Erica Peel, piccoloist of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2017, joins the faculty of the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University beginning in the 2019-20 academic year. An orchestral player, chamber musician, soloist, and teacher, Peel is praised for her effortless and authentic performances as both flutist and piccoloist.
Having begun her orchestral career as principal flute of the Debut Orchestra in Los Angeles, Peel went on to hold positions with the Honolulu Symphony, Omaha Symphony, and San Diego Symphony, and has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and Houston Symphony. Peel works with students at universities and conservatories across the country, bringing a “real world” approach to audition preparation while guiding each musician to find the best version of their voice. A sought-after teacher and clinician, she has been a guest artist for the Flute Society of Greater Philadelphia, the Music School of Delaware’s FluteFest, the San Diego Flute Guild, the Los Angeles Flute Guild, the Luzerne Music Center, and the Philadelphia International Music Festival, among others. Peel’s primary studies were with Jill Felber (UCSB, ZAWA!), Christine Nield-Capote at the University of Miami, and MaryAnn Archer, formerly of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. She performs on a Muramastu flute with a McKenna headjoint and a Hammig piccolo with a Mancke headjoint.
Peel succeeds longtime faculty artist and former Baltimore Symphony Orchestra solo piccoloist Laurie Sokoloff, who has announced her retirement from Peabody. A member of the Conservatory faculty since 2000, Sokoloff created the piccolo performance master’s program at Peabody in 2003; it remains the only graduate program for piccolo in the country and one of only three in the world.
Headed by virtuoso performer Marina Piccinini, the flute program at Peabody offers gifted students a wide range of musical thought and opportunities for practical application in private, master class, and performance settings. Alumni of the program have gone on to establish active performing and teaching careers in the U.S. and around the world.
Peel also joins a diverse roster of artist-faculty colleagues charged with implementation of the Peabody Conservatory’s new Breakthrough Curriculum in Performing Arts Leadership, a model at the forefront of arts training in the United States. The Breakthrough Curriculum is designed to help students develop skills in performance excellence, career development, and citizen artistry to meet the demands of today’s ever-changing musical landscape. This includes a reimagined instrumental ensembles program in which students move through a rotation of varied ensemble experiences to ensure musical flexibility and training across a range of performing contexts, musical styles, and ensemble configurations.
