How did you get involved in early music?
After grad school, I was going nuts and looking for something to do that didn’t involve playing Ride of the Valkyries 25 times in a row. Not too long after that, a friend from college called out of the blue and mentioned that he had happened upon all sorts of good music that we hadn’t been exposed to in school. He came over with music and an instrument, and I think it took me less than a month to devote almost all of my energy to working on this new (old!) music and technique. That friend? Greg Ingles, who happened to audition for Piffaro shortly after.
How is working with Piffaro different from your other gigs?
I don’t get to play this kind of music anywhere else, and I think it’s extremely valuable not only on its own, but also because it better informs our [period instrument] performance of later music. Piffaro’s programs are also always programmatically and instrumentally entertaining! There’s always something to learn and some great instrument to see, hear, or play.
You can hear how great Erik sounds with our ensemble in this live recording of German dances by Schein and Praetorius, from our concert on March 10, 2018.
LISTEN>>
