St Louis, Missouri, United States
Composer Eric Lemmon’s artistic practice and academic research is preoccupied with the politics that circumscribe and are woven into our musical technologies and institutions. His music has been reviewed by the New York Times and featured on WQXR’s Q2 and has been performed in venues ranging from underground bars (le) Poisson Rouge and SubCulture to the DiMenna Center for Classical Music and FIGMENT arts festival on Governor’s Island. Eric’s work has been recognized locally and internationally with grants and residencies like MetLife’s Creative Connections Grant, UMEZ and LMCC Arts Engagement Grants, multiple Puffin Foundation Grants, a Tofte Lake Center Emerging Artist Residency, a Can Serrat International Artist Residency, a Westben Performer-Composer Residency, and ConEd’s Exploring the Metropolis Residency. Further, he has been awarded a Mancini Fellowship, a long-term fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Stony Brook University’s Presidential Dissertation Completion Fellowship, and a Fulbright Award for his artistic research and profile as a performer. Eric has written works for Yarn|Wire, Cadillac Moon Ensemble, Jacqueline LeClaire, and The Chelsea Symphony. He is a member of the experimental and technology-focused music collective Ensemble Decipher and received his Ph.D. in Music Composition from Stony Brook University.
Ensemble Decipher is a modular, experimental music group that performs with vintage, contemporary, and emerging technologies. Founded in 2017 by Niloufar Nourbakhsh, the ensemble strives to redefine performer virtuosity by drawing on the technological advancements of our time to highlight new voices and ways of listening. Ensemble Decipher seeks to reflect on and challenge the power structures that lace the field of electronic music by reexamining technology’s role in their performance practice. Recent works commissioned by the group have mobilized network technologies, accelerometers attached to rocks, boxes trained via machine learning to respond to touch, acoustic instruments, and laptops. Ensemble Decipher has collaborated with notable composers and technologists including Mari Kimura, Margaret Schedel, Daria Semegen, Kamala Sankaram, Jose Tomás Henriques, Mara Helmuth, Yaz Lancaster, Paul Leary, and Lainie Fefferman and premiere works by many others. Recent feature performances include concerts at the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, International Computer Music Conference, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Network Music Festival, Earth Day Art Model, and an ensemble residency at the New Music for Strings Festival in Denmark. Current members include Joseph Bohigian, Robert Cosgrove, Eric Lemmon, Chelsea Loew, Taylor Long, and Niloufar Nourbakhsh. For the current season, Decipher will be in residence at Michigan State University; perform at the Sylvia Adalman Chamber Series at Peabody Conservatory, NowNet Arts Conference, and Silo City; and have commissioned new works by Bora Yoon and Erin Rogers to be premiered in 2023.
Primary Responsibilities: // Designed and taught a diverse array of courses across music history, production, composition, and songwriting: MUS 332: Seminar in Music of the Modern Era MUS 295: Acoustic Ecologies MUS 125 & 225: Digital Audio Production I & II MUS 257: Songwriting Workshop MUS 340: Advanced Composition // Supervised student research and creative work, including serving as a Senior Honors Thesis Committee Member, organizing public concerts and workshops for students. Major Projects & Successes at Knox College: // Reticulations: A 60-minute composition for percussion and live electronics Performed at: Valley City State University (ND) * Premiere The Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis) Constellation (Chicago) Knox College // Talking Abolition at Knox - Winner of a 2024 Mellon Mentoring Award - Recognized for synthesizing historical and technical knowledge through podcast-based pedagogy in Digital Audio Production I - Presented at the Abolition for All Time Humanities Conference (April 2025) with the talk “Pedagogy and the Podcast: Synthesizing Historical Thinking and Technical Know-How Through ‘Talking Abolition at Knox’”
Courses Taught: Analytical Techniques II - MUSC-5110, Post-Tonal Analysis Music Software Applications: Notation - MUSC 1500