Straddling the bounds of roots music, bringing tradition to light with deep innovation, mandolinist Ethan Setiawan brings worlds together. A Boston-based mandolin player who’s won such accolades as the National Mandolin Championship and the RockyGrass Mandolin Championship, he’s a member of bands Corner House, Mudskippers, The Harmolodic String Band, and freelances with musicians including Darol Anger and Tony Trischka. In 2015, he attended the Acoustic Music Seminar at the Savannah Music Festival, a program where participants work with musicians like Mike Marshall, Julian Lage, Casey Driessen, and Bryan Sutton. Later that year, he guested on A Prairie Home Companion (now known as Live From Here.) A move to Boston in August of 2015 to attend Berklee College of Music on a full ride scholarship brought about a new chapter in Ethan’s life. He’s been a catalyst for several projects in the Boston area and elsewhere, including Corner House, which draws from Scottish, Appalachian string band, and bluegrass styles, the Harmolodic String Band, which plays the music of Ornette Coleman on bluegrass instruments, and the Band of Friends, a collaboration of like minded roots and bluegrass truth seekers. As befits a musician in the 21st century, you can also find him teaching lessons or classes at the Passim School of Music, or recording colleagues' projects on a day at home.
His path has wended its way through traditional bluegrass, to Bach partitas, to free jazz, and his debut full-length album, “Flux” is made up of original tunes drawing from all these wells. The album was conceived and crafted as a whole; the tunes were written for the band, who were chosen for the tunes. To write the album, he dove deep into the compositional techniques and tunes of some of the pioneers of the current wave of bluegrass: Bela Fleck, Matt Flinner, David Grisman and Mike Marshall, to name a few. After months of writing, discarding, and editing, a body of tunes emerged as clear candidates for a record. Over several years, the community around Ethan in the Northeast and Midwest evolved into the perfect band for a project such as this. The band features Julian Pinelli and Avery Merritt on fiddles, Sam Leslie on guitar, and Jacob Warren playing bass. Skilled engineer and mandolinist Dan Bui of Twisted Pine engineered and mixed the album. The recording process took place at the Record Company in Boston, and the resulting album contains close friends and bandmates, a batch of carefully crafted tunes, and the freshest grooves in bluegrass. He has shared the stage with Julian Lage, Tim O’Brien, Darrell Scott, Mike Marshall, Tony Trischka, Darol Anger, Bryan Sutton, Casey Driessen, Brittany Haas, Joe K. Walsh, Grant Gordy, Missy Raines, Sver, and the Steel Wheels.
Press:
"Vibrant, thoughtful, and beautifully interactive"
- Julian Lage
"Ethan is one of those greatly informed young musicians of today who knows the roots of the music he is creating, but is not afraid to search and carve out his own voice within this new tradition.”
- Mike Marshall
“The future of acoustic music is in good hands!”
- Bryan Sutton
"Ethan Setiawan is a student of mine of whom I am most proud...given the results his combination of talent and discipline have yielded thus far, it will be very exciting to hear what comes next."
- Don Stiernberg
"There’s no doubt in my mind that Ethan Setiawan will be one of the major forces on the mandolin in the next 50 years."
- Jacob Jolliff
"...a rising young star…"
- Mandolin Cafe
His path has wended its way through traditional bluegrass, to Bach partitas, to free jazz, and his debut full-length album, “Flux” is made up of original tunes drawing from all these wells. The album was conceived and crafted as a whole; the tunes were written for the band, who were chosen for the tunes. To write the album, he dove deep into the compositional techniques and tunes of some of the pioneers of the current wave of bluegrass: Bela Fleck, Matt Flinner, David Grisman and Mike Marshall, to name a few. After months of writing, discarding, and editing, a body of tunes emerged as clear candidates for a record. Over several years, the community around Ethan in the Northeast and Midwest evolved into the perfect band for a project such as this. The band features Julian Pinelli and Avery Merritt on fiddles, Sam Leslie on guitar, and Jacob Warren playing bass. Skilled engineer and mandolinist Dan Bui of Twisted Pine engineered and mixed the album. The recording process took place at the Record Company in Boston, and the resulting album contains close friends and bandmates, a batch of carefully crafted tunes, and the freshest grooves in bluegrass. He has shared the stage with Julian Lage, Tim O’Brien, Darrell Scott, Mike Marshall, Tony Trischka, Darol Anger, Bryan Sutton, Casey Driessen, Brittany Haas, Joe K. Walsh, Grant Gordy, Missy Raines, Sver, and the Steel Wheels.
Press:
"Vibrant, thoughtful, and beautifully interactive"
- Julian Lage
"Ethan is one of those greatly informed young musicians of today who knows the roots of the music he is creating, but is not afraid to search and carve out his own voice within this new tradition.”
- Mike Marshall
“The future of acoustic music is in good hands!”
- Bryan Sutton
"Ethan Setiawan is a student of mine of whom I am most proud...given the results his combination of talent and discipline have yielded thus far, it will be very exciting to hear what comes next."
- Don Stiernberg
"There’s no doubt in my mind that Ethan Setiawan will be one of the major forces on the mandolin in the next 50 years."
- Jacob Jolliff
"...a rising young star…"
- Mandolin Cafe