RAYMOND J. LUSTIG – “THAT’S THE MOMENT”
RESPIRANO RECORDS
Ray Lustig is 1/2 of NYC songwriting duo Manicburg and an award winning professor in composition at Julliard. Yes, THE Julliard, school of performing arts. But this isn’t stuffy Classical music nor icy neo-Classical navel-gazing. Ray’s music shares more with psychedelic post-punk, Manu Chao, Tom Waits, Radiohead and other hard to categorize works of intricate composition.
Welcome is his latest solo album exploring realms of alternative/indie rock coming hot on the heels of his choral opera Semmelweiss. The first single “That’s The Moment” is a hooky, electronic-infused psychedelic pop tune.
Lustig’s work transcends and integrates many genres, as composer, performer, producer, and bandleader. From symphonic works to experimental opera, instrumental music, to alternative rock and electronic music, his music maintains an artistic and sonic signature across strikingly different forces, an emotional intensity not about loudness but often quiet and constant.
While his early career was set in the world of Juilliard and Carnegie Hall, he has moved steadily “downtown” and around the world, working with international musicians ranging from underground rockers to modular synthesists, jazzers, traditional folk instrumentalists, and classical virtuosi.
With New York-based Italian artist Luigi Porto he started the band Manicburg, which released its debut album in 2024, and continues to tour and record.
His choral opera SEMMELWEIS was staged in a 2018 production by Hungarian director Martin Boross. In 2026 Lustig and co-producer Maximilien Hein reimagined the music of the opera as a concept album taking the form of a song cycle. It met with global critical acclaim.
His latest album, Welcome, due out in the autumn of 2026, takes his solo music again in the direction of alternative rock, with a lush electronic and compositional palette, exploring different angles of anxiety and fear in a menacing world, a serial tale of psychedelic peril.
Lustig has collaborated with American Composers Orchestra, Grand Rapids Symphony, Metropolis Ensemble, Budapest Operetta Theater, the Bartok Plusz Opera Festival, the American Opera Project, cellist Joshua Roman, tenor Nicholas Phan, pianist Blair McMillen, classical guitar ensemble Duo Noire, director Martin Boross, animator John W. Lustig, and more. He has taught composition and analysis at The Juilliard School and served on the Pulitzer Prize selection committee.
Ray’s work has been honored with the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP’s Rudolf Nassim Prize for his orchestral work UNSTUCK, the Aaron Copland Award from Copland House, the Juilliard Orchestra competition, the New Juilliard Ensemble competition.
Lustig is part of a growing scene of artists and musicians based in the far-northern neighborhoods of Manhattan, and hosts monthly music parties in his studio there.
ARTIST QUOTE
“Chaitanya Sangco and I sequestered ourselves for a whole weekend and recorded dozens of acoustic and electronic instruments in all different ways, as well as our voices on the mantra-like chorus. What we made came from a feeling we were both having of a lurking menace about us in the world. That’s the Moment emerged from that trove of audio. From an opening of guitar and prepared harpsichord, murmuring vocals build, leading to an explosion that opens up a micro-tale of psychedelic peril.”
Raymond Lustig
Welcome
(Respirano Records)
Release Date: November 20, 2026
Artist Links
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