Praised for his “elegant and expressive” conducting, Eric Garcia serves as Music Director of the Boise Philharmonic and Artistic Director and Conductor of the McCall MusicFest in Idaho. He previously held the role of Assistant Conductor of the Seattle Symphony, where he led subscription, education, pops, and community concerts, and served as producer for several Naxos recordings.
Garcia has appeared as guest conductor with the Charlottesville Symphony, Rockford Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, Symphony New Hampshire, Oklahoma City Ballet, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Orchestra Seattle, Philharmonia Northwest, Rainier Symphony, Northwest Festival Orchestra, Greensboro Ballet, and Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has also served as cover conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
A dedicated advocate for contemporary music, Garcia has collaborated with composers including John Adams, Sergio Assad, Jimmy López Bellido, Ryan Carter, Paul Chihara, George Crumb, Frank Ferko, Vijay Iyer, David Lang, Lowell Lieberman, Nico Muhly, Eric Nathan, Sean Shepherd, and Jay Alan Yim. He has also been principal conductor at the Cortona Sessions for New Music in Cortona, Italy.
Garcia is deeply committed to music education. He has served as Associate Conductor of the Eastern Music Festival and on the faculty of the Eastern Music Festival Conducting Institute. His academic appointments have included Director of Orchestral Activities and Professor of Orchestral Conducting at both the Greenwood School of Music at Oklahoma State University and the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University. He has been a clinician for high school orchestras nationwide.
Garcia was a member of the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival and School. His conducting mentors include Marin Alsop, Gustav Meier, Larry Rachleff, Murry Sidlin, Leonard Slatkin, and David Zinman. He holds Doctor of Music and Master of Music degrees in Orchestral Conducting from Northwestern University, studying with Victor Yampolsky, and earned a Bachelor of Music Theory from the University of Texas at Austin.
In addition to his conducting engagements, Garcia has also hosted Noted, a radio show and podcast designed to engage audiences with classical music.
He resides in Seattle, Washington, with his wife, Sarah, and their dogs, Hazel and Wally.