Erik Higgins joins A Far Cry in the middle of their sixth season after a long stint across the pond in Germany, where he will leave his post as bassist in the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg. After graduating from Indiana University, Erik moved to Munich where he completed a two-year apprenticeship with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra und chief conductor Mariss Jansons. There, he was fortunate enough to study with members of the orchestra, participate in eye-opening tours to Japan, the U.S., and across Europe and work with great conductors, including Ricardo Muti, Herbert Blomstedt and Charles Dutoit. Since 2009, Erik has been a member of the Opera/Philharmonic Orchestra in Hamburg, under chief conductor Simone Young, where he has enjoyed traveling with the orchestra to Australia, Austria, and Slovakia as well as the daily fare of murder, intrigue, betrayal, unrequited love, lust, and martyrdom that is opera.
Erik also enjoys playing chamber music immensely and does so whenever he can. He is a frequent guest by the Hamburg-based chamber group ‘Ensemble Resonanz’ and also enjoys playing baroque bass with Hamburg’s ‘Elbipolis’ baroque orchestra and various ensembles throughout northern Germany. Erik’s most recent adventure has been as a faculty member at the ‘Festival Internacional de Música Erudita de Piracicaba’ in Brazil, where, for the past two summers, he has had the great opportunity to learn from hard-working, passionate students and play a great deal of chamber music with other faculty members.
In addition to dabbling in many different kinds of music with both a funk/rock band and an acoustic folk/pop group, Erik enjoys cooking, traveling (lots of traveling), swing and blues dancing, slacklining, surfing (whenever there’s an opportunity, which isn’t often) and drinking coffee on rainy mornings.
