Originally from Trumansburg, New York, Erin Harrigan is a recent Master’s in Music graduate from Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music. In her time at Northwestern, Erin was privileged to study with Gail Williams, Jon Boen, and Adam Unsworth. She is currently a Regular Member and Fellow with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. Prior to attending Northwestern, Erin earned a Bachelor of Music in Horn Performance at SUNY Fredonia in western New York, where she studied with Mark Guy and Donna Dolson. She is also an active freelance musician in the Chicago area.
Over the years, Erin has attended the Monteux School & Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, and the National Orchestra Institute + Festival (NOI+F), and the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) Festival in Graz, Austria. She was a 2024 recipient of the Sigma Alpha Iota Summer Music Scholarship.
Erin’s passion for music reaches beyond horn playing. She does music library work for Northwestern’s academic orchestras as well as the Civic Orchestra. She also teaches and is available for virtual and in-person horn lessons. Erin enjoys arranging and composing, and is passionate about the work of young living composers. Most recently, she is thrilled to have participated in her first solo collaboration with a living composer with the premiere of Two Pinniped Preludes, a work for solo horn written for her by longtime friend Nathan Wright Bueno de Mesquita.
What are you most looking forward to this season?
I am most looking forward to helping community members express themselves and their experiences through newly composed music. Not only will we get to learn about these experiences, but community members will also have the chance to see the resulting pieces performed live!
