Eric Schmidt is the Director of Choirs at DePauw University. In this role, he leads two auditioned choirs as well as the Putnam County Festival Choir, a community ensemble he revived in 2019 after a hiatus of almost 20 years. In addition to the ensembles, he teaches classes in the school’s 21CM Initiative such as Music and Healing, Music and Social Justice, and Concert Programming.
Outside of DePauw, Eric has performed as chorus master for several conductors including Sir Donald Runnicles, Jun Märkl, Thierry Fischer, Markus Stenz, and Matthew Kraemer. For the 2022-23 season, he will prepare choirs for the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, and the Grand Teton Music Festival. Over the past few years, he prepared and conducted numerous masterworks including Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, Fauré’s Requiem, Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium, Cherubini’s Requiem, and Verdi’s Quattro pezzi sacri. In 2016, he made his own debut with the Utah Symphony conducting Handel’s Messiah at Abravanell Hall in Salt Lake City, UT.
Before moving to Indiana, Eric was the Associate Conductor of the Utah Chamber Artists, and taught at Westminster College and the Madeleine Choir School, all in Salt Lake City, UT. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting from the University of Utah, and a Master of Education in Music and Mathematics from the University of Osnabrück in his native country Germany.