The​ ​Progression​ ​Ensemble:​ ​ ​ ​

Music​ ​by​ ​Gene​ ​Pritsker,​ ​ ​Eric​ ​Despard,
Conrad​ ​Kehn,​ ​Bjorn​ ​Bolstad​ ​Skjelbred​ ​and​ ​Yuji​ ​Takahashi
Saturday October 7, 2017 – 2 PM
Everett Theater
Southern Vermont College; 982 Mansion Drive, Bennington, VT

Progression Ensemble members: Guitarist Eric Despard and Accordionist
Rocco Anthony Jerry will perform works by American, Norwegian and
Japanese composers. Mr. Despard will give the world premiere of his newest
work “Meditation on Charlottesville”. Mr. Jerry will perform Yuji Takahashi’s
accordion duo “snow/wind/radios”, which is a musical setting of Diane di
Prima’s poem on the Afghan war. This performance coincides with the 16th
anniversary of the beginning of the war. Gene Pritsker’s new accordion solo
“Stressor” and his “Curves” for accordion and samplestra will be performed
together with two multimedia works by Conrad Kehn: “Maximinimal” and
“Soundtracks to Movies that Don’t Exist”. Mr. Despard will perform Bjorn
Bolstad Skjelbred’s guitar solo “5 Preludes”.

The​ ​Progression​ ​Ensemble:​ ​ ​ ​Music​ ​by​ ​Gene​ ​Pritsker,​ ​ ​Eric​ ​Despard,
Conrad​ ​Kehn,​ ​Bjorn​ ​Bolstad​ ​Skjelbred​ ​and​ ​Yuji​ ​Takahashi
Saturday October 7, 2017 – 2 PM
Everett Theater
Southern Vermont College; 982 Mansion Drive, Bennington, VT

PROGRAM
Conrad Kehn – “Maximinimal​ ” for accordion, electronics and video (2004)
Conrad Kehn – “Soundtracks​ ​To​ ​ ​Movies​ ​That​ ​Don’t​ ​Exist​” for accordion, cello, guitar and video (2017)*
Commissioned by The Progression Ensemble
Gene Pritsker – “Curves​” for accordion and samplestra (2009/2015)
Eric Despard – “Meditation on Charlottesville” for solo guitar (2017) ​ ​WORLD​ ​PREMIERE
Gene Pritsker – “Stressor​” for solo accordion (2016)
Bjorn Bolstad Skjelbred – “Five​ ​Preludes​” for solo guitar (2010)
Yuji Takahashi – “snow​ ​/​ ​wind​ ​/​ ​radios​” for two accordions and narrator (2010)**
(A musical setting of “Revolutionary​ ​Letter​ ​#86:​ ​SHORT​ ​POEMS​ ​ON​ ​THE​ ​AFGHAN​ ​WAR​” by Diane Di Prima)
Eric​ ​Despard,​ ​Guitar​ ​ ​-​ ​ ​ ​Rocco​ ​Anthony​ ​Jerry,​ ​Accordion
*Pre-recorded Cello: Michael Gilbert Ronstadt
**Pre-recorded 2nd Accordion: Rocco Anthony Jerry
The​ ​Progression​ ​Ensemble​ ​ ​2018​ ​CONCERT​ ​TOUR
8​ ​WORLD​ ​PREMIERES​ ​ ​BY​ ​GENE​ ​PRITSKER,​ ​DAN​ ​COOPER,​ ​CHRISTOPHER​ ​COOK,​ ​ERIC​ ​DESPARD,​ ​ ​MICHAEL​ ​DILTHEY,
MEHDI​ ​HOSSEINI,​ ​DERRIK​ ​JORDAN,​ ​AND​ ​BJORN​ ​BOLSTAD​ ​SKJELBRED.
6​ ​PM​ ​ ​SUNDAY​ ​APRIL​ ​22,​ ​2018​ ​ ​SPECTRUM,​ ​70​ ​FLUSHING​ ​AVE.,​ ​BROOKLYN
5​ ​PM​ ​SUNDAY​ ​JUNE​ ​10,​ ​2018​ ​SHAPESHIFTER​ ​LAB,​ ​18​ ​WHITWELL​ ​PLACE,​ ​BROOKLYN
5​ ​PM​ ​SATURDAY​ ​OCTOBER​ ​13,​ ​2018​ ​HUDSON​ ​VALLEY​ ​CENTER​ ​FOR​ ​CONTEMPORARY​ ​ART,​ ​1701​ ​MAIN​ ​STREET,​ ​PEEKSKILL

_____________________________________________________________

Melodies to Heal

Music intervention helps critically ill patients

For 40 years, Andrew Schulman has played classical guitar in venues like the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel and Carnegie Hall. The last seven years, though, his stage has been much more intimate as he has made the rounds of three hospital ICUs, two in New York City and one at Berkshire Medical Center (BMC). This latest gig is his most challenging and most rewarding—for it’s the same arena where music saved his life.

