Erik Ringstad

Hi, I'm Erik Ringstad. I was born in New York City and have been a musician since age four, starting with classical piano training before switching over to the guitar at age 15. Originally self taught on guitar, I eventually moved to Boston and attended the Berklee college of music for 5 years in a dual major program (Jazz composition and Guitar Performance with a minor in music synthesis), graduating with honors in 1990. While studying at Berklee, I was involved in many shows, and I was awarded the Performance Division Award for outstanding musicianship.Since graduation, I have been a very active performer, composer and instructor in the Boston area. Equally comfortable on electric and acoustic instruments, I have been an instrumental soloist as well as a member of a huge array of ensembles.My most noteable original music group was Acousticity (see website), an acoustic guitar duo I formed with Thomas Young while we were both studying at Berklee. Featuring primarily my own compositions, we explored a wide range of musical styles ,while trying to push the limits of our musicianship together. We released two albums, Sky City in 1991, and Music for 20 fingers in 1997. We also won quite a few honors in our time together, including being named one of Musician magazine's Best unsigned bands in 1992, being finalists in the Pizza Hut New Music Search in 1990, finalists in the Acoustic Underground competition in 1993, being invited to perform at Symphony Hall's 100th Birthday celebration in Boston, numerous TV appearances, playing live on radio often, and appearances in Acoustic Guitar and Musician magazines. We also performed at numerous festivals and appeared on a couple of compilation CDs.All that time and since, I have been active with other bands as well, ranging from assorted duets to big bands and everything in between, as well as doing solo gigs. I have also been writing and recording my original music for 25 years now, and have written approximately 800-1000 titles reflecting this wide range of musical activity. These pieces go from solo guitar to big band jazz to rock, funk, blues, bluegrass, jazz, classical and various ethnic styles. In short, no style of music is safe from me!In 2006, I completed a new recording entitled Reflections, a solo project consisting of original ballads and jazz. Originally a solo guitar project, one night I decided to experiment with augmenting the tracks with lead guitar, bass and synthesizer flourishes. I was pleased enough with the result to expand it to a whole collection of pieces, and it is finally available as of September 2007. There is also a songbook available for this music.I continue to perform and teach in the Boston area, doing many gigs, playing on other artists recordings, transcribing, continuing to write and record my own music, and as always, practicing as much as possible. Thanks for visiting! a