Erik Lundkvist studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm 1961-1970 and graduated there as organist, cantor and music teacher, and received a soloist organ diploma 1967 and a degree in piano pedagogics. After various appointments, including one as assistant cathedral organist in Uppsala 1964-1965, he became organist at the Gustav Vasa Church, Stockholm in 1971, as well as organist at the Stockholm Concert Hall and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Lundkvist has conducted extensive international concert activities in the Nordic region and Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, the United States and in Canada, often committed by the former Swedish employer Rikskonserter with the task of being an ambassador for Swedish organ music. He has participated in numerous international festivals, has been engaged in the Bach Society in Leipzig, who also invited him to play the concert in memory of Bach's death July 28 1982 at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.

Lundkvist's commitment to Swedish music has resulted in many lectures about Swedish music at foreign music colleges, numerous articles in international music journals, and international radio programs such as "France Musique". He has encouraged composers to compose for the organ and a number of Swedish composers complied with this request: Daniel Börtz, Sven-David Sandström, Torsten Nilsson, Valdemar Söderholm, Hans Holewa, Bengt Hambraeus, Siegfried Naumann, Lars-Erik Rosell, Anders Nilsson and others, and he has given the first performance of their works.

Lundkvist contributed along with the former managing director of Stockholm Concert Hall, Bengt Olof Engström, to the construction of the Stockholm Concert Hall Organ (1982) and initiated a lively concert activity with performances by the greatest contemporary organ artists.

Lundkvist, in its capacity as a concert organist, has premiered several new concertos for organ and orchestra and appeared as a soloist in the European Broadcasting Union's international broadcasts with both the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Choir. He has collaborated with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Antal Dorati, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Leonard Slatkin, Sakari Oramo, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Eliot Gardiner and others.

Erik Lundqvist has participated in the jury at several international organ competitions such as Gelsenkirchen, Wiesbaden, Paris, Warsaw, Poznan, Calgary (Lübeck), Chartres and others.

Erik Lundkvist has been in charge of the organ festivals in Stockholm since 1973, was elected in 1983 as a member of the Royal Academy of Music and is a member of the Society of Swedish Composers (Föreningen Svenska Tonsättare; FST). Ever since 1999, he is president of the Musical Art Society in Sweden, which since 1859 worked as a music publisher, with emphasis on contemporary Swedish music.

For his recordings, he has won several awards, including the Swedish Record Prize (Svenska Grammofonpriset) 1980 and 1982