Mezzo soprano Erica Washburn, a 1996 graduate of Hudson Falls High School is no stranger to the music community in our area. Her grandparents were founding members of the Schuylerville Community Theatre where she made her stage debut in an SCT production of Annie. Early memories are of a very supportive mom, Eileen Hannay, who allowed her to sit on the piano bench and sing along while she practiced for her own performances. It is no surprise that the little girl on the piano bench went on to have a major impact with the music department in high school both in the concert band and the chorus.
After high school, she went to Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J. intending to teach music with a concentration on voice. At the Eastman School of Music, while considering a career in opera, she got the conducting bug and her career path was formed. Presently, she is the Director of Choral Activities at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts. At NEC, she conducts the 100-voice Concert Choir and the 23-voice auditioned Chamber Singers. She is also a professor of basic and advanced choral conducting, as well as sacred and secular choral literature. Prior to her appointment at NEC, she taught at the Greatbatch School of Music at Houghton College where she was an instructor of voice, and director of both the Houghton College Women’s Choir and the Camerata Singers.
As a conductor, Washburn has worked with the East Carolina University Women’s Chorale and Eastman Women’s Chorus, has been a guest conductor for several New York State School Music Association Area All-State Mixed Choruses, spent five summer as a conductor and voice faculty member for the New York State Summer School of the Arts School of Choral Studies, has been a visiting guest artist and clinician at William Jewell College, is a sought-after high school choral ensemble guest clinician, and most recently held performances in Sydney, Australia of her choral ensemble Northern Voices.
As a soloist Washburn has been featured on the Eastman-St. Michaels Recital Series, given her Jordan Hall recital debut, performed selections of Finzi’s Dies Natalis with the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra, given the Boston premiere of two works for mezzo-soprano by the late Richard Toensing with the NEC Symphonic Winds, performed with the Eastman School Symphony Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Genesee Valley Orchestra and Chorus, and was the mezzo soloist for Duruflé’s Requiem with the Vivificus! Chamber Players.
Locally, she has performed with the Glens Falls Symphony and when she is in the area, sings with the Hudson Falls United Methodist Church. Her brother Scott Hannay, though at the opposite end of the music spectrum in terms of interests, is also an accomplished singer, guitarist, trumpeter, keyboardist and composer.