Erika Malpass is an interdisciplinary creator – composer, violinist, vocalist, poet, and visual artist. She writes for percussion and chamber ensembles, symphonic band, and vocal music.
She is currently based in Chicago, IL where she is pursuing a master’s in composition at DePaul University, studying with Osnat Netzer and Christopher Wendell Jones.
Erika received a 2023 Cortona Sessions fellowship, workshopping and premiering a piece with performance fellows in Cortona, Italy. She wrote a piece for ~Nois saxophone quartet, mercurial, which premiered at DePaul University and received a second performance at Constellation Chicago.
Her commissioned piece for Microcosm Ensemble, to find the beauty in surviving our emotions, was performed in collaboration with Danceworks Milwaukee, with choreography by Elisabeth Roskopf. Her marimba quartet, Lost Forty, was featured on Heartland Marimba Quartet’s 2022 Vivid Horizons tour, including performances in Chicago, Indiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and at the 7th World Marimba Competition in Stuttgart, Germany, as well as at the 2022 Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC).
Erika has also been commissioned by Sprig of That Ensemble, OopsMN (Opera-Oriented Projects Minnesota), and New Works Project, as well as receiving commissions for percussion solo. She has also written for Unheard-of//Ensemble, Hypercube Ensemble, and Meghan Burke of the Rhythm Method String Quartet. She attended the 2021 Sō Percussion Summer Institute and the 2020 Lake George Music Festival. In 2018, she received a grant from the Collaborative Undergraduate Research and Inquiry program (CURI) at St. Olaf College to create a work for symphonic band. She earned a Bachelor of Music from St. Olaf College in 2019, where she studied with Timothy Mahr and Justin Merritt.
In her music, Erika explores complex emotional spaces and the physicality of how emotions are embodied. She is inspired by finding the subtle nuances within an idea, examining the various facets of that idea (emotionally, linguistically, and psychologically), and translating that exploration and the connections she discovers into music. She enjoys bringing performers’ personal experiences into her compositions and creating a space for both composer and performer to process and understand their emotions. Recent works have explored concepts of anxiety and trauma, as well as the feeling of searching for calm and contentment and examining how these concepts, when filtered through physical or natural metaphors, reveal new connections or ideas conveyed through music.
Her goal is for the audience to perceive the depth created by this shared vulnerability, and therefore inspire people to connect through a communal musical experience. Erika believes that being honest and vulnerable in her creative process and in her music is a compelling way to make connections with others and to create pieces that are relevant and accessible.
Erika works as Manager of Communications and Digital Media for Graphite Publishing, as well as working as a freelance engraver and arranger. In addition to creating music, Erika enjoys backpacking and hiking in her home state of Colorado and reading with a cup of tea and her cat Percy.
