He later studied with Lee Gibson, Keith Wilson, D. Stanley Hasty, and Charles Neidich.
His students from Carbondale include Sean Osborn of the Metropolitan Opera[5] Michael Norsworthy,[6] and Boja Kragulj.
In a November 2005 review of Sean Osborn's album American Spirit, Fanfare magazine remarked that Mandat's music creates "amazing technical effects for the instrument" that are "startling and eerie.
"[8] In a review in The Clarinet of Mandat's Folk Songs, the author found that "A composition of this caliber will most likely enter the performance repertoire as the representative piece of the decade!"
Eric Mandat's process at writing and playing is bound to leave any listener in awe."