Seth Stewart

My Life

A native of Utah, I grew up under the Rocky Mountains of Salt Lake City.  In addition to music, I enjoy reading, the outdoors, languages, and movies.

I currently live in Eugene, Oregon with my wife and baby daughter. 

I began playing and writing music at the age of 14, when my parents agreed to let me take guitar lessons.  My goal was to become a full-time rock star, but I quickly became interested in a wider range of study.  With early training in jazz guitar, I became intrigued by music theory and classical composition.  Not long afterward, I joined my high school jazz ensemble and enrolled in a college level theory course.  These early oppurtunities inspired me to decide to make music a lifetime pursuit.

Many experiences and endeavors have served to shape my musical language.  Having performed in a wide variety of ensembles, such as new music ensembles, jazz bands, guitar ensembles, rock bands, and others, I have learned to appreciate and analyze a wide variety of musical vocabularies.  I have discovered that fundamental elements such as rhythm, harmony, and melody can be viewed and utilized in a myriad of ways.  This in turn has allowed me to develop a musical outlook of innovation and originality.  Having lived in the U.S.A., France, and Switzerland, and having been exposed to differing schools of musical thought, I have learned to approach composition with a mind open to many sources of creative methodology and artistic inspiration.

My educational experience at the undergraduate level was rigorous and very rewarding. Upon entering the University of Utah, I was awarded a rare full tuition fine arts scholarship due to my performance abilities in high school.  I had the great opportunity to study with distinguished composers Morris Rosenzweig, Miguel Chuaqui, and Steve Roens.  I studied Music Technology and became fascinated by the vast resource of creative material that technology and electronics present.  I became an active composer of new music and a self-motivated researcher of music scholarship.  I came to place an emphasis on productivity; my works list includes over 70 complete works, 10 of which have been featured in collegiate-level new music concerts.  I also found ways to supplement my theoretical foundation by conducting extra-curricular research on topics such as Schenkerian analysis, the advanced use of counterpoint in composition, and post-tonal techniques.  

In addition to my regular courses, I elected to take more than twenty credits of music education classes.  Though not required of my degree course, these classes were a great help in my preparation to become an educator, better able to inform and inspire other students.  I went out into the public schools on a regular basis to conduct a total of 15 teacher observations, actively participating in the rehearsals, and documenting the methods and activities that I found to be most effective, in order to imitate them in my own career.

At the University of Utah, acclaimed programs such as the Maurice Abravanel Visiting Distinguished Composers Series allowed me to learn first-hand from many of today’s well-known greats such as John Harbison, Tristan Murail, Mario Davidovsky, and Yehudi Wyner.  These experiences gave me the goal to become a publishing composer, and one whose music comes alive through performance and in the media.  They also helped to shape my values and aspirations as a composer, such as pursuing a graduate degree and continued education, bringing my works to the public through performance and recording, studying with great mentors/role models, and being an active figure in the arena of modern musical composition.

Currently, I am pursuing a Masters in Music Composition at the University of Oregon, studying with Robert Kyr and David Crumb.

Biography

Seth is currently a Graduate Teaching Fellow in Composition at the University of Oregon, where he directs and conducts the Eugene Contemporary Chamber Ensemble.

Seth's music has been performed widely, garnering such prizes as a Barlow Endowment Commission and a Portland Vocal Consort Young Artist Competition award. His music has been read and performed by such acclaimed artists as the Portland Vocal Consort, the Canyonlands New Music Ensemble, Revalia men's choir (Estonia), Lucy Shelton (soprano), Ronald Feldman (cello), the University of Utah Composers Forum, Crosstalk, the Utah Composers Ensemble, and the University of Utah Composers Forum.

Seth's principal composition teachers have included Robert Kyr, David Crumb, Morris Rosenzweig, Miguel Chuaqui, and Steven Roens.