Cranston may be the third-largest city in the smallest state, but it is definitely not lacking in talent.

Proof of that can be seen in a Cranston High School East graduate from 2005, Eric Kalver.

Eric’s entire family is in the entertainment field.

“My great-grandfather was an assistant to magician Harry Houdini,” he said. “My paternal grandmother was a USO singer and a guest on the old radio show ‘Major Bowes Amateur Hour.’ My maternal grandmother was a singer on the radio in Boston. My great-uncle was a drummer. My father has been a professional magician for over 40 years, as well as a theatre director and writer. My mother has been my father’s magic assistant, a clown and a theatre director.

“At first, I was going along the path of being a magician. My father and I used to have a segment on the old ‘Bozo the Clown’ show on Fox 64. At five years old, people knew me as ‘The Amazing Eric.’”

Kalver’s home environment was based more in musical theatre than pop or rock music. When he was nine years old, his father introduced him to the Beatles. That music has stayed with him his entire life. When he saw the movie “That Thing You Do,” it gave him the inspiration to take up the drums.

“I was so drawn to the visual of how one looked while playing – non-stop motion and hitting hard,” he said. “It was different than what everyone else was learning on piano or clarinet, and I liked being unique.”

When Kalver was 11 years old in 1998, he was in the fifth grade at Eden Park Elementary School. He asked music teacher Carol Mitola if he could get a group of his classmates to sing one of his beloved Beatle’s songs, “Help.”

“That was my very first arrangement. I directed seven other friends to sing with me at our spring concert,” he said.

Kalver’s parents completely supported his desire to learn drums, and he started taking private lessons at Oakland Music in Warwick at age 11.

“I was so determined to practice, learn about new music, decipher sounds I didn’t understand – it became my life. I joined the band program under Bob Hassan at Park View and I started to learn what it was like to play with a full jazz band and concert band,” he said.

Kalver credits the day he met Mark Colozzi in eighth grade as life changing.

“I was never a sports person growing up, but I was energized by the way Mark treated us like a team. I loved how he coached us and had tons of energy. There was no question about joining the Cranston East music program,” he said.

He joined every group – marching band, concert band, percussion ensembles, wind ensembles, jazz bands, choir and music theory. He even took English over the summer of his senior year just so he could add more music classes to his schedule.

“I felt that I needed to take in as much music knowledge as possible. I was very hard on myself and wanted to be the best I could be,” he said.

Kalver’s musical career at East was noteworthy.

“Mark Colozzi, Greg Arsenault and Rick Lepore were more than just my music teachers. They were my mentors in my musical career and had the same excitement to teach as I did to learn. I was very fortunate to have won various musicianship and soloist awards throughout my high school music career, and even became the No. 2 Rhode Island All-State Jazz Drummer,” he said.

Bob Stoloff, a voice department faculy member from Berklee College of Music in Boston, directed the All-State Jazz Choir group Kalver played in.

“He heard I was thinking about going to Berklee and he offered me a job playing for the voice department if I got in. That’s when I started to learn about Berklee,” Kalver said.

He received a performance scholarship from Berklee and started in January 2006.

“I started to feel like a little fish in a big pond since there were so many musicians from not only the country, but from around the world,” he said.

Kalver started to think about how to be unique again among his fellow musicians.

“I didn’t know many drummers that were comfortable with music theory and composition. I wanted to continue my drumming studies, but I was also interested in writing and arranging, so I decided to dual-major in contemporary writing and production and drum set performance,” he said.

Meeting new musicians all the time allowed Kalver to experience new kinds of music and learn how to play in more ensembles.

Stoloff stuck to his word, and Kalver played drums for voice department classes as a work-study job.

“I was playing many different gigs around Massachusetts and Rhode Island, even commuting to Rhode Island to teach the East Drumline for three months, and played musical theatre gigs for Rhode Island Youth Theatre [previously Fantasy Works],” he said.

Kalver was starting to get recognized by his teachers and fellow students as a drummer experienced in making unique arrangements. He was a featured drummer in many shows around the campus, as well as a featured arranger at the department concert two years in a row.

“Two months before graduating Berklee, my dad and I took a trip to Los Angeles over spring break. After speaking with a friend about my thoughts about moving to Los Angeles the following year, he convinced me that I needed to move out west as soon as possible,” he said.

