Dr Erica Ball is a contemporary classical music composer, violinist, pianist + educator from Portland Maine, USA and a mother of 2 boys.
Erica received her PhD in music composition from the University of Pennsylvania where she studied with Anna Weesner, Jim Primosch, and Jay Reise.
Translating everyday life into music is at the heart of Erica whimsical and playful works. Inspired by the natural world, a childhood spent dreaming of becoming a ballerina, and studies of 20th-century American avant-garde music,
Erica is equally at home writing lyrical melodies that sweep across an orchestra and collaborating with animators and circus dancers. With an affinity for layered complexity, Erica’s music portrays clouds building up on the horizon as a summer thunderstorm approaches or the busy sounds of passengers in a subway station.
Erica's music has been performed by numerous ensembles including the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Daedalus Quartet, pianist Blair McMillen, the International Contemporary Ensemble, Network for New Music, and the American Symphony Orchestra. Her works have been heard across the country in Chicago, Boston, New York and Philadelphia, and internationally in Germany and New Zealand. Recent commissions include Riding the EL and The Spotted Lanternfly for Relâche, and a thread run throughwhich was commissioned by a consortium of advanced youth orchestras to be premiered in spring 2020, and now postponed to 2022. In addition to her work as a composer,
Erica remains active as a violinist, pianist, and educator with a special interest in bringing contemporary music to new audiences.
Today we chat about the lack of representation of women in the classical music canon, the way that arts are undervalued in our culture and how amazing it is to have an artist mother who gets what you do.
war no more commissioned by Network for New Music
9 lives - performed by Daedalus Quartet
Let's Be Spoken mentorship
Read about Irelands basic wage for artists
Erica's music used throughout the episode with permission:
