Eric Dudley

SHORT BIO

Eric Dudley joined University of the Pacific's Conservatory of Music in 2019. He previously taught at Mannes College/The New School for Music in New York and at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Dudley leads a multi-faceted career as a conductor, composer, vocalist and pianist immersed in the creation of music both past and present. As an original member of the two-time Grammy Award-winning vocal octet Roomful of Teeth, Dudley toured worldwide with the group and appears extensively on their acclaimed recordings.

Dudley moved to the Bay Area from New York in 2016 to accept the post of interim music director of the orchestra program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Shortly after, he was appointed as artistic director and conductor of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the largest and longest-standing ensemble dedicated to the performance of new music on the West Coast, where he is currently in his seventh season of leadership.

While in New York, Dudley performed and conducted with organizations as diverse as Ekmeles and Tenet vocal ensembles, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Ensemble Signal, Bard Summerscape Opera, the American Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Prior to that, he was assistant conductor for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi for four years. His guest conducting engagements have included the Ojai Festival in California, Ensemble L'Instant Donné in France, the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in Australia.

As a pianist and chamber musician, Dudley has performed with members of Novus New York and the Cincinnati and Princeton symphony orchestras. His own music has been premiered and recorded by Roomful of Teeth and Quey Percussion.

STANDARD BIO

Eric Dudley joined University of the Pacific's Conservatory of Music in 2019.  He is a performer and recording artist recognized on an international level, an experienced pedagogue, vocal coach and master-class clinician and a teacher of both voice and conducting.

Dudley previously taught at Mannes College/The New School for Music in New York, where he conducted the Mannes Prep Philharmonic and founded and co-directed The New School Chorus. He earned his bachelor’s degree in composition with distinction from the Eastman School of Music in 2001, where he also studied voice, piano and conducting. He completed his master’s and doctorate degrees in orchestral conducting at the Yale School of Music, as the recipient of the Dean’s Prize in 2004.

His multi-faceted career as a conductor, composer, vocalist and pianist includes performance credits with some of the foremost ensembles nationally and worldwide. As an original member of the two-time Grammy Award-winning vocal octet Roomful of Teeth since its founding in 2009, Dudley toured extensively with the group for over twelve years and appears on many of their acclaimed recording releases, most recently on the double LP and digital album set “Rough Magic” from May 2023 (Winner, 2024 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance).

Dudley relocated to the Bay Area in 2016 to serve as interim music director for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s orchestra and conducting program. Shortly after, he was appointed as artistic director and conductor of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the largest and longest-standing ensemble dedicated to the performance of new music on the West Coast. He is currently in his seventh season of leadership with the ensemble. In that capacity, he is also chief conductor and an adjudicating panelist for the ARTZenter Composer’s Grant Programs, a recently launched, landmark initiative responsible for inviting up to a dozen emerging composers from a nation-wide pool on an annual basis to receive completion grants and premieres for new orchestral works in San Francisco.

While living in New York in the early 2000’s, Dudley performed and conducted with organizations as diverse as Ekmeles and Tenet vocal ensembles, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Signal, Talea Ensemble, Bard Summerscape Opera, the American Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Previously, he was Assistant Conductor for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi for four years, and for the Princeton Symphony Orchestra under Rossen Milanov for six seasons. His guest conducting engagements have included the Ojai Festival in California, Ensemble L'Instant Donné in France, the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in Australia.

As a pianist and chamber musician, Dudley has performed with members of Novus New York and the Cincinnati and Princeton symphony orchestras. His own music has been premiered and recorded by Roomful of Teeth and Quey Percussion. He recently appeared as a masterclass artist at Classical Singer Magazine’s national convention in San Francisco in May 2023. As a guest clinician and workshop presenter, he participated in the Music Teachers’ Association of California convention in July 2023. Along with University of the Pacific faculty and students, he attended the National Opera Association’s annual convention in Houston in January 2023, as both a performer in the opera scenes competition, and as a recipient of the divisional first-place prize for Pacific Opera Theatre’s production of Weill’s “The Threepenny Opera” in 2022. He returned to NOA’s 2024 Conference in Tempe, Arizona, to accept the divisional second-place prize for Pacific Opera Theatre’s 2023 production of Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.”

Dudley lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Melanie and their seven-year-old son, Ethan.