Eric Hoeprich is among the world's leading specialists in the historical clarinet. An educator, scholar, and instrument builder, as well as a musician, Hoeprich is a founding member of the influential Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century in the Netherlands.

Hoeprich was born in Baltimore on September 5, 1955. In 1976, he earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard, majoring in philosophy, but then he switched to music and went on for a master's degree at the Royal Conservatory of Music in the Hague, receiving his degree in 1982. By that time, he had already become interested in the burgeoning historical performance movement in the Netherlands. In 1981, he was one of the founding players of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, conducted by recorder player Frans Brüggen. With that group, he performed and recorded Mozart's Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581, using the rare basset clarinet for which the work was intended. Hoeprich has performed with many leading early music ensembles around Europe and North America, under such directors as Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood, and Philippe Herreweghe. He founded two wind ensembles of his own, Nachtmusique (reviving the 18th century tradition of Harmoniemusik wind performance) and the Stadler Trio, consisting of three basset horns and memorializing Anton Stadler, the artist for whom Mozart wrote his late clarinet works.

Hoeprich made his recording debut in 1988 on the Philips label, with a Mozart album with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. He has recorded more than 15 albums, mostly for the Glossa label; these have often investigated lesser-known composers for the clarinet such as Bernhard Crusell and Franz Krommer. The latter appeared on a 2020 album on Glossa, also featuring Carl Maria von Weber's Clarinet Quintet in B flat major, Op. 34. Hoeprich is the author of The Clarinet (Yale University Press, 2008), and he teaches at Indiana University and the Paris Conservatory. He lives in London, where he maintains a collection of more than 100 antique clarinets. ~ James Manheim, Rovi