George Lewis is an American composer, musicologist, computer-installation artist and trombonist. He is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University and Area Chair in Composition; a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters; a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin. Lewis’s other honours include the Doris Duke Artist Award (2019), a MacArthur Fellowship (2002) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2015).

A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, Lewis’s work in electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations and notated and improvised forms has been presented by ensembles worldwide. He is widely regarded as a pioneer of interactive computer music, creating programmes that improvise in concert with human musicians. His music is published by Edition Peters.

His book “A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music” (University of Chicago Press, 2008) received the American Book Award and the American Musicological Society’s Music in American Culture Award. Lewis (with Benjamin Piekut) is the co-editor of the two-volume “Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies” (2016).

Lewis is a pioneer in the development of improvising AI software, and his opera The Comet was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize. His works have been performed at the BBC Proms, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Darmstadt Summer Course, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Wiener Festwochen, and Ultima Festival, by Ensemble Modern, Neue Ensemble, London Sinfonietta, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Dal Niente, London Philharmonia Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Musikfabrik, Mivos Quartet, JACK Quartet, Klangforum Wien, Ekmeles, American Composers Orchestra, The Crossing, Neue Vocalsolisten, S.E.M. Ensemble, and others. Lewis holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and others.He holds honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Edinburgh, New College of Florida, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and Birmingham City University, among others.

At KlangKunstBühne 2026 George Lewis will give the workshop Decolonized Composing​​​​​​​.

music.columbia.edu/bios/george-e-lewis