These “medical residencies” grew out of Schulman’s near-death experience and Dr. Marvin McMillen’s interest in the healing environment. Although a study a few years back published in The Lancet showed that listening to music before, during, or after surgery reduces patients’ pain and anxiety and decreases the need for pain medication, the ICU hadn’t been a place where many musicians played.

A “medical musician,” as Schulman and McMillen call it, is different from a music therapist who might, for example, work with newborn babies, chemo patients, and children with asthma. A medical musician is a concert-level professional who has had medical training and is part of a medical team in an intensive-care unit. The critical-care environment is unique because the music must sound as clear and precise as a recording so as not to agitate the patient or the unit. Achieving this goal and striking the right emotional balance can be challenging.

“Music can be as important as a ventilator in an intensive-care unit. It can be as important as a dialysis machine, or as important as the medications we treat people’s blood pressure with,” says McMillen.

And it’s important that the musician checks his or her ego before entering the ICU. Musicians aren’t just playing for the person who is ill; family members and the staff are also in need of music to help them relax and get a break from the intensity of the situation.

Schulman says music saved his life eight years ago at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in downtown Manhattan. At 57, he was admitted as a terminal “Code Blue” patient with circulatory collapse following a pancreatic-tumor excision. His wife, Wendy, had an iPod loaded with music. Something moved him when he heard Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, and, miraculously, he survived his ordeal.

McMillen, director of the surgical ICU at the time, knew that Schulman wanted to return there and play for patients. He gave him permission to do so and, six months later, Schulman was back with guitar in hand. He now has logged nearly 1,800 hours of playing time in the ICUs. His book, Waking the Spirit, was released a year ago and is now available in Australia and New Zealand. It will be translated for release in Turkey in June and China in early 2018, and a paperback version of the book will be released in August. Schulman is now touring again, performing and talking about the power of music to heal the body.

McMillen moved his practice to the Berkshires in January 2016 to work at a community hospital and further develop the medical musicianship. Although music is piped into the ICU through of Spotify and Pandora at BMC, McMillen believes live music is a better “prescription” for patients’ well-being. In January 2016, he had Schulman talk to doctors and other specialists during grand rounds. Next, Schulman played in the Critical Care Unit so that the staff could see him in action. Now, the last week of every month, Schulman drives to the Berkshires, and McMillen puts him up. In addition to playing three days a month at BMC, Schulman is also the resident musician in the Critical Care Units at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

“Music takes you out of this hostile, unfamiliar world and reconnects you with life,” says McMillen, 67, chief of preoperative care at BMC.

Musicians work with several different types of patients: those in pain and under sedation; older patients who are confused; those who are recovering; and those who need a ritual of saying goodbye.

“There’s no question that music decreases the need for pain control and sedation,” says McMillen. “With older patients, especially in ICU, there’s a significant decrease in ICU psychosis when music is introduced.”

Schulman and McMillen have created the Medical Musician Initiative, with BMC as their sponsor. McMillen also received a small grant from New York City’s Kaplan Foundation. He hopes to expand the program so it runs throughout the month, and he and Schulman are creating a textbook and curriculum, with the goal of having a course formalized and certification awarded for what might be called Certified Medical Musician (CMM). They have already raised the interest of schools like the University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin, and Boston University, which already is building a relationship with BMC and has close ties to the area with Tanglewood.

Schulman is eager to start training others. On July 24, two groups of individuals, musicians and physicians, will be a part of a workshop. So far, the musicians include Eric Despard, music director at Southern Vermont College with three decades of professional concert experience, whose wife is a two time survivor of cancer; Peter Argondizza from Long Island; Richard Francis, a cellist from Maine; and Michael Bard from Washington, D.C.

