CONTEMPORARY Rock/Pop, Musical Theatre, Indie, Singer-Songwriter, Film & TV, session musician
As a contemporary cellist, Erika ROCKS. Having grown up playing and listening to an eclectic variety of music, from classical to classic rock, Broadway to punk, indie to jazz, Erika loves making music—period.
Erika has had the privilege of performing with Kanye West at the former Air Canada Centre and MTV Canada's Live at the Masonic Temple series, and with Juno-winner Johnny Reid for Canada's Walk of Fame. She is a Dora-nominated musical theatre musician, and has recorded for a breadth of artists and for film and TV. Erika's 2019–20 season included performing the music of Stevie Wonder & Prince at Koerner Hall and George Weston Recital Hall as part of The Musical Stage Company's UNcovered concert series. Erika recently made her Soulpepper Theatre debut with The Golden Record, under music director Mike Ross, featuring the Slaight Music Associates.
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Erika performed as part of the Dora-nominated music ensemble for The Musical Stage Company’s Onegin: The Musical at the Canadian Stage in Toronto and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and has performed The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown, along with many other classic and contemporary musicals. She frequently appears in productions at Toronto’s Next Stage and Fringe theatre festivals.
Erika is in high demand for rock/pop concerts and recording sessions, and performs regularly with Classic Albums Live, including these classic albums:
- The Beatles: White Album, Abbey Road, Let it Be
- Billy Joel: The Stranger
- The Eagles: Greatest Hits
- Led Zeppelin: various
- Pink Floyd: The Wall, The Dark Side of the Moon
Erika also performs with Toronto's 25 piece Motown band The Big Sound, and with Electric Light Orchestra tribute band Strange Magic, who were featured live on The World's Greatest Tribute Bands for AXS TV at Whisky a Go-Go in Los Angeles.
As a recording artist, Erika recently appeared on the soundtracks of CBC Gem's Moonshine, and TVO Original documentary The Long Weekend, and can be heard on dozens of albums by Canadian artists such as The Weather Station, JUNO-winning children's entertainers Splash'N Boots, Julian Taylor, Jennifer Castle, The Trews, Megan Bonnell, Jeffery Straker, and many others.
For acoustic playing, Erika performs on her gorgeous 1885 Parisian cello made by JB Collin-Mézin; for electric and contemporary playing, she picks up her Luis & Clark carbon fibre cello, outfitted with a Realist pickup and L.R. Baggs DI. Her current favourite band is Toronto’s Red Zeppelin, in which her husband Graham Smith is the bassist.
