Erin Harrigan
Horn
Originally from Trumansburg, New York, Erin Harrigan is now a current Master’s in Music student at Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music. In her time at Northwestern, Erin has been privileged to study with Gail Williams, Jon Boen, and Adam Unsworth. She is a currently a Regular Member with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, where she will also hold a Fellowship role in the 2026-27 season. Prior to attending Northwestern, Erin earned a Bachelor of Music in Horn Performance at SUNY Fredonia in western New York, where she studied with Mark Guy and Donna Dolson. Previous teachers include Ilze Brink and Heidi Oros.
Outside of school and Civic, Erin is an active freelance musician in the Chicago area. She has appeared in the horn section of a variety of groups, including the Rockford Symphony, Northbrook Symphony, Highland Park Strings, and City Lights Orchestra. During her time at Fredonia, Erin also performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes, and Warren Philharmonic.
While at Fredonia, Erin played principal horn on the premiere recording and performance of Augusta Reed Thomas’s Carnival for Bassoon and Wind Ensemble (13 minute version) in 2022 with the Fredonia Wind Ensemble featuring Nadina Mackie Jackson as soloist. The recording appears on Reed Thomas’s album Terpsichore’s Box of Dreams, which was a finalist in the BBC Music Magazine Awards.
Over the years, Erin has attended the Monteux School & Music Festival, Eastern Music Festival, and the National Orchestra Institute + Festival (NOI+F). She was a 2024 recipient of the Sigma Alpha Iota Summer Music Scholarship. This summer, Erin is looking forward to attending the American Institute of Musical Studies (AIMS) Festival in Graz, Austria. She has been honored to play in masterclasses for Gail Williams, Denise Tryon, Oto Carrillo, Gregory Miller, Frøydis Ree Wekre, Jesse McCormick, Adam Unsworth, and Mark Almond.
Erin’s passion for music reaches beyond horn playing. She does music library work for Northwestern’s academic orchestras as well as the Civic Orchestra. She also teaches and is available for virtual and in-person horn lessons. Erin enjoys arranging and composing, and is passionate about the work of young living composers. Most recently, she is thrilled to have participated in her first solo collaboration with a living composer with the premiere of Two Pinniped Preludes, a work for solo horn written for her by longtime friend Nathan Wright Bueno de Mesquita.
