Garrett Semmelink

Born 1988 in Commack, New York and currently residing in Philadelphia, Garrett Semmelink is an American violinist with a passion for creative new music-making. While trained in Western classical music, he is well-versed in multiple styles having learned mostly by ear. His versatility and sensitivity as a violinist coupled with the drive for experimentation as an interpreter and improviser to transcend conventional techniques delivers unique and dynamic performances, whether solo or collaborative. His decade-long project with composer, programmer and engineer Andrew Grathwohl explores a critical intersection between acoustic instruments and electronics in a live setting.

Garrett is co-founder and co-director of ▲, an ensemble devoted to chartering this new landscape of sounds at the nexus of composition, improvisation and interpretation. He is the first musician to release an extensive catalog of improvised and semi-composed music for solo violin using Grathwohl’s interactive musical synthesis application and performance framework, “Sonic Multiplicities.”

Garrett studied violin and string pedagogy with Dr. Brenda Brenner and Mimi Zweig at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He’s had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the world’s finest musicians including David Baker, Leonard Slatkin, Alex Kerr, Mark Kaplan, Gil Apap, Jeffery Biegel, Cory Smythe, Chih-Yi Chen, and Jeannette Koekkoek. In 2008 he toured with indie-folk duo “Busman’s Holiday” throughout Indiana and the mid-west as well as the electro-acoustic classical-art-pop ensemble “Pantree Owl” which he co-founded in 2009.

music by this artist