erika eckert
Associate Professor of Viola
Strings

Associate Professor of Viola Erika Eckert has also been a faculty member of the Brevard Music Center since 2011. Previously, Eckert served on the faculties of the Cleveland Institute of Music, Baldwin Wallace College and the Chautauqua Institution in New York where she served as the coordinator of the chamber music program for the Music School Festival Orchestra for three summers. 

As co-founder and former violist of the Cavani String Quartet, Eckert performed on major concert series worldwide, garnered an impressive list of awards and prizes, including first prizes at both the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Competition and the Cleveland Quartet Competition, and appeared on NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS and National Public Radio.

In recent seasons, Eckert has performed as guest violist with the Takács Quartet, appearing with them in Canada, California, Colorado, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont. She has also performed on numerous faculty recitals at the University of Colorado Boulder and soloed with the CU Boulder Symphony Orchestra, Music in the Mountains Purgatory Festival Orchestra, Four Seasons Chamber Orchestra, Boulder Bach Festival and the Boulder Chamber Orchestra. 

Performing engagements have included the 400th Galileo Anniversary at the American Academy in Rome, El Paso Pro Musica International Chamber Music Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Garth Newell Music Festival, Bravo! Vail, Music in the Mountains Chamber Music Festival, Sitka Summer Music Festival Autumn Classics, Niagara International Chamber Music Festival and Fontana Chamber Arts. Eckert has also performed chamber music recitals at the International French Horn, Flute and Double-Reed Conventions, and soloed at SEAMUS and ICMC electronic music national and international conferences.

Eckert’s teaching engagements have included presenting viola and chamber music pedagogy sessions, and coordinating the chamber music program at the American String Teachers Association International Workshops in Brisbane, Australia and Stavanger, Norway; presenting viola master classes at The Juilliard School, Cleveland Institute of Music, Eastman School of Music, Arizona State University, Governors School of South Carolina, Interlochen Arts Academy, University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, University of Memphis, University of Tennessee, Bowling Green State University and University of South Carolina; serving on the faculties of the Perlman Music Program, Takács Quartet Seminar and the North American Viola Institute at the Orford Center for the Arts in Quebec, Canada; and coaching chamber music at the Suzuki Association of the Americas, Inc. Ninth Conference, the International School for Musical Arts, Chamber Music Connection, Interlochen Arts Academy, Chamber Music Wyoming Young Artist Program, Britt Institute Chamber Strings and the Madeline Island Music Camp Adult Chamber Music Program.

Eckert serves on the board of the Rocky Mountain Viola Society and for three years served as an adjudicator for the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (NFAA) Arts Recognition and Talent Search, the exclusive nominating agency for the Presidential Scholars in the Arts, and appeared in their academy-nominated documentary, “Rehearsing a Dream.”

Viola studio