“This workshop is an opportunity to see whether they are interested in this, and how it would work as far as teaching, and we’ll go from there,” says Schulman. He and McMillen are putting together a glossary of what musicians need to know when they walk into an intensive-care unit.

“We know the medical side of it, and some of us have been patients, and we realize how a trained musician can bring something to the table,” says McMillen, himself a kidney-transplant recipient. “We’ve got everyone’s attention, and now we need to make it teachable, marketable, sustainable.”

FIRE AND ICE TOUR 2017!

Friday, April 21st – 2:00 McCarthy Recital Hall, Saint Michael’s College, One Winooski Park, Colchester, VT

Saturday, April 22 – 1:00  The Troy Public Library, 100 Second Street, Troy, NY.

Saturday, April 22 – 8:00 Mahaney Center for the Arts, Middlebury College, 72 Porter Field Road, Middlebury, VT

Sunday April 23 – 3:30 Tower Music Series at  The Reformed Dutch Church, 70 Hooker Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY.  

Sunday, April 23 – 7:00 Morton Memorial Library, 82 Kelly Street, Rhinecliff, NY

Monday, April 24 -12:00 Everett Theatre, Southern Vermont College, 934 Mansion Drive, Bennington, VT

Monday, April 24 – 4:00 Eleanor Furst Roberts Auditorium, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts,  375 Church Street, North Adams, MA.

Thanks to the Vermont Arts Council for promotional support!

Funded by Arts Council Norway, Norwegian Society of Composers, The Composers’ Remuneration Fund, American-Scandinavian Foundation – Andrew E. and G. Norman Wigeland Fund, The Troy Public Library, Music Norway and The Foreign Office.

The following video is from the 2014 tour.

MARCH 29th, 2017

“The Art and Science of Medical Music” Performance and Discussion

Southern Vermont College (SVC) will host a presentation of music and discussion entitled “The Art and Science of Medical Music” by author/musician Andrew Schulman, Dr. Marvin McMillen, MD, and guest Eric Despard, as well as a showing of the documentary, “Andrew & Wendy,” on Wednesday, March 29, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Oldcastle Theatre. The film and talk are free and open to the public.

The 30-minute biographical film, produced by Academy Award nominee Josh Aronson (2014), tells the story of a New York Upper West Side couple at a crisis point. Andrew, who is in a coma, is not responding to anything. Knowing his deep connection to music, his wife, Wendy, decides to play Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” on his ipod for him, which in turn brings him back, a miraculous outcome even acknowledged by his doctors.

This story analyzes the mysterious healing power of music and what inspired Schulman and McMillen to found the Medical Musician’s Initiative, with Schulman bringing music to other desperately ill patients. SVC’s Music Director and Assistant Professor Despard, a classical guitarist and Yale School of Music graduate, is the first person to be trained by Schulman and McMillen. Despard will participate in the panel and also perform a Prelude by Bach on the guitar.

Schulman is the former resident musician in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital in New York City and is the current medical musician at New York University’s Langone Medical Center and Berkshire Medical Center. He is the founder and artistic director of the Abaca String Band, which has performed throughout the United States. He is also a solo guitarist and has appeared at Carnegie Hall, The Royal Albert Hall in London, the White House, and the Improv Comedy Club. Schulman has also written “Waking the Spirit: A Musician’s Journey Healing Body, Mind, and Soul.” The Bennington Bookshop will have books available at the event to be signed.

Dr. McMillen is a trauma surgeon at Berkshire Medical Center and formerly of Beth Israel where Schulman was a patient. As co-founder with Schulman of the Medical Musician’s Initiative and a fervent proponent that music can help heal, McMillen wrote the forward in Schulman’s book.

This presentation is sponsored by SVC, including the Division of Humanities and Division of Nursing. For more information, contact Professor Despard at edespard@svc.edu or 802-681-2889.

Eric Despard Group at the Vermont Arts Exchange-Friday October 7th. 8:00 

Guitarist Eric Despard has assembled a quartet of some of the area’s finest jazz musicians for an evening of Latin Jazz. The lineup will include bassist Dave Cuite, pianist Michelle Labieniec Despard.

