Eric W. Sawyer
| Eric Sawyer | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 2, 1962 Brookhaven, New York, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | composer |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Website | http://www.ericsawyer.net/ |
Eric W. Sawyer or Eric Sawyer (born June 2, 1962 in Brookhaven, New York) is an American orchestral composer, pianist and professor of music at Amherst College. He has studied as an undergraduate at Harvard College, where he was selected as a Harvard Junior Fellow. He undertook graduate studies at both Columbia University and the University of California, Davis (where he completed his doctorate in 1994). Before taking up the position at Amherst, Sawyer spent four years as Chair of Composition and Theory at the Longy School of Music.
Sawyer has written a number of pieces that have received multiple public performances. His debut was in 1985 with Three Pieces for Orchestra, performed by the Harvard Chamber Orchestra, and was described at the time as an "auspicious beginning". Later pieces have included "String Quartet No. 2" (premiered at the Longy School of Music's "SeptemberFest" in 1999); "Violin Sonata" (which included Sawyer on piano); "The Humble Heart", a cantata built around texts by American Shakers, which debuted in 2006; and "Three for Trio". The 2001 Laurel Trio performance of Three for Trio was well received, being described as "the work of a person who is entirely at ease with traditional tonality stretched to its limits." Sawyer's first CD of his work - Eric Sawyer: String Works - was released under the Albany Records label in 2005 and featured four of his compositions. Sawyer’s piano trio “Lincoln’s Two Americas” was one of three winners in the Ravinia Festival competition for Lincoln-themed chamber works to be performed as part of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial celebration in 2009.
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