Eric Schultz is an American clarinetist equally in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and interpreter of new music. Hailed a “mastermind” in the Myrtle Beach Herald and “superhuman” by The Chanticleer, Schultz was recently selected as a quarterfinalist for the 2024 GRAMMY® Music Educator of the Year Award. As a performer, he has appeared with preeminent artists such as Valerie Coleman and Joshua Bell in top halls spanning the globe, can be seen on Netflix, and heard on National Public Radio.

An uncompromising advocate for the music of our time whose unique voice on the clarinet has inspired many of today’s finest composers, Schultz is known for his liquid, soulful tone quality and singular abilities on the instrument, including an unrivaled five-octave range, limitless facility of technique, and improvisations that span many dialects. As founding clarinetist of the Victory Players new music ensemble, his performing has been featured extensively by NPR through syndication. The group’s most recent project, El Puerto Rico, has been featured by El Nuevo Día and features ten newly commissioned works now available online through GBH/Classical Radio Boston and New England Public Media. Schultz has commissioned and/or premiered the music of noted composers such as Leila Adu-Gilmore (NYU), Jonathan Bailey Holland (Boston Conservatory), David Sanford (Mount Holyoke), Mary Watkins, Liliya Ugay (FSU), Chiayu Hsu, Tony Solitro (Bard), Johanny Navarro, Armando Bayolo (Peabody), Carlos Carrillo (Urbana-Champaign), Iván Enrique Rodríguez (ASCAP Leonard Bernstein), and many more.

As an artist-teacher, Schultz is known for his transformational masterclasses and encourages a project-based creative approach to music learning while advocating for living composers and expanding repertoire lists toward a more intentionally inclusive and relevant future model. Recent masterclasses include the Conservatorio de Música Ástor Piazzolla in Buenos Aires, Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico, Clemson, Stony Brook, and more. Schultz currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Coastal Carolina University, where he coordinates the woodwind area and serves as director of the Edwards Center for Inclusive Excellence. As a founding research fellow in the center, he coined the phrase and created The [Represent]atoire Project, a play on the words repertoire and representation. The project advocates for including a diversity of composers in collegiate music curricula by intensely focusing on living composers.

Highlights of the upcoming season include a recital tour across Argentina, concerti from Weber, Copland, Corigliano and more with orchestras spanning the US, and a new project for Netflix. His debut solo album, Polyglot, is to be released this year and features several virtuosic new works dedicated to him. Schultz completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in clarinet performance at Stony Brook University. As a Buffet Crampon performing artist, he performs exclusively on Buffet Crampon clarinets. @ericschultzclarinet