Eric Despard is a guitarist, composer, artist, and educator. Originally from Connecticut, he studied jazz guitar with renowned guitarist Randy Johnston as an undergraduate at the Hartt School of Music, and jazz history and arranging with Willie Ruff as a graduate student at the Yale School of Music. In addition to jazz, Eric is an accomplished blues/rock guitarist formerly of the Blues Express and a classical guitarist. He is heralded as a “talented classical guitarist” by the Times of Trenton, and a “wonderful flamenco guitarist” by Berkshireonstage.com for his work with the Barrington Stage Company. His dynamic solo concert programs include “The Latin Guitar” featuring Spanish, Latin and South American guitar composers, “World Guitar” featuring music and transcriptions of composers from around the world, and “New Music of Norway”. For the past five years Eric has been a featured artist at Middlebury College’s Bach Festival where he has accompanied the New York Baroque Dance Company.

Eric has performed locally as a headliner and sideman at the Bennington Garlic Festival, MayFest, Summer Under the Tent, June Arts, Midnight Madness, Bennington Center for the Arts, and has presented concerts at the Old Castle Theater, the Bennington Museum, and at Southern Vermont College where he is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Music. He is also an instructor of guitar at MCLA and Affiliate Artist of Classical guitar at Middlebury College.

Man of La Mancha – Barrington Stage Company – June 10-July 11 2015. 

Reviews:

“there was a lot to like in this show, … the flamenco guitarist Eric Despard” – Berkshire Eagle

“the pit orchestra sounded wonderful, as did the flamenco guitarist Eric Despard” –Berkshireonstage.com

Tickets at Barrington Stage Co.

Middlebury Bach Festival. 51 Main.. Saturday, April 25th, 2015

6:00 pm. An all Bach “Unplugged” program featuring Lute Suites, 1, 2, 3, and Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro!

Artist Faculty Concert: Middlebury College. Saturday, September 27th

Works by Steve Reich, Carlo Domeniconi, Benjamin Verdery and Bjorn Bolstad Skjelbred.

 Oil Painters of America-Thursday, June 5th,  5-7 pm, and Friday June 6th 8:30 am- 11:30 am. Reception and works shops at the Bennington Center For the Arts.

Middlebury Bach Festival. Unplugged at 51 Main April, 2014

Join me at 51 Main for a program of Bach and more! 6:00

Pre-concert lecture for the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet April, 12th 2014

Come see the Grammy winning LAGQ at the Randolph VTs Chandler Center on Saturday April 12, 2014. Concert begins at 7:30, I’ll begin at 6:45.

March 26th-29th, 2014 – Concert Tour 

Bjorn Skjelbred        Michael Ronstadt          Eric Despard    Rocco Jerry

Please join Rocco Jerry, accordion, Jared Shapiro, cello, Michael Ronstadt, cello and myself on classical guitar in celebration of Norwegian Composer Bjorn Bolstad Skjelbred’s American visit. Other Norwegian composers will be highlighted. We will play six concerts in four states!

Wednesday, March 26th, 12:30 pm at Southern Vermont College and 4:00pm at Bennington College.

Thursday, March 27th, 1:00 pm at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts

Friday, March 28th, Noon: College of Saint Rose, and Troy and Clifton park Libraries, 4:30

Saturday, March 29th Mid-Atlantic Music Teachers Guild Festival, Whippany, New Jersey 3:00pm

Norwegian Composer to Premier New Work at Southern Vermont College

(BENNINGTON, Vt.) – Composer Bjørn Bolstad Skjelbred of Oslo, Norway, will present his world-premiere new work, “ConVergEnce,” at Southern Vermont College on Wednesday, March 26. A concert, with classical guitarist Eric Despard, cellist Michael Gilbert Ronstadt and bayanist Rocco Anthony Jerry, will begin at noon in Hunter Hall’s Greenberg Atrium with a reception to follow. Admission is free and open to the public.

“ConVergEnce,” written for cello and bayan, was commissioned by a 60,000 kroner grant from the Norwegian Composers Fund. The work explores the similarities and differences between the two instruments. The bayan is used with ever increasing frequency in contemporary classical music. Along with a host of idiomatic techniques such as bellows ricochet and tone bending, the bayan has been used by many leading contemporary composers including Arne Nordheim, Magnus Lindberg and Sofia Gubaidulina.

In addition to “ConVergEnce,” Skjelbred’s classical guitar solo, “Moves,” will be performed by guitarist Despard, along with Magnar Am’s “On the Banks of the Eternal Second” by all three musicians and Wolfgang Plagge’s “Fractals” by bayanist Jerry. This concert at SVC is the first in a seven-concert tour, spanning Vermont, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.

