The Conductors
Eric Garcia
The Douglas F. King Assistant Conductor
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Eric Garcia currently serves as Assistant Conductor for both the Seattle Symphony and the Eastern Music Festival. Garcia formerly served as Director of Orchestral Activities and Professor of Conducting at the University of Evansville and Music Director of the Evansville Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. He has also served as Music Director at St. Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois. In Chicago, Garcia held several conducting positions and appeared as guest conductor with numerous orchestras. Among these, he guest conducted the Northwest Festival Orchestra of Illinois, working with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Civic Orchestra of Chicago.
As a doctoral student at Northwestern University, he conducted performances with the Contemporary Music Ensemble, Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra and Philharmonia. A frequent conductor of contemporary music, Garcia has worked directly with composers including John Adams, George Crumb, Frank Ferko, David Lang, Lowell Lieberman and Jay Alan Yim.
Garcia has attended the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival and School, working with such eminent conductors as Nicholas Kraemer, Murry Sidlin, Leonard Slatkin and David Zinman. At Aspen, he worked with the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra, The Susan and Ford Schumann Center for Composition Studies, and the Aspen Opera Theatre Center. His principal conducting teacher is Victor Yampolsky. Additional conducting teachers include Peter Bay, Dan Lewis and Larry Rachleff.
Garcia received a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music in orchestral conducting from Northwestern University under the mentorship of Victor Yampolsky. He received a Bachelor of Music degree in music theory from the University of Texas.