemble Connect, Juilliard415 in honor of Bruce Kovner, and Cantori New York as well as the commissioned composition “»The Art of Memory«. 12 Preludes for Solo Piano in descending chromatic order from E to F” by the Dresden Music Festival and Newport Classical, which was premiered premiered in May 2024 by pianist Anton Mejias at the Dresden Music Festival. The work received its North American premiere at Newport Classical in autumn 2024. Early in his musical training, Lasser entered Nadia Boulanger’s famed Ecole d’Arts Americaines in Fontainebleau, France, where he began to establish his connection to the French lineage. Following his studies at Harvard College, where he graduated summa cum laude, Lasser lived in Paris while working with Boulanger’s closest colleague and disciple, Narcis Bonet, and legendary pianist Gaby Casadesus. Lasser later received his master’s degree from Columbia University, where he undertook intensive studies in counterpoint with René Leibowitz’s disciple, Jacques-Louis Monod, and received his doctorate from The Juilliard School, where he studied with composer David Diamond. Lasser is the author of “The Spiraling Tapestry: An Inquiry into the Contrapuntal Fabric of Music,” which brings new insights into the world of musical analysis. Since 1996, he has been the director of the European American Music Alliance (EAMA) Summer Music Institute, a school dedicated to training composers, chamber musicians, and conductors in the tradition of Nadia Boulanger. He is also the artistic director of Suite Française, a performance group based in New York City that is dedicated to performing music in the French perspective through salon-type concerts. Lasser has been a distinguished member of the faculty of The Juilliard School since 1994. He currently lives in New York City with his family. His works have been performed worldwide by artists such as Natalie Dessay, Simone Dinnerstein, Zuill Bailey, Susanna Phillips, Elizabeth Futral, Sasha Cooke, Lucy Shelton, Brian Zeger, Jean Frédérick Neuburger, Frank Almond, Chad Hoopes, Margo Garrett, and Cho-Liang Lin and many others as well as by the Atlanta, Seattle, Boulder, Shreveport and Colorado Symphonies, and the MDR Leipzig and Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestras. Lasser’s works can be heard on the Sony Classical, Telarc, Delos, New World, Crystal, and BMG RCA/Red Seal labels. Photo: Jiyang Chen