Eric W. Sawyer

Eric W. Sawyer (born June 2, 1962 in Brookhaven, New York) is an American orchestral composer, pianist and professor of music at Amherst College.

[1] Before taking up the position at Amherst, Sawyer spent four years as Chair of Composition and Theory at the Longy School of Music.

2" (premiered at the Longy School of Music's "SeptemberFest" in 1999);[4][5] "Violin Sonata" (which included Sawyer on piano);[6] "The Humble Heart", a cantata built around texts by American Shakers, which debuted in 2006;[7] and "Three for Trio".

[10] Along with librettist and University of California, Berkeley English lecturer John Shoptaw, Sawyer has composed an opera based upon a play set in Ford's Theatre the night United States President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

Reviewer Marvin J Ward observed that: “…composer Eric Sawyer has a penchant for choosing historical events, especially local ones, as the subjects of his operas.