Bassist Eric Hansen received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, followed by two years of DMA studies at the University of Maryland College Park. His professional ensemble experience includes Principal Bass with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Musik Barock Ensemble, the Talbot Chamber Orchestra, the Great Music West Festival Orchestra, and the National Chamber Orchestra in Washington D.C.; as a section member with the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, the Richmond Symphony (VA), the Baltimore Opera Orchestra. He also has worked with the National Symphony, the Wolf Trapp Theater, and as principal of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa. Chamber music/solo performances have included the Concert Artists of Baltimore, BYU Faculty Chamber Players, CBC Radio, Artist-in-Residence at the University of Nevada Las
Vegas, Seagram’s Crown Royal Recital, the Winnipeg Chamber Music Society, Groundswell, the University of Manitoba, Musick Barock Ensemble, the duMaurier Arts New Music Festival, the Bravo Arts channel, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. As an educator and member of the American String Teachers Association, Eric has presented at the 2005, and ’07—‘12 national ASTA conferences; the Utah chapter of ASTA named him the 2009 Higher Education Teacher of the Year. As an active soloist he has performed recitals in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Czech Republic, Austria, Denmark, China (including the 2009 Changsha International Bass Festival, and the 10th Beijing International Double Bass Festival in 2010), and in Poland at the 2004, ’08 and ‘10 World Bass Festivals. For the International Society of Bassists he has presented/performed at the ’05--‘13 conventions. His teachers include Harold Robinson, Eugene Levinson, Audrey Bush, Stuart Sankey and Lawrence Wolfe.
Currently Eric is Associate Professor of Double Bass in the School of Music at Brigham Young University. From 2001- 2011 he was Director of the Symphony Orchestra; since 2008 he has served as the String Division Coordinator; currently he is the Director of the Young Ambassadors show band. In addition to teaching he remains active as a soloist and clinician, also performing part-time with the Utah Symphony, Ballet West, the American Festival Orchestra, and doing film/television recordings at NonStop Productions/LA East Studios, the LDS Motion Picture Studios, and others. He and his wife, Leanne, are the parents of six children.