Erin Brooker-Miller is a Classical and Irish harpist with a passion for orchestral and chamber playing.

Erin is the Principal Harpist of the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra. Since joining the orchestra in 2017, Erin has been featured several times as a soloist and chamber musician including performing the Mozart Flute & Harp Concerto (Oct 2018), Debussy's Danse sacree et Danse profane (October 2020), twice playing on the orchestra’s chamber series “Spotlight at the Temple” (2018, 2019), and performing two livestream solo concerts (2020).  Erin has performed throughout the United States with many additional orchestras including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Boise Philharmonic, and Nashville Opera, among others.  She has participated in the Round Top Music Festival, Fresh Inc Festival, Saratoga Harp Colony, and Miami Music Festival.

Happiest playing music with others, Erin is the harpist of the flute, harp, and viola trio Juniper Trio and the Irish flute, harp, bodhrán trio Fearn. Previously, she was a founding member of a flute, harp, and percussion trio, Archaea Tree Ensemble, a member of the pop harp quartet HarpCore4, and performed in an Irish harp and violin duo with her brother, Brennan Brooker. Passionate about working collaboratively with composers, in 2015, Archaea Tree Ensemble hosted a weeklong festival retreat called Troublesome Gap. The festival invited five composers from across the United States to write new works for the trio and culminated in a standing room only concert premiering the five new compositions.

Representing the United States, Erin competed and won numerous awards in traditional Irish music competitions in solo harp, duo, trio, and Grúpaí Cheoil categories at regional and All-Ireland Fleadh Cheoils between 2002 and 2010. Most notably, she won the Bronze medal for solo harp in 2007 and was a member of the Grand Prize winning Grúpaí Cheoil in 2004, the first time since 1957 that an ensemble from outside Ireland won that category. Erin was named an Alternate for a prestigious Fulbright Grant to Ireland in 2014. She has given Irish workshops to the West Michigan Chapter of the American Harp Society and as a residency for the Iowa State University. Additionally, in 2020, Erin was invited by Lyon & Healy Harps to make Irish performance videos featuring their low-tension lever harp, the Drake.

Also an accomplished Arts Administrator, Erin is the Festival Director of the New Hampshire Music Festival. She served as the Executive Director of the USA International Harp Competition for five years leading the organization to two of the most successful competitions in its thirty year history (10th & 11th USAIHCs). Erin served as a panelist for the Indiana Arts Commission reviewing individual artist grant applications in 2017. She will graduate with a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Marquette University in May 2024.

Erin has degrees in Harp Performance from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. Her principal classical teachers include Susann McDonald, Dr. Ann Yeung, Elizabeth Hainen, and Ayako Watanabe; her principal Irish teachers include Eileen Gannon, Marta Cook, and Grainne Hambly.  Erin lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her husband, percussionist Andy Miller.