Eric Dudley

ERIC DUDLEY enjoys a multi-faceted musical career as a conductor, vocalist, pianist and composer, with a busy schedule of performances throughout the country and the world. After distinguished tenures as Assistant Conductor for both the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi and the Princeton Symphony under Rossen Milanov, he recently held the post of Principal Conductor for the Bendigo Festival of Exploratory Music in Australia and the Adelphi Chamber Orchestra in New Jersey. Among his latest guest conducting engagements are the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, Hartford Symphony Orchestra (CT), International Contemporary Ensemble at the Ojai Festival, Ensemble Signal and TENET in New York City, and the Melbourne International Arts Festival. He served for four years on the conducting faculty of Mannes College at The New School for Performing Arts in New York, directing the Mannes Prep Philharmonic and The New School Chorus, and he begins a new assignment as Music Director of the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra in the 2016-2017 season.

In 2009, Eric became a founding member of the adventurous vocal octet Roomful of Teeth, whose debut album received a 2014 Grammy Award in the Classical category for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. Dedicated to commissioning new works and exploring a wide range of vocal resources and world singing styles, the group has built an increasingly busy touring schedule of major music centers, festivals and universities. Past and current seasons feature appearances and collaborations with the Boston-based chamber orchestra A Far Cry, the 10th World Symposium on Choral Music in Seoul, Korea, the Lincoln Center White Lights Festival, Met Museum of Art, Denver Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Ojai Festival under the direction of Peter Sellars, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Calder Quartet. For eight years, Eric also sang in the acclaimed Choir of Trinity Wall Street in New York, where in addition to his ensemble and solo work, he prepared the choir for performances with Mark Morris Dance Group at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, performed as a pianist and harpsichordist on Trinity’s Concerts at One series, and served as assistant and guest conductor for a number of the Trinity Choir and Baroque Orchestra's concert offerings. His career as a choral artist and tenor soloist includes repeat engagements with Ensemble Signal, Ekmeles, Seraphic Fire, Musica Sacra, New York Virtuoso Singers, Early Music/New York, Bard Summerscape Opera and the American Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber musician and pianist, he has worked with instrumentalists from the contemporary music ensemble Novus New York and the Cincinnati and Albany symphony orchestras, and his own works have received premieres by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Roomful of Teeth, Quey Percussion, and through a residency grant from Meet the Composer and the New England Foundation for the Arts.

Born in Canada and raised in Connecticut, Eric received his Bachelor's degree from the Eastman School of Music in 2001, studying composition with Joseph Schwantner, Augusta Read Thomas and Christopher Rouse, voice with Robert McIver, and piano and continuo with Vincent Lenti and Paul O'Dette. He holds both a Master's and Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting from Yale University's School of Music, where his principal teacher was Lawrence Leighton Smith. At the Aspen Music Festival in 2003, he worked as an Academy Conductor with David Zinman, Murry Sidlin and Michael Stern, and as a conducting fellow at the Brevard Music Center in 2000, he studied with Gunther Schuller and David Effron. He is the recipient of the Louis Lane Prize in Composition, given by the Eastman School of Music, and the 2004 Dean’s Prize from Yale.