Dr. Eric Starr

Email

Primary Email: [email protected]

Phone/Fax

Primary Phone: 619-594-0144

Building/Location

Music - 212

Bio

Dr. Eric Starr maintains a multi-faceted musical career as a faculty member at SDSU, Trombonist for Westwind Brass, and as an active performer. A faculty member at SDSU since 2012, Dr. Starr serves as Studio Artist Teacher of Trombone and Euphonium, Director the Brass Chamber Music program, co-director of the Experimental Music Ensemble, Brass Coordinator, Program Advisor for the Music, Entrepreneurship and Business degree, and Head Coach for SDSU Cycling. He was named “Most Influential Faculty” in 2025, 2023 and 2018. 

Dubbed a “Trombone Champion” with “Stunning Style” (San Diego Union-Tribune), Dr. Starr has performed as a soloist at major venues including Copley Symphony Hall, the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, the San Diego Museum of Art, the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library, Mesa College, Palomar College, Cuyamaca College and with the SDSU Wind Symphony, Symphony Orchestra and UCSD Wind Ensemble. As an ensemble player, he is a member of Westwind Brass and has performed with the Pacific Symphony, San Diego Symphony, San Diego Opera, La Jolla Music Society, SD Winds, and Broadway shows including Frozen and Mary Poppins.

A passionate advocate for contemporary music, Dr. Starr has premiered dozens of solo and chamber works for the trombone where he enjoys working with living composers and crafting seemingly strange notation and sounds into works of musical art. Composer collaborations have included Anahita Abbasi, John Adams, John Luther Adams, Christopher Adler, Caleb Burhans, Margaret Brouwer, David Lang, Lei Liang, Fernanda Aoki Navarro, and Chou Wen-Chung as well as many local up-and-coming composers such as Gabriel De Guzman, Robyn Kaminsky, and Marilynn Do. Notably, Dr. Starr was the first known person to perform the music of John Cage at Copley Symphony Hall in 2017 with the Solo for Sliding Trombone.

As a musical entrepreneur, Eric is a board member for the Hausmann Quartet Foundation and San Diego New Music where he serves as Director of the Emerging Composers Project and was executive director from 2012 to 2022.  With Art of Elan, he is Creative Director of Sounds and Swells, a curated pairing of surfing videos and live music and has developed Tasting Notes, fusing classical music and wine.

Dr. Starr earned a B.M. from the University of Southern California, an M.M. and A.D. from the Cleveland Institute of Music and a D.M.A. from Stony Brook University with additional studies at the Aspen Music Festival and Tanglewood Music Center. He lives in Ocean Beach with his oboist wife where he watches the waves daily, has continued interests in fine wines, cooking, summer time body surfing and is a member of the San Diego Bicycle Club race team.

Education

• Doctor of Musical Arts, State University of NY, Stony Brook
• Artist Diploma, Cleveland Institute of Music
• Master of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music
• Bachelor of Music, University of Southern California