Philip Lasser is a composer with both French and American cultural roots.. His music creates a unique sound world that blends the colorful harmonies of French Impressionist sonorities with the dynamic rhythms and characteristics of American music. “My music travels at the speed of our lives today. Its modernity resides not so much in musical style as in the speed at which its materials move and develop.”
Lasser’s works can be heard on the Sony Classical, Telarc, New World, Crystal, and BMG RCA/Red Seal labels. His works have been performed worldwide by artists such as Simone Dinnerstein, Frank Almond, Zuill Bailey, Susanna Phillips, Sasha Cooke, Elizabeth Futral, Margo Garrett, Makoto Nakura and Cho-Liang Lin. Lasser’s music has been performed by the Atlanta, Seattle, and Boulder Symphonies, the Berlin and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestras.
At an early age, Lasser entered Nadia Boulanger’s famed Ecole d’Arts Americaines in Fontainebleau, France. Following his studies at Harvard College, Lasser lived in Paris, where he worked with Boulanger’s closest colleague and disciple, Narcis Bonet, and legendary pianist Gaby Casadesus. He received his master’s degree from Columbia University while studying with René Leibowitz’s disciple, Jacques-Louis Monod, and his doctorate from The Juilliard School, where he worked with David Diamond. Lasser is a distinguished member of The Juilliard School faculty since 1994.
Philip Lasser is Director of the European American Music Alliance (EAMA) Summer Music Institute and Academy, dedicated to the training composers, chamber musicians, and conductors in the serious study of musical discourse.