As a composer, arranger, improviser and teacher, Skjelbred is experienced in several genres and musical environments with a list of works containing more than 50 titles and where music for other arts and music for young musicians are largely present. He has performed in several European countries, United States and Canada as well as Nordic countries. Among his collaborators are Norwegian percussionist Eirik Raude, the Swedish ensemble The Pearls before Swine Experience, The London Schubert Players, the Norwegian vocal group Nordic Voices and the Danish flutist Marianne Leth. Skjelbred is also involved in the jazz/pop/rock music scene as an arranger, songwriter and musician and released the CD ‘urban songs’ with the quartet Urban Visions in 2005. Skjelbred has a master’s degree in Composition from the Norwegian State Academy of Music

Heralded as a “talented classical guitarist” by the “Times” of Trenton, guitarist Despard has performed extensively throughout North America as a soloist and with various chamber ensembles. His dynamic solo concert programs include “The Latin Guitar” featuring Spanish, Latin and South American guitar composers and “World Guitar” featuring music and transcriptions of composers from around the world.

In addition to solo concerts, Despard performs with various jazz, blues and rock groups through the Northeast. Currently, Despard is the Music Director at Southern Vermont College where he teaches music history, music theory, concert jazz band, choir and related performance classes. Also, he is an Affiliate Artist at Middlebury College and an instructor of guitar at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

Despard holds an undergraduate degree from the Hartt School of Music and a graduate degree from the Yale School of Music.

For two decades, Ronstadt has entertained audiences throughout North America on cello, guitar and voice. An exceptional musician-composer conversant with a wide range of styles, he executes captivating solo performances and participates in duo and trio situations with a diverse group of young musician-songwriters including Lisa Biales and David Trotta

His talents have been tapped for concert and studio work by artists David Bromberg, Linda Ronstadt, Muriel Anderson and Craig Bickhardt. Ronstadt is a much sought-after studio musician appearing on more than 50 albums. Writer Dan Buckley of “The Tucson Citizen” noted his “amazing command of the typical and exotic sounds of the cello, a true virtuoso and a man of instinctive musicality.”

Ronstadt has a master’s and bachelor’s degree of Music in Cello Performance and studied under esteemed pedagogues Yehuda Hanani, Nancy Green and Dr. Gordon Epperson.

Jerry is captivated by the use of the accordion by contemporary classical composers and focuses his energy in working with composers on new works for the instrument. Jerry performs on a bayan. He has given solo concerts throughout the United States including New York City; at the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC; and Philadelphia. He has performed with several chamber groups including the Downtown Ensemble and the Flexible Orchestra. His new works have been premiered by Daniel Goode, Conrad Kehn, Peter Machajdik, Robert Young McMahan, Max Simoncic and Christian Wolff. In 2004, Jerry worked with Hollywood film composer Arthur B. Rubinstein and performed accordion in the premier run of Rubinstein’s new musical “He Who Gets Slapped.”

In 2007, Jerry began the Accordion Ensemble Project, which was awarded an SOS Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2008

For more information on the concert, contact Despard at edespard@svc.edu.

Congregational Church, Middlebury, VT. Sunday, March 2nd 2014, 10:00am 

Come to a 10:00 am service to worship and hear Latin American and Spanish Guitar music. My friend Jessica Allen has invited me to play music for the Prelude, Introit, Communion, and Postlude.

23rd Annual Kenneth Cottrell Memorial Concert: Sunday, February 9th, 2:00 p.m.

Come check out the Bennington Jazz Quintet featuring Sue Green, Trumpet, Jake Hill, Sax, Michelle Labieniec Despard, Piano and Eric Despard, Bass, and Marjorie Rooen, Drums.

We’ll be playing four songs and will be followed by the Sage City Dixieland Jazz Band and the Mount Anthony High School Jazz Band. Proceeds from the concert provide scholarships of up to $1000 to area high school students who will pursue music in College.

Donations are encouraged.

Jazz at Oldcastle Theatre – Saturday, January 18th, 7:30

The Eric Despard Quartet will be performing live jazz at the Oldcastle Theatre in Bennington, Vermont on Saturday, January 18th at 7:30 pm. Tickets are  $20 and may be purchased through the Oldcastle Theatre website www.oldcastletheatre.org or by calling 802-447-0564.

