Erin Lesser (she/her)

As a soloist, and chamber musician Erin has been described in The New York Times as a “superb”, “excellent”, and “elegant” flutist, and in The New Yorker she was called a “multi-tasking virtuoso”. She has travelled to prestigious venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Hall, the Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ (Amsterdam) and Alice Tully Hall where she performed the American premiere of Morton Feldman’s For Flute and Orchestra with the Janacek Philharmonic. She has worked with prominent classical composers including Steve Reich, Marcos Balter, Helmut Lachenmann, Tyshawn Sorey, John Luther Adams, Kate Soper, Elainie Lillios, George Lewis, Pierre Boulez, and David Lang, as well as experimental groups like Medeski Martin and Wood, the Dirty Projectors and electronica artists JLin, Eartheater and King Brit.  Erin can be heard on over 40 albums and on record labels including Nonesuch, Cantaloupe, Carrier, Hat[now] Art, New Focus, Aeon, New Amsterdam, Albany and Capstone.

Erin has been a member of Wet Ink Ensemble since 2001. The group was named “the best ensemble of 2018” (NYT), and has been described as “thought-provoking and expansive and fearless in testing the limitations of what instruments or musical forms can be."   Erin is also a member of Alarm Will Sound, a group that has been awarded the ASCAP Concert Music Award for “the virtuosity, passion and commitment with which they perform and champion the repertory for the 21st century” and which has been called the “future of classical music”(NYT). A founding member of the Argento Chamber Ensemble, Erin was featured on the group’s award-winning recording Winter Fragments; music of Tristan Murail. She won the 2008 National Flute Association chamber music competition with her flute and percussion duo, Due East.

Lesser completed a two-year fellowship with The Academy (now Ensemble Connect), a program run by Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School and the Weill Music Institute. She is now a member of Decoda, an affiliate ensemble of Carnegie Hall, whose work often takes them beyond the concert hall and into the broader community.

A graduate of the University of Ottawa (BM) and the Manhattan School of Music (MM, DMA), Erin is proud to be an Associate Professor at Lawrence University. Through a partnership between Lawrence University and Decoda, Erin is co-founder of Music for All, a program which brings music into new and/or underserved venues throughout the Fox Valley community in Wisconsin. She is also on The New Music at Lawrence committee helping to bring her passion for new music to the LU campus. 

Ms. Lesser is a Pearl Flute Performing Artist.