“True Colors was written for Eric Berlin, principal trumpet of the Albany Symphony, and he plays it vividly here.”
~Gramophone

“Trumpetist Eric Berlin enters with surety, dexterity and a full tone.”
~Classical-Modern Music Review

“Soloist Eric Berlin is equally adept at producing a bright gleaming tone for the first, and raw, brash power for the second.”
~Fanfare Magazine

Eric Berlin has made the music of our time the focus of his career. As a soloist he has commissioned, premiered and recorded new works for trumpet by some of today’s most important composers, among them Christopher Rouse, George Tsontakis, Stephen Paulus, Joseph Turrin, Anthony Plog, Eric Ewazen and James Stephenson. Much of that work is documented on his solo releases for MSR Classics — End of the Matter, Calls and Echoes, Fantastique and Along the Continuum, the last recorded with his UMass colleagues Greg Spiridopoulos, trombone, and Ludmila Krasin, piano. Fantastique gathers works Berlin commissioned for trumpet and wind ensemble, including Stephen Paulus’s Concerto for Two Trumpets and Band, nominated for Best Contemporary Classical Composition at the 57th Grammy Awards.

His most recent release is Christopher Rouse’s monumental Heimdall’s Trumpet with the Albany Symphony Orchestra on Albany Records. The American Record Guide wrote: “Trumpeter Eric Berlin gives a great performance. The concerto is fiendishly difficult for soloist and orchestra … the performances are convincing and breathtaking.” In March 2012 he gave the premiere and made the first recording of George Tsontakis’s True Colors for Trumpet and Orchestra, commissioned for him by the Albany Symphony Orchestra; the Naxos release was named one of National Public Radio’s ten best classical recordings of 2017.

Berlin has performed as a recitalist and soloist around the world. He has been a featured soloist at numerous International Trumpet Guild Conferences — a full recital of commissions in Bangkok in 2005, concerto performances in 2004, 2007, 2012 and 2013, and a 2017 recital with Greg Spiridopoulos and Ludmila Krasin. He has appeared as soloist with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki University Orchestra, the Porto Alegre Symphony and Orquestra Criança Cidadã in Brazil, and the United States Coast Guard Band.

Principal Trumpet of the multiple Grammy Award–winning Albany Symphony Orchestra since 1998, Berlin can be heard on more than two dozen of that orchestra’s recordings, including works by John Corigliano, Aaron Jay Kernis, Morton Gould, Roy Harris, John Harbison, Christopher Rouse and William Schuman. He held the same position with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra from 2005 to 2017. As a member of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project he appears on more than eighty recordings of living American composers, among them Elliott Carter, David Del Tredici, Jacob Druckman, Robert Erickson, Lukas Foss, Charles Fussell, Steven Mackey, Gunther Schuller and Charles Wuorinen. Since 2006 he has spent his summers as Assistant Principal Trumpet of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder, Colorado; he has been Principal Trumpet of the Berkshire Opera Orchestra since 2018, is a member of the Empire Brass Quintet, and founded the Majestic Brass Quintet in 1988. In all he appears on more than 135 commercially released recordings. Beyond his titled positions he has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony, and has served as Guest Principal of the Saint Louis Symphony and the Rochester Philharmonic and as Acting Principal of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de la República Dominicana.

Berlin is Professor of Trumpet at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is held in international regard as a teacher. In 2015 the university named him one of six recipients of its campus-wide Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity. He served on the Board of Directors of the International Trumpet Guild from 2011 to 2018, chairing its New Works Committee and sitting on its Commissioning Committee, and hosted its 2007 Annual Conference. He has given masterclasses worldwide and wrote a recurring column for The Brass Herald until the magazine ceased publication. He is proudest of the more than one hundred alumni now working as performers and teachers across the country and beyond. In 2018 he served as a finals judge at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, on a panel with Gábor Tarkövi of the Berlin Philharmonic, Mireia Farrés of the Barcelona Symphony, Marco Blaauw, Ketil Christensen, Osamu Takahashi and Wim Van Hasselt.

A native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Berlin attended the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with Charles Schlueter, former Principal Trumpet of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and with Robert Nagel of the New York Brass Quintet. He has also studied extensively with Vincent Penzarella of the New York Philharmonic, Thomas Rolfs of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Frank Kaderabek, former Principal Trumpet of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

When he is not performing, teaching or playing daddy to his beloved daughter Stella, he can be found photographing the wonders of nature in the Rocky Mountains and in western Massachusetts, where he lives with his canine companion Chestnut.

Eric Berlin is a Yamaha Performing Artist, performs on Schagerl rotary valve instruments and trusts his horns only to his Torpedo Bags Coyote case.

Eric and Reuben on Mountain of the Holy Cross, 7-3-15