Erik Friedlander

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Erik Friedlander is a musical recording and performing artist from and based in New York City. A virtuosic veteran of NYC's downtown scene, Friedlander has backed John Zorn, Laurie Anderson and Courtney Love. Friedlander is a unique cellist whose work blurs genre borders. He is a composer and an improviser, a classical musician and a jazzbo. The LA Times wrote, "Friedlander's performance clearly positions him as the first potential star performer on his instrument." Erik grew up in a home filled with art and music. He is the son of Lee Friedlander, an art photographer known by musicians and jazz aficionados for the cover photographs he took for Atlantic Records. His passion for r&b and jazz greatly influenced Erik, whose earliest memories are of a household filled with the sounds of his father's subjects--Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, McCoy Tyner, Ornette Coleman, and John Coltrane. Erik started playing guitar at age six and added cello two years later.

Erik is also a member of the jazz/fusion quartet Topaz.

[edit] Discography

• The Broken Arm

• Vanishing Point (A Road Journal DVD)

• Prowl (with the band Topaz)

• Maldoror (a solo release with Brassland Records)

• Quake (with Topaz)

• Grains Of Paradise("Cellist Erik Friedlander’s best recording as a leader is also one of the most distinctive jazz-with-strings albums ever made." --Ed Hazell The Boston Phoenix)

• Skin (with Topaz)

• Topaz (with Topaz)

• The Watchman (with the band Chimera)

• Chimera (with Chimera)

• Skin DVD (with Topaz)

• Chamber Quintet (with Marcin Oles and Bartlomiej Oles)

• Pranzo Oltranzista (with Mike Patton)

[edit] External links

• Erik Friedlander official site
• Brassland homepage
• Cryptogramophone homepage