Who I Am

This is me, circa November 2013.  Taken at a gathering of online forum friends.

The Anagrams of Eric Peterson

• Entire corpse
• Tenor recipes
• Encore sprite
• I secrete porn
• creepier snot
• precise toner (good one for a French horn player)
• recent poser I
• icon pesterer
• and (drag your mouse over this blank space below to read...)

  Penis Erector!

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  The Details

  The Beginning

  I was born in Washington D.C. in 1964 and grew up in McLean, Virginia (a DC suburb) with my parents and older sister. Mom and Dad retired to Beaufort, SC - they now live in Port Royal.  My sister transitioned in 2008 - he now lives in the Raleigh/Durham NC area.
   

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  Schools

  I went to college in Williamsburg, where I majored in music and waffled between several minors before ending up with Psychology.

  I then went to graduate school in Baltimore, where I majored in horn performance and minored in voice.

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  OMG, I'm a Big Homo

  During my grad school years, I went through the terrifying and exhilarating process of coming out of the closet, which solved many problems and created almost none. Since then, I've been proudly, if quietly out, figuring the best form of activism is simply to provide an example of a happy openly-gay man.

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  The Philadelphia Years

  I moved to Philly after grad school, figuring it was on the East Coast, but wasn't DC (where I grew up), Baltimore (which I was ready to leave) or New York (which I wasn't ready for yet). I spent the rest of my twenties there starting my career as a computer geek, did a lot of community theater, played horn, sang semi-professional opera chorus, conducted Philly's gay band and Learned About Love.

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  Leopold the Cat

  

  In 1991, I adopted a huge black fluffy thing named Leopold. Mr. Leo was only a ten-month old kitten when his first owner - a friend of several friends of mine - passed away suddenly. Mr. Leo was my neurotic, evil, gorgeous and much loved boy for fifteen wonderful years, until we lost him to various illnesses in May, 2006.

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  It's a Wonderful Town

  In 1994, literally on my 30th birthday, I moved to New York City and instantly my life became much more stimulating. Although many people warned me about the perils of New York, it turned out to be everything I hoped it would be.

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  The Wumpus

  Four months after I moved to NYC, I met the most wonderful man in the world. Six months later, we set up household in historic Jackson Heights, Queens.  We're still there and still going strong.

Why Wumpus?  Just a nickname I started calling him online when we first met.  I call him Mr. Man online now, and other things in private.

 

That's us in Sorrento, Italy, in 2005.  We travel a lot.

Work

During grad school, I discovered how easy it was to earn money knowing just a little bit about computers. I did word-processing and other computer stuff for a Baltimore law firm part-time. Once in Philadelphia, I started doing tech support and eventually training. I managed to weed out the tech support (hurrah!) and segue into technical writing. Now I'm a Senior Business Analyst. I've been in the same job for over a decade: most people I work with are in other cities, so I am a "remote worker" and have the delightful setup of having an office and being able to work from home whenever I want.

Performing

Although I never attempted to go pro after grad school, I've always been performing in one way or another. Acting, musical-directing, band directing, opera chorus, chamber music, a whole bunch of stuff. I spent my first few years in NYC playing horn with a woodwind quintet, and performing on and off with the Lesbian and Gay Big Apple Corps band, the sister band to the one I conducted in Philadelphia. In '98, very suddenly, I became the BAC's artistic director and spent seven seasons with them, conducting over twenty concerts and leading the band in its Carnegie Hall debut. Band took up all my time until I stepped down on Maestro Eric Peterson Day.   Since then, I've played with the band as much as I can, and ran a chamber music conference for them when they hosted the 2008 LGBA conference.

Since retiring from the band, I've returned to the theater, hurrah. I joined St. Bart's Players for their 2006 A Little Night Music and become a Blue Hill Trouper. The BHT has given me some fabulous opportunities, including my first Yeomen, Sorcerer and Thespis, and music-directing Mame and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

 

Although I love doing theater in general, and the Wumpus and I see Broadway shows frequently, I have a particular interest in Gilbert and Sullivan. My membership in Savoynet has given me many opportunities to participate in gatherings of other G&S fans and to sing many roles in concert. The summer of 2003, I had the amazing experience of performing the role of Phantis in Savoynet's production of Utopia, Ltd. at the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Buxton, England. I've been back to the festival three times since: as a chorister in the 2006 Ruddygore, rehearsal pianist for the 2007 HMS Pinafore, and  assistant music director/Herald for The Grand Duke.  

In April 2010, I will be music-directing The Gondoliers with Troupers Light Opera.

Feb 2010: Actually, I am now being a little more serious about making my musical activities a cottage industry.  Thus, Eric Peterson Music Services.

 

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Online Haunts

Online, I tend to hang out at online forums such as World Crossing. I have also joined the blogging multitudes by keeping a LiveJournal.  I'm on Facebook too.