Baker Artist Portfolios

Composer and clarinetist Erik Franklin balances a vibrant, varied career on and off the stage. He has given concerts in nearly all fifty states and throughout Europe, performing for audiences large and small in venues from veterans’ homes to Carnegie Hall. A former member of the United States Army Field Band (Washington, D.C.), Franklin now performs as a soloist and chamber musician across the country as a member of the Ann Street Trio and the Heartwood Duo.

Franklin allows his sensibility as a performer to shine through his compositions, as well. He has a penchant for writing lyrical, expressive melodies, to the delight of audiences and performers alike. Previously, Franklin has been commissioned by the Interlochen Arts Academy Band and the United States Air Force Academy Band. Upcoming performances include the world premiere of The Old Road (May 2024), which features the composer as clarinet soloist with the Greenville (SC) Symphony Orchestra.

Equally at home in the world of vocal music, his works have earned prizes from the National Association of Teachers of Singing and at the 2023 songSLAM festival in New York City. His debut opera, a collaboration with Facing West Shadows in San Francisco, is slated to premiere in the Fall of 2025.

Franklin is a passionate and experienced educator. He is a current faculty member at the Peabody Preparatory Institute and formerly served on the faculty at Towson University and the SC Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities. He and his husband founded the Patterson Park Academy of Music in 2021, which provides music programming for over 300 children and adults in east Baltimore. Every summer, he directs the Indiana Clarinet Experience—a pre-college music camp he co-founded in 2014.