The Quartet will feature guitarist Eric Despard, drummer Jeff McRae of the Jeff McRae Band, bassist David Cuite of the Leah Carrol Quintet, and pianist Michelle Labieniec Despard.

The program highlights selections from the jazz repertoire with a focus on the 1960’s, including songs by Wes Montgomery, John Coltrane,  and Wayne Shorter.

ERIC DESPARD began studying jazz guitar in High School with Hartford, CT teacher Jamie Sherwood. He studied briefly at the Hartt School of Music (BM) with renowned guitarist Randy Johnston, and studied Jazz History with Frank Tiro and Jazz Arranging with Willie Ruff at the Yale School of Music (MM).

Eric is an Affiliate Artist of classical guitar at Middlebury College, and Instructor of Guitar at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and is the Music Director and Part-Time faculty at Southern Vermont College where he directs a concert band and choir.  He performs locally as a sideman with the Jeff McRae Band and the Bennington Jazz Group- a favorite at the annual Kenneth Cottrell benefit concert.

JEFF McRAE is a writer and drummer and plays with a variety of groups in the tri-state area including the Sage City Six, Sage City Symphony, and with Bernice Lewis. He holds an M.F.A. in poetry from Washington University (St. Louis) and an M.A. from the University of New Hampshire.

DAVID CUITE studied art history and music at Manhattanville College.
From 1990-2005 he lived  in NYC. At the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music he played bass for the jazz ensemble classes taught by Scott Napoli. He studied with Maryanne McSweeney and Ben Allison and played with a free jazz orchestra taught by Ornette Coleman sidemen Jim Nolet and Bern Nix.

Currently living in Cambridge, NY, he plays in the Leah Carrol Quintet and works in multiple ensembles playing jazz, bluegrass and free improvisation. He has taught a jazz ensemble class at Hubbard Hall and has played bass for the theater company there. Dave is an established bassist in Southern Vermont and the bordering region of New York.

MICHELLE LABIENIEC DESPARD began playing the piano at age seven, and was classically trained.  She lived most of her life in Connecticut and attended the Hartt School at the University of Hartford, where she earned her B.M degree.  In 1995, she attended Rutgers University in New Jersey, where she studied piano and composition with Kenny Barron and Sumi Tunooka. She then earned her M.A. from Lewis Porter’s jazz history and research program, and focused on women in jazz, and jazz education.

Over the past 20 years, Michelle has taught all ages, and founded the Kindermusik program at the Rutgers Community Music Program in New Jersey.  She has taught privately, at the college level, and currently teaches general music at Pine Cobble School in Williamstown, MA.

ERIC DESPARD – classical guitar

Heralded as a “talented classical guitarist” by the Times of Trenton, guitarist Eric Despard performs extensively throughout North America as a soloist and with various chamber ensembles. His dynamic solo concert programs include “The Latin Guitar” featuring Spanish, Latin and South American guitar composers and  “World Guitar” featuring music and transcriptions of composers from around the world. In addition to solo classical guitar concerts, Eric regularly performs with various jazz, blues, and rock groups throughout the Northeast.

His passion for accessible community music and arts education led to a five year position as the Executive Director of the Bennington Music School. Eric holds and undergraduate degree from the Hartt School of Music and a graduate degree from the Yale School of Music. At Hartt he studied with Alan Spriestersbach and Richard Provost and at Yale he studied with Benjamin Verdery. Eric has performed in masterclasses for Sharon Isbin, Elliot Fisk, Eduardo Fernandez, and David Russell. He has taught guitar at the Turtle Bay Music School, Rutgers Community Music Program, the Westminster Conservatory, the Bennington Music School, and the Community College of Vermont.

Eric is currently an Affiliate Artist at Middlebury College and an Instructor of Guitar at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.  He also serves on the faculty and is the Music Director at Southern Vermont College where he teaches music history, music theory, concert jazz band, choir, and related performance classes. Students from his private studio have been accepted to the Boston Conservatory, Crane School of Music, SUNY Fredonia, Ithaca College, William Patterson University, the University of Vermont, and the Berkelee College of Music.

This website is supported in part by Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. Please support both of these organizations to keep the arts vibrant in Vermont and throughout the United States!

For booking information please contact Eric at edespard@comcast.net