Ethan Setiawan is a Boston-based mandolin player who’s won the National Mandolin Championship, the RockyGrass Mandolin Championship, and a full-ride scholarship to Berklee College of Music. 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 Mudskippers, a progressive string band, Corner House, a group drawing from Scottish, Appalachian string band, and bluegrass, and the Harmolodic String Band, which plays the music of Ornette Coleman on standard bluegrass instruments.
Now an involved member of the Boston alt-bluegrass scene, his path has wended its way through traditional bluegrass, to Bach partitas, to free jazz, and his debut full-length album 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, Darrell Scott, Mike Marshall, Tony Trischka, Darol Anger, Bryan Sutton, Casey Driessen, and the Steel Wheels.
"Vibrant, thoughtful, and beautifully interactive"
"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.”
“The future of acoustic music is in good hands!”
"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."
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.
...a rising young star…
Now an involved member of the Boston alt-bluegrass scene, his path has wended its way through traditional bluegrass, to Bach partitas, to free jazz, and his debut full-length album 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, Darrell Scott, Mike Marshall, Tony Trischka, Darol Anger, Bryan Sutton, Casey Driessen, and the Steel Wheels.
"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
Bands:
Corner House |
Mudskippers |
Theory Expats |
The Harmolodic String Band |
Projects
I'm Not Here, Sadie Gustafson-Zookengineer, producer, mandolins, guitar
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Three Beautiful Ponytails, Theory Expatsmix
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