Eric Shieh

Violin



Eric started playing the violin when he was three years old, decided he was going to be a theoretical physicist when he was 13, and decided to teach music instead when he turned 16. He has no regrets about his failure as a theoretical physicist, and in fact is quite pleased about it.

Eric currently teaches Music and leads curriculum development at the New York City Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School, “A School for a Sustainable City,” which he helped found in 2010. As an educator, he has previously founded and led music programs in prisons across Detroit and St. Louis, directed an outdoor youth education program on the sandy shores of Lake Michigan, and served as a curriculum policy strategist for the New York City Department of Education. Addicted to writing on public education, Eric regularly contributes op-eds in the Washington Post, and publishes research on topics ranging from social justice in music education to the politics of curriculum reform. As a performer, he has played with classical orchestras, jazz combos, rock and sufi-rock bands, folk singers, drum circles, and even one heavy metal group. His arrangements of Mariah Carey tunes for violin will someday be cult classics.