​Da​vid Lucier – Composer, Sound Artist and Music Professor

Lucier is an award-winning composer, sound artist and musician. He holds a doctorate in music from Wesleyan University and enjoys teaching other musicians his craft.

Lucier has had a profound effect on experimental music. His works explore sound’s inherent qualities and their relation to space where they are heard.

Early Life and Education

Lucier was raised in a military family, his mother being part of the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) and father being an US Navy Lt. Commander who served in the South Pacific during World War II and earned 16 battle stars for his services.

David Lucier attended Arizona State University on the GI Bill, and then joined the United States Army where he received basic, advanced and Special Forces training.

Lucier spent his military service engaging with the Special Operations Association, eventually being elected to their Board of Directors. Additionally, he co-hosted Veterans Heritage Hour, an Internet radio show that explored veterans’ history, national security policy and warfighting’s future.

Since 1982, Lucier has devoted his career to writing instrumental music. His orchestral works include Crossings, Serenade for Thirteen Winds and Pure Wave Oscillator and Septet for Three Winds, Four Strings and Pure Wave Oscillator.

Professional Career

David Lucier earned his degree from ASU on the GI Bill in 1974, and then pursued a career in telecommunication finance. Following 9/11, he served as a civilian contractor to the Department of Defense for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On his return from the military, he experienced Post-Traumatic Stress and sought treatment. Today, he serves as an active advocate for veterans dealing with mental health issues.

He is an internationally acclaimed artist and pioneer in sound art, combining space, sound, and psycho-acoustics in captivating ways. Perhaps most notably for his groundbreaking use of brain waves in music and performance settings.

Achievements and Honors

Lucier’s early electronic music features the use of brain waves in live performance (Music for Solo Performer, 1965), visual imagery created through sound in vibrating media (The Queen of the South, 1972) and room acoustics evoked for musical purposes (Vespers, 1969; I am sitting in a room, 1970).

His more recent works encompass sound installations and compositions for solo instruments, chamber ensembles and orchestra in which rhythms and spatial effects are created through close tuning. These audio-visual experiences, which engage all senses in ways largely absent in his earlier works, are highly innovative.

He is the founder and president of Arizona Veterans & Military Leadership Alliance, a Veterans advocacy group with the mission to make Arizona the most Veteran-friendly state in America through three circles of success: education & training, jobs & economic opportunities, and health & wellness. He frequently testifies before legislators in support of Veteran legislation while creating or expanding several initiatives at ASU, UofA, NAU and other higher educational institutions.

Personal Life

David Lucier hails from a family that has always been passionate about music and the arts. As both a composer and professor of music at Brandeis University, his passion has never wavered.

Lucier is renowned for his varied musical output. Though he began with a neoclassical aesthetic, Lucier’s artistic journey led him away from traditional composition techniques.

After his tenure as an opera conductor, Lucier returned to his native New England. In the 1970s, he joined Viola Farber Dance Company and served as its musical director.

Lucier is an artist as well as a physician. He holds a doctorate in medicine from Tufts University School of Medicine and a master’s degree in public health, plus he holds a quality improvement fellowship from Harvard Medical School.

Net Worth

David Lucier is a billionaire and part of the Giving Pledge, an initiative that requires high-net-worth individuals to donate half their wealth to charity. Pictured with his wife at the 2010 Oscars Governors Ball in Hollywood, California, Lucier has an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion through investments in companies such as Intuit, Amazon and Netscape; plus he has donated more than $1 billion to various causes.

Lucier last traded in Dentsply Sirona Inc (XRAY) on 24 May 2017. Over the past five years, he made 4 purchases and zero sales of this stock; an average trade size of 64 units meant Lucier made approximately $45,128 worth of trading volume during that time.