Richard Lerman

Richard Lerman (born Dec 5 1944 in San Francisco, CA; died June 20 2025) was a composer and sound artist whose, "work...centers around his custom-made contact microphones of unusually small size," including, "piezo disks and other transducers". Sound Generantion named him "the internet father of the piezo disk" in 2013. He studied with Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, and David Tudor.

Lerman received both his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Music, 1966) and Master of Fine Arts (Film and Theatre Arts, 1970) at Brandeis University. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Sound Art (Video & Audio) for 1987-88. He also worked in film, having had a show at MOMA, He then taught sound and interdisciplinary arts at Arizona State University's West Campus Program in Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance beginning in 1994, becoming a Full Professor in 2001, and continued teaching there until his retirement.