Bio
Elliott Lupp is a composer, improvisor, multimedia artist, and educator currently based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His compositional and technological interests range from works for solo musician and chamber ensembles to multimedia projects with lights and video. His process typically involves some amount of journaling and doodling, as well as improvising and experimenting with tactile objects, light, and digital technologies. Mirroring these interests and practices, His work frequently showcases dramatic collisions between harsh noise and tonality, real-world and synthesized samples, and acoustic and electroacoustic timbre and gesture.
Recently, Elliott has turned his creative focus towards the ways art and technology can foster connection across sonic and visual mediums, and his own emotional state given socio-political overwhelm. This has prompted an ongoing curiosity and consideration of audience perception, presence, and need for more connection, as well as an awareness of how his work functions within the broader artistic ecosystem. Recently, his work has begun to draw on samples from popular films, video games, television, and other media, subjecting them to harsh manipulation, producing gradual or sudden shifts between familiarity and the unknown, confusion and confidence, clarity and uncertainty, and chaotic tension and release.
Elliott has received a number of awards and honors for his work, including a 1st-place internationally awarded MA/IN Award in 2023, a 2023 CIME PRIX Residency Award, a 2024 William T. Faricy Award, a 2019 international SEAMUS/ASCAP Commission, the 2019 Franklin G. Fisk Composition Award for Chamber Music, and both Departmental and All-University awards in Graduate Research and Creative Scholarship in 2019.
His music has been performed at a variety of national and international electroacoustic festivals and conferences including NUNC!, SPLICE Fest, MA/IN Festival, SPLICE Institute, N_SEME, CHIMEfest, Electronic Music Midwest, MOXsonic, Fulcrumpoint New Music Project, SEAMUS, and Electroacoustic Barn Dance, and by such ensembles as the Varo String Quartet, Dutch/American trio Sonic Hedgehog, the Atar Piano Trio, Found Sound New Music Ensemble, Spektral Quartet, various members of MOCREP, The Chicago Composer's Orchestra, Fonema Consort, and Ensemble Dal Niente.
While at Northwestern University, Elliott worked as an A1 freelance sound engineer for the Bienen School of Music where he frequently ran live sound for prominent artists and ensembles including Third Coast Percussion, Jessie Montgomery, Dover Quartet, Soprano Chrestine Goerke, Bruce Hornsby, Christopher Cerrone, Donnacha Dennehy, Alan Pierson, the NU Contemporary Music Ensemble and Jazz Orchestra, and many others. During this time was also an instructor of record for courses in music composition, music technology, and aural skills.
Elliott is currently an instructor of composition and music technology at Western Michigan University where he teaches courses in composition, electronic music techniques, computer music design, aural skills, and music theory.
Education:
PhD: Northwestern University (ABD - Dissertation submitted to committee as of Jan 8th 2026 - Expected graduation Spring 2026) - Studied with: Alex Mincek, Jay Alan Yim, Stephan Moore
MM: Western Michigan University - Studied with: Christopher Biggs, Lisa R. Coons
BM: Columbia College Chicago - Studied with: Eliza Brown, Kenn Kumpf