Carolina Eyck

Carolina Eyck (born 26 December 1987) is a German-Sorb musician, composer, author and mentor who specialises in playing the theremin. Biography Eyck was born in 1987, near Berlin, Germany. She is a member of the Sorbian community of East Germany. Eyck began learning piano aged five and violin aged six. She was introduced to the theremin at the age of seven by her parents, and started getting lessons with Lydia Kavina, a niece of Leon Theremin, the inventor of the instrument. Eyck studied music at a school for musically gifted children Musikgymnasium Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. In this time she performed with, among others, the Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie. In 2007 Eyck moved to Sweden to study viola at the Royal College of Music, Stockholm. After three years of study under Henrik Frendin, she graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in the instrument in 2010. Career Eyck made her debut as a thereminist in the Berliner Philharmonie in 2002, when she was 14 years old. At the age of 16, Eyck invented a new and precise way to play the theremin, called the "8 finger position technique". With this new technique the player is able to tune the electromagnetic field of the theremin to their hand and rely on their finger positions, rather than correcting notes after they are audible. In 2006, aged 18, she published a book The Art of Playing the Theremin in English and German, in which she explains this method, that is now being used by thereminists around the world. Eyck has featured in several Lera Auerbach's compositions and ballets, such as Icarus, which she performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 2010, Cinderella, which she performed at the Finnish National Ballet in 2011, and The Little Mermaid, which she played as a guest musician of the Hamburg Ballet touring Japan in 2009 and San Francisco Ballet Orchestra in 2010.