Erik Friedlander is a musical recording and performing artist from and based in New York City. A virtuosic veteran of NYC's downtown scene, Friedlander has backed John Zorn, Laurie Anderson and Courtney Love. Friedlander is a unique cellist whose work blurs genre borders. He is a composer and an improviser, a classical musician and a jazzbo. The LA Times wrote, "Friedlander's performance clearly positions him as the first potential star performer on his instrument." Erik grew up in a home filled with art and music. He is the son of Lee Friedlander, an art photographer known by musicians and jazz aficionados for the cover photographs he took for Atlantic Records. His passion for rhythm and blues and jazz greatly influenced Erik, whose earliest memories are of a household filled with the sounds of his father's subjects--Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, McCoy Tyner, Ornette Coleman, and John Coltrane. Erik started playing guitar at age six and added cello two years