This is a presentation of Eric's life and career. To see his Curriculum Vitae, click here.

Eric Durrer, son of a Luxembourgish father and an Italian mother, was born in Luxembourg on 19 November 1976. His love for music was discovered early by his father as he was singing Mozart's entire "Kleine Nacht Musik" at the age of four.
When he was six years old he started taking classes in music theory and classical percussion. At home his parents liked to listen to classical music, which influenced Eric in a positive way. At the age of thirteen he started to take drum lessons. On the advice of his teacher he started listening to other music genres like pop and rock music.

At the age of sixteen he went to a percussion workshop and took, among other lessons, one in Latin percussion. It was love at first sight: without thinking twice he gave up classical percussion to go for the Latin style. In the following year, at the age of seventeen, he started taking classes in Latin percussion from Jérôme Goldschmidt at the "Conservatoire de Musique" in Luxembourg. 

As his knowledge and interest for the music were growing, Eric decided to make music his main subject in his last two years of high school. In 1996 he graduated from high school and immediately took off to the Netherlands to sign up for the Rotterdam academy of music. Having only ten days to prepare his entrance exam it was a real race against the clock, but he was successful in getting admission into the "Hogeschool voor Muziek en Theater", where he would study for the next four years.

During his second year of studies Eric took a trip to the Latin music paradise Cuba. Besides having a wonderful time there by getting to know the people and the culture - eating rice and beans - he clearly increased his swing by playing with some experienced Cuban musicians. Playing this music with people who have been playing it their entire life provided him with richness that could never be acquired from any theory book. Musicians often refer to this as "the university of the street". Eric has returned to Cuba several times since.

Eric has always liked singing, but at first he never considered himself as a singer. But when a fellow student at the conservatory was desperately looking for a singer for his exam concert, Eric offered to help him out of trouble. This was his first performance as a Latin lead vocalist. The exam commission was very impressed by his performance, and offered him some lessons in singing technique. Afterwards he started putting lots of effort into combining the percussion playing and singing. For a long time "independence" was his biggest challenge. Nowadays he is successful at singing and playing percussion at the same time, a skill that he uses regularly in his performances.

In January 2000 Eric took part in the JAJE Festival, at the New Orleans Jazz Educators Convention. He performed there with a Latin-Jazz ensemble, together with fellow students of the Rotterdam Conservatory. Also participating were Danilo Perez, Rufus Reid, Donald Dyrd, Christian Mc Bride and Brad Maldau and many other celebrities.

On the 8th of November 2000, after months of preparation, he did his final examination at the "Hogeschool voor Muziek en Theater". It was a top performance for which he got the excellent mark of 9,5. He has been playing in several projects ever since, including a number of renowned festivals all over the world.

In February 2001 Eric made a trip to New York in order to dive into the salsa-scene, check out the great bands, get in touch and jam with experienced musicians. Once again it was a great learning experience.

Lately his input goes mainly into songwriting and managing his own two bands: the Cuban salsa band "Eric y su Chocolate" and the afro-Cuban fusion band "Bataña".