Elliott Sharp, born Elliott Daniel Sharp on March 1, 1951, in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He received classical piano training before studying clarinet, guitar, anthropology, physics, and electronics at Cornell University, Bard College, and the University at Buffalo, where he studied composition under Morton Feldman and Lejaren Hiller. Active in the New York City experimental music scene, he pioneered live computer performance with his Virtual Stance project in the 1980s and integrated algorithmic structures including Fibonacci sequences into his compositions. His studio recordings with the group Carbon include Monster Curve in 1982, Datacide in 1989, and Tocsin in 1991. His subsequent recordings include GTR OBLQ in 1998, Secret Life in 2005, Hums 2 Terre in 2007, and his solo album Octal Book One in 2008. He has collaborated with artists including Nels Cline, Jack DeJohnette, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Hubert Sumlin. His works have been performed by ensembles including the JACK Quartet, Kronos Quartet, and Ensemble Modern, and he produced John Zorn's album Spy Vs Spy in 1988 while creating music for The Sundance Channel. Sharp received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014 and the Berlin Prize in 2015, and celebrated his 70th birthday with the "E#@70" concert series in 2021.
