Eric Mandat

Who is Eric Mandat?

Eric Paul Mandat is a composer and performer of contemporary clarinet music.

Mandat began his clarinet studies under the tutelage of Richard Joiner of the Denver Symphony. He later studied with Lee Gibson, Keith Wilson, D. Stanley Hasty, and Charles Neidich. Mandat received his undergraduate education at the University of North Texas, and received graduate degrees from the Yale School of Music, and the Eastman School of Music.

In his performances and compositions, Mandat uses extended techniques such as multiphonics and microtones. In a November 2005 review of Sean Osborn's American Spirit CD, Fanfare Magazine remarked that Mandat's music creates "amazing technical effects for the instrument" that are "startling and eerie." In a review in The Clarinet of Mandat's Folk Songs, the author found that “A composition of this caliber will most likely enter the performance repertoire as the representative piece of the decade!” Reviewing Mandat's solo CD, The Extended Clarinet, in The Clarinet, Michele Gingras wrote that, “In one word, The Extended Clarinet is astonishing. Eric Mandat’s process at writing and playing is bound to leave any listener in awe.” Although most of his corpus consists of works for solo clarinet, more recent compositions are for clarinet ensembles.