Major critics have praised Erica Muhl’s music, describing it as "strong and poetic," "ravishingly beautiful," "haunting," even "fearless." Paul Hertelendy, one of America’s most esteemed writers on music, wrote, "Muhl has a fine ear and an iridescent palette...[Her work] is a contemporary foray into impressionism, mysticism, veiled allure and the shimmering colors of a concert orchestra."

Muhl’s exciting and beautifully crafted works have been commissioned, performed, and broadcast by such organizations as Minnesota Opera, New World Symphony, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Italy's Orchestra della RAI, Venezuela’s National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, the Arditti Quartet, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the American Guild of Organists, National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Mexican National Television, and Radio-Televisione Italiana. Her music has been featured at national and international festivals and competitions, including the Aspen Festival, the Ernest Bloch Festival, the International Festival of New Music in Caracas, Venezuela, the International Forum of New Music in Mexico City, Mexico, and the International Percussion Competition in Luxembourg. She has received grants and awards from such organizations as the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Opera America, and was the recipient of the prestigious Whitaker Commissioning Prize. She has been awarded residencies and fellowships from -- among many -- Italy’s Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Charles Ives Center for American Music, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Cultural Ministry of Venezuela.

Muhl was born and raised in Los Angeles, where her father, Edward, was head of production for Universal Pictures and her mother, Barbara, an author and opera singer. Her parents socialized with such extraordinary musical figures as Eric Zeisl, Igor Stravinsky, Artur Schnabel, Leopold Stokowski, Andre Previn, David Raksin, and Henry Mancini. As may have been expected in this musical milieu, Muhl was trained both as a composer and conductor, with much of that training completed in Europe. At age sixteen she was invited to study with renowned teacher Nadia Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Paris. After returning to California to earn her B.M., she traveled again to Europe for graduate studies at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, studying with prominent Italian composer Franco Donatoni. In 1991 she completed a Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Southern California. Along with Boulanger and Donatoni, her primary teachers in composition were Aurelio de la Vega and Daniel Kessner, and she credits as her primary mentor renowned American Composer Morten Lauridsen. In conducting, she worked with Walter Cataldi-Tassoni, long-time conductor and stage director for Rome Opera and himself a student of Mascagni, and the legendary Fritz Zweig, a student of Humperdinck and a close colleague of Richard Strauss and Otto Klemperer.

Muhl has served as Assistant Conductor for Los Angeles Opera Theater, Seattle Opera and the Pacific Northwest Wagner Festival’s complete Der Ring des Nibelungen. She regularly conducts her own works, including a recent recording of Consolation with Cleveland Chamber Symphony for Albany Records. A noted and charismatic speaker on music, she has lectured for colleges and universities in the West, and has presented countless talks for major organizations such as the New York Philharmonic, Opera Pacific, Los Angeles Opera, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Erica Muhl is Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California’s Flora L. Thornton School of Music.