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Erik is a Bay Area Musician, currently living in El Cerrito. He graduated in May 2006 from the San Francisco Conservatory
of Music with a master's degree in composition and is now working as a freelance composer, arranger and trumpeter, leading
his own bands as well as playing with bands like the Realistic Orchestra, Mitch Marcus Quintet +13 and the Contemporary Jazz
Orchestra. Erik also teaches at The Jazzschool, Berkeley City College, Los Medanos Junior College, Chabot College, Cal-State
East Bay and the Waldorf Middle School in San Francisco, and has given clinics at Santa Rosa Junior College and Loyola College
of New Orleans. His most recent CD, "Crescent Boulevard" was released in 2010 on his own Jekab's Music label.
Erik moved to San Francisco in July 2003 after spending the last five years in Brooklyn, New York, and putting out his
debut solo CD "Intersection" on the Fresh Sound/New Talent label. His groups performed in venues such as The Knitting Factory,
the Cornelia Street Cafe, HERE Performing Arts Space, and Jazz at Detour. He also was a member of the Howard Fishman Quartet,
which performed their music in such venues as the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel, Joes Pub at the Public Theater, and the
Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, as well as touring throughout the northeast. Erik also played with singer/songwriter Amy Kohn,
Justin Mullen's Delphian Jazz Orchestra, jazz singer Vanessa Trouble, the Sean Smith Quartet, the Illinois Jacquet Big Band,
in the Off-Broadway show "The Jazz Singer" , and spent a year on the road with pop singer John Mayer.
As a composer, Erik graduated with honors in orchestration from the conservatory, and also won the Conservatory's 2004
Kris Getz award (for composing for young musicians) and won 3rd place in the SFCM art song competition. He's scored music
for the award-winning documentary "Radio Grito" and orchestrated for the Trinity Lyric Opera Company. While in NY, Erik presented
concerts of his chamber music at the Knitting Factory, Cornelia Street Café, and was commissioned to write compositions for
the 2001 and 2002 HERE Arts Centers "American Living Room" Festival, as well as being composer-in-residence for the modern
dance company Tapfusion for 2001.
Growing up in Berkeley, CA, Erik began playing recorder at age 7, and at age 10 also began studying clarinet and trumpet.
He played in the Berkeley High School Jazz Band, which won a number of high school competitions including the Reno and Monterey
Jazz Festivals, and was able to tour Japan with the Monterey Jazz Festival High School All-Star Big Band in 1991. That same
year, Erik moved to Ohio, where he studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. While at Oberlin, he went on two tours of
the southern U.S., playing in major cities in order to bring attention to Oberlin's jazz program. It was on these tours that
Erik discovered New Orleans, where he settled in 1994, after getting his bachelors degree.
Erik spent the next four years in New Orleans, playing in a myriad of musical settings, learning from the rich history
of jazz musicians (particularly brass players), and becoming one of the most in-demand musicians in the city. He co-led the
New World Funk Ensemble, which released a CD on the Turnipseed label and performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival,
and led his own small-jazz groups in venues such as Snug Harbor. He composed and played with the funk band Galactic, toured
France with legendary French organist Eddy Louiss, and played with the Woody Herman, Kermit Ruffins, Al Belleto and New Orleans
All-Star Big Bands.
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