Eric Sawyer 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.
Eric Sawyer is the composer of an extensive catalog ranging from chamber music and songs across many genres to orchestral music to opera. His operas Our American Cousin, The Garden of Martyrs, and The Scarlet Professor have received New England premieres in recent years, the first with libretto by John Shoptaw and the last two with librettos by Harley Erdman. The Scarlet Professor received The American Prize for best opera in 2018. A new opera, The Onion, is in process. A cabaret musical, My Evil Twin, starring identical twin baritones Jim and John Demler, is enjoying a run of performances across the Northeast.
Mr. Sawyer’s musical vocabulary integrates a variety of traditions in American music, with an emphasis on rich and expressive harmonies. His Fantasy Concerto: Concord Conversations, a triple concerto based on the American Transcendentalists, was performed recently by Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Claremont Trio. A recipient of the Joseph Bearns Prize and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Mr. Sawyer is on the music faculty of Amherst College.
He has written for the Brentano String Quartet, Boston Musica Viva, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Concord Orchestra, Seraphim Singers, Radius Ensemble, Laurel Trio, Ives Quartet, Lighthouse Chamber Players, and Earplay. His music is available on the Albany Records and BMOP/sound labels, with a new album of orchestra music with soloists forthcoming from BMOP/sound.
