~ Composer and pianist Eric McElroy is a performer and teacher based at the University of Oxford ~
Recent News
- Oxford Lieder Festival: Eric will be performing in this year's Oxford Lieder Festival with the distinguished tenor James Gilchrist in a recital featuring the premiere of Eric's After the Voices: Six Poems of W.S. Merwin and a newly commissioned song-setting of poetry by Alice Oswald (Oxford's Professor of Poetry). Further details may be found here.
- Oxford Premiere: Eric is honoured to be giving the Oxford premiere of Frederic Rzewski's De Profundis, a setting of Oscar Wilde's text for speaking-pianist, on 8 March 2022 at 8pm at Magdalen College which was the college of both Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas. Details may be found here.
- Editorship: Eric is delighted to have been made the new editor of the Arthur Bliss Society Journal.
- Review: A Winter 2021 review from Seen and Heard International applauded Eric's ability as a pianist to 'convey the music's melancholy rapture...with aplomb', while describing Eric's own compositions as both 'powerful...and dramatic.'
- Orchestral Commission: Kenneth Woods and the English Symphony Orchestra have commissioned Eric to compose a new orchestral work to be premiered in the 2022-2023 season.
- Online Premiere: A video-recording is now available on YouTube of Eric's song-cycle The Fetch, a setting of five poems by Gregory Leadbetter (Professor of Poetry at Birmingham City University). The recording features Eric alongside soprano April Fredrick.
- Article: The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire has published a short article here on Eric's recent collaboration with Birmingham City University's Professor of Poetry, Gregory Leadbetter.
- Musical Opinion's January issue has declared Eric's latest song-cycle "a masterpiece...an intensely dramatic set of songs [which] demands much from both soprano and pianist which, one is pleased to report, the music received in moving and powerful fashion.'