Composer and pianist. Born in Augsburg, trained as a painter and engraver, he taught himself to play the keyboard, reportedly through the use of Emanuel Bach's Versuch. In 1758 he traveled to Paris with a friend and fellow Augsburger Johann Andreas Stein, the piano manufacturer. Throughout the 1760s and 1770s he was acclaimed in the city both as pianist and as composer. He has been cited as the first composer in France to write sonatas specifically for fortepiano. His keyboard sonatas were admired by the young Mozart, who transcribed the op. 1, no. 4 sonata for his own K. 40 piano concerto. Eckard's published works include six keyboard sonatas op. 1 (1763) and two sonatas op. 2 (1764).