Kalver started making plans about how he was going to make it work. He moved out west in August 2009.

“My best friend Anthony Petrocchi came for the ride, and after planning on a five-day trip, we made it to Los Angeles in three and a half days,” he said.

Like every other aspiring musician, Kalver thought a job would be ready and waiting for him as soon as he hit Los Angeles. That was not the case at all.

“With the help of some family magician friends, I started to work as a production assistant for TV shows and infomercials. I worked as a waiter at various restaurants, I was an extra on television shows, and I taught after school music programs to elementary kids,” he said.

Kalver took what was available and worked hard.

“My Berklee alumni network was helpful setting up meetings with successful and working alumni, but it was my job to prove that I was worthy of their time,” he said.

He slowly began getting work as a composer’s assistant to the lead arranger of Mark Mothersbaugh, founder of the band Devo. After eight months in Los Angeles, he finally got a full-time job with film composer Brian Tyler, whose credits include “Iron Man 3,” “Now You See Me,” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

After work as Tyler’s assistant, Kalver was able to prove to him that he was ready to start arranging. 

“I started working as an orchestrator on movies such as ‘Fast Five,’ ‘Skyline’ and ‘Battle: Los Angeles,’” he said. “It was so amazing to see my name in the credits of ‘Fast Five.’

Wanting to get back into learning about publishing sheet music and arrangements, Kalver took a job as the choral production editor at Alfred Music Publishing. For almost three years, he was a proofreader of musical and grammatical errors in all of the choral publications.

“Eventually, I was given the chance to write two percussion ensemble arrangements of ‘Star Wars’ music, written by my favorite film composer, John Williams,” he said.

Williams autographed the arrangement, and it’s framed in Kalver’s office.

“I was still active as a drummer and started to write songs with fellow songwriters, which then piqued my interest in writing songs for TV shows and movies,” he said.

Kalver took a class at UCLA to learn about music publishing and music supervision in film and television and transitioned to working at Heavy Hitters Music Publishing.

“I heard of an opportunity to work as the music coordinator for Activision Games [‘Call of Duty,’ ‘Guitar Hero,’ ‘Tony Hawk Pro Skater’], and after a two-month process of interviews, I got the job,” he said.

During the week, Kalver works full-time at Activision and helps find music for video games. On the weekends, he can be found playing wedding gigs and band gigs, taking part in recording sessions and teaching.

After being in Los Angeles for five years, Kalver feels he has found the perfect balance of work and has found exactly what he wanted to do.

“I like to wear multiple hats, and I never felt like I had to stop doing any of the things I loved,” he said.

With his strong connection to the Berklee alumni, Kalver was asked to speak on the “Berklee in Los Angeles” panel for 60 high school kids who wanted to go to the college and work in music.

“It was an honor to speak about the subject of working in music and I felt like everything I’ve done has set me on the right path,” he said.

Kalver explained the importance of starting a music career in high school as a great base for a musical future.

“I’ve met so many musicians over time that did not participate in their high school music programs. I was very lucky to have a strong and educational high school experience. It really prepared me for everything I did at Berklee, as well as taught me how to be a leader,” he said.

Kalver would constantly come back to East to talk to Mark and Greg, see how the program is doing, and wish them well for the future.

“It’s important to us to make sure our band program stays strong and others can experience what we did,” he said.

Colozzi also has strong words of praise for his former student.

“As a music music educator for the past 35 years, Eric is, without question, the hardest working and most ambitious musician I have ever the pleasure to teach,” he said. “As a high school student, Eric was mature beyond his years. He has always been goal oriented and a man of action. I knew early on in his high school years that he would be successful. Aside from his talent and intelligence, perhaps Eric’s most admirable attribute is his interpersonal skills. Upon meeting him, Eric is instantly likable. One can gain a sense of trust in his integrity in his abilities. Eric is a talented and versatile musician who is quite marketable. His degree of success in Los Angeles within such a short period of time speaks volumes of the person he is. Eric Kalver is an ethical and enthusiastic young man that has already made our city and school proud.”

Kalver stresses the importance of following one’s dreams, being patient and persistent to reach that goal.

“Finding a good job in the music business, no matter what you do, is not easy,” he said. “Be open to wearing multiple hats, and don’t worry if you wear one hat more than the others. You will eventually get to wear the other ones, but in a different capacity than you would have expected.”