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Eric Oberthaler grew up in Laurel and Bethesda, Maryland. In 1993 he earned a B.M. from Oberlin Conservatory and in 1996 an M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts, where he studied composition with Mel Powell and Stephen Mosko, trumpet and improvisation with Wadada Leo Smith, and classical Indian music with sarod master Rajeev Taranath. Equally at home with digital audio production and traditional composition, EO has produced a diverse body of work that includes Flowering Anomalies (recently premiered at TED2009), the music for Chorus of Dreams (feature-length UV-light dance-theater show about the American Dream), the trailer for Lotus and Lightning (about Vietnamese virtuoso musician Nguyen Ngoc Khanh), commissions for the New York-based Jamie Bishton Dance Company, non-linear music for the interactive web-based comic strips of YiMagination Studios, three large-scale operatic rituals for the Burning Man festival involving hundreds of performers, the techno-rock opera Joe Messiah, and dozens of songs and new works for Gamelan X, including their recent CD release, SATU.
Eric's chamber orchestra compositions have been performed by the Atlantic Brass Quintet, the CalArts New Century Players, Indiana University New Music Ensemble, and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. A naturally dynamic performer, E O specializes in trumpet, keyboards, and voice. He is a featured trumpeter with Brass Menazeri, the Bay Area's premier balkan brass band, and has appeared on numerous recordings including the Residents' recent Animal Lover.
