Thoroughly trained as classical cellist at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Juilliard School, SUNY Stony Brook, and Florida State University, Eric Edberg’s cello teachers included Gary Hoffman, Marion Davies, Denis Brott, Stephen Kates, Leonard Rose and Bernard Greenhouse. He also received extensive coaching from violinist Berl Senofsky, and his chamber music teachers included Paul Doktor, Erick Friedman, Veda Reynolds, Karen Tuttle, Samuel Rhodes, and Robert Mann. Winner of the North Carolina School of the Arts Piatigorsky Memorial Award and Concerto Competition, an honorary scholarship to Juilliard, he was a two-time regional winner of the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artists Competition. He has served as principal cellist of the Annapolis (Maryland) and Terre Haute (Indiana) Symphonies, has appeared as concerto soloist with numerous orchestras, and given countless solo recitals and chamber music concerts. As a regular performer with the Contemporary Music Forum of Washington, D.C., in the 1980s, his performances were heard worldwide on Voice of America radio. He is a member of the DePauw Chamber Players and the Indianapolis-based Canale String Quartet, whose other members include Indianapolis Symphony associate concertmaster Phil Palermo and principal violist Michael Isaac Strauss.
Edberg is Professor of Music at the DePauw University School of Music in Greencastle, Indiana, where he teaches cello, chamber music, and occasional courses in music theory, improvisation, literature, and the music of Africa.
In addition to his busy schedule of classical performances, Eric Edberg is an improvising musician who has performed in concert with flutists Paul Horn and Akal Dev Sharonne, pianists Michael Harrison and Lee Berensen, drummer Mary Knysh, and cellist David Darling. He is an enthusiastic proponent of self-expression through music and improvisation, as articulated in the principles of Music for People (he is also a graduate of the MfP facilitator-training program). He is a frequent collaborator with modern dancer Robin Becker, with whom he presents “RumiDance: This Is Now,” a celebration in music and dance inspried by the poetry of Jelalludin Rumi.
Edberg has given his workshop “Expressing Your Self Through Sound: Music Improvisation for Everyone” at Appalachian State University, Bethany College (Kansas), the Indiana Music Educators Association, the Indiana String Teachers Association, the Interlochen Arts Camp, the Lawrence Conservatory of Music, the Ohio State University School of Music, and the Columbus, Ohio American String Teachers Association. In March 2005 he gave an improvisation workshop at the Bernard Greenhouse 90th Birthday Celebration and the University of North Carolina (Greensboro).
Edberg’s interest in improvisation led him to the community drum-circle community. He has attended Arthur Hull’s Hawaii “Playshop” for drum-circle facilitators, and teaches a Winter-Term course at DePauw, “Drum Circle Spirit,” based on Hull’s book of the same name. He has organized and facilitated numerous drum circles at DePauw and elsewhere.