About Erica
Erica Whitney Peterson was born and raised in Brookings, South Dakota, and has a deep love and appreciation for her hometown.
She has always been very close with her family. Erica’s mother, Miranda, father and namesake, Eric, and younger sister, Elexa, are her rocks. “I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful support system.”
Since she was a little girl, music has brought her tremendous joy, playing a major role in her life. Erica’s parents gifted her and Elexa their first piano for Christmas when she was 5 years old, but her mom remembers her banging away on an electric keyboard even before that.
As a fourth grader in intermediate school, with encouragement from her mom, Erica decided to learn to play the violin and joined her school’s orchestra program. She continued as a violinist all through her school years, and was proud to be her high school orchestra’s concertmaster for three years, starting as a sophomore. “Playing the violin awoke a deeper passion for music in me,” Erica says, “even though, at the time, I did not realize the impact it would have on my life.”
Erica’s musical journey has not been without hardships and setbacks though. As a 7th grader, over Christmas break, she had to go through the traumatic surgery to remove her tonsils after battling strep throat and other throat related issues for years. The recovery process was arduous and painful and her parents and she were quite concerned about the impact it would have on her musical aspirations. As time progressed, they found that the procedure proved to be extremely beneficial in, not only overall health, but in the sound and resonance of her vocal chords.
One spring evening of Erica’s freshman year, her orchestra director reached out to ask if she would join an elite jazz string group. Erica recalls being apprehensive, not seeing in herself what her director saw, but reluctantly accepted the offer. Erica looks back and says, “Little did I know, this experience would sow a seed in me that would sprout into a passion to be part of the music world.”
The “Flood of Jazz” showcase, where Erica was a member of the select string ensemble “Strings Attached,” pushed her out of her comfort zone in terms of musical difficulty and new collaboration opportunities. She believes most importantly though, it gave her a stronger hunger to perform. “The feeling that ran through my veins was undeniable.”
When she was a child, she would spend a lot of her free time on the piano. Erica started composing her first song when she was 13, writing a string of chords that went on to become part of the melody to “Just Once More.”
At age 16, she finished the writing and composition of her first, full song “Take It Back”. Recognizing she had a lot to say through music, she reached out to a studio in Sioux Falls, SD, to begin the recording process that would eventually lead to the production of her first album, FACE THE MUSIC.
After high school graduation, Erica attended Belmont University which also brought her family to Nashville, TN.
“I definitely learned a lot during that first year at Belmont.” She majored in both Commercial Voice and Music Business. “It provided a great launching pad for me to realize that my first love is making music and that my focus needs to be there,” Erica notes about her decision to step away from school.
“I have so much I want to express through music, and I never plan to stop. I have always wanted to make people feel the way my favorite songs and artists do.”
