Eric Friesen

Eric Friesen is a well known broadcaster, writer and speaker on music and culture in both Canada and the United States.  He spent much of his life as a network classical music host and producer for CBC Radio and Minnesota Public Radio.  From 1984-1990, he was executive vice president of Public Radio International.  From 1990 to 1997, he hosted The Music Room for MPR, as well as the national broadcasts of the Minnesota Orchestra.  For CBC he hosted programs such as Studio Sparks, In Performance, and Onstage at Glenn Gould Studio, as well as the celebrated documentary series, The Concerto According to Pinchas, The Concerto According to Manny,  Peter and the Symphony and Great Pianists of the 20th Century.  Since leaving the CBC at the end of 2008, Eric has been busy serving a wide variety of major cultural organizations in Canada, including the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, The Banff Centre, Angela Hewitt’s Trasimeno Music Festival in Umbria, Italy, and many more.  His written work appears in many publications including NUVO magazine and Queen’s Quarterly, for whom he is a regular contributor.  Eric is chair of the Kingston WritersFest, vice chair of the Honens International Piano Competition based in Calgary, and chair of the advisory committee to the English department, University of Waterloo.  He also hosts a book club in Collins Bay Penitentiary, a medium-high security facility in Kingston, Ontario.  He makes his home on Amherst Island, the first of the 1000 Islands, just across Lake Ontario from Upstate New York.