Erik Christian Peterson

Dr. Erik Christian Peterson started playing viola at age ten in his native Chicago.  He is the founding member and current violist of the acclaimed Voxare String Quartet. With Voxare, Dr. Peterson has performed at in major concert venues throughout the US and Europe, including as soloist at Avery Fisher Hall with the New York Philharmonic. He has been awarded Chamber Music America’s ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming and the Kay H. Logan Award for performance excellence. In addition to his activities with Voxare, Dr. Peterson frequently performs with his wife, violinist Emily Ondracek-Peterson and flutist Eugenia Zukerman. Dr. Peterson has recorded for Naxos, Albany, Bridge, and Toccata labels. As an orchestral musician, Dr. Peterson has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra and Milwaukee and New World Symphonies. Currently, Dr. Peterson is Festival Director of the Crested Butte Music Festival, a summer-long festival that presents over sixty concerts presenting the world’s best musicians in opera, symphony, chamber, electronic, rock, bluegrass, and jazz.

As an artist-in-residence, Dr. Peterson has held positions at institutions such as Dartmouth College, the University of Leeds (UK), the University of Virginia, and the International Computer Music Conference. As a musicologist and theorist, Dr. Peterson has lectured at Princeton University, the British Library, and New York University, among others.

Dr. Peterson also works in technology as a recording engineer, producer, editor, and media consultant. Dr. Peterson is a co-founder of Noted Endeavors, which publishes in association with Musical America interviews with noted artists, entrepreneurs, and administrators. As an accomplished photographer, Dr. Peterson’s works have appeared in The New York Times and other publications. 

He received his Bachelor’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Heidi Castleman and Misha Amory, and his Master’s and Doctoral degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Case Western University, where he was the teaching assistant to Stanley Konopka.