Bio

Garrett Byrnes composes a wide variety of concert music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, vocalists and instrumentalists. Byrnes’ music has been performed in many of the worlds leading concert halls, among them New York’s Carnegie Hall, The Concertgebouw of Amsterdam and Cité de la Musique in Paris. His music has been performed by orchestras and ensembles including the Minnesota Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, CSUN Symphony Orchestra, Contra Costa Chamber Orchestra, Anadolu Symphony String Orchestra, Peabody Symphony and Concert Orchestras, Chesapeake Youth Repertory Orchestra, Indiana University New Music Ensemble, Cleveland Chamber Collective, Tarab Cello Ensemble, Tonus Percussion Group and the Allemagnetti Duo, as well as renowned international soloists including French cellist Xavier Phillips, Dutch harpist Lavia Meijer, Israeli pianist David Greilsammer, and Turkish pianist Toros Can.

Byrnes’ orchestral music is currently gaining wider recognition. Recently La Chapelle d’Auguilhe: Concerto for Cello & Orchestra, was premiered and featured on a series of concerts given by the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire conducted by Sascha Goetzel and featuring cellist Xavier Phillips. Capriccio Tempestoso for harp and orchestra was premiered by harpist Emily Wren Colton and the Chicago Composers Orchestra conducted by Mathew Kasper. Prior to these performances, conductor Osmo Vänskä lead the Minnesota Orchestra in the premiere of Solace, the CSUN Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Roscigno premiered Red Moon after the work received the Northridge Prize for Orchestral Composition, and the Indiana University New Music Ensemble conducted by David Dzubay and featuring pianist Jihye Chang premiered his Concerto for Piano & Chamber Orchestra.

Several of Byrnes’ chamber works have also seen recent premieres. Devil in Moscow, commissioned for the Allemagnetti Duo (viola and harpsichord), received its premiere in May, 2009 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall in New York City. Earlier, Mosaics for wind quintet was commissioned and premiered by the Alpha Lambda chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of Illinois Wesleyan University, and a set of four pieces commissioned for the Cleveland Chamber Collective were given their premieres at Cleveland State University.

Other premieres have included Sprocket! for solo cello given by Florent Renard-Payen at Northwestern University in Chicago, and Villanelle for violin and harp commissioned for the Dutch duo of Tjeerd Top and Lavinia Meijer, and premiered by them at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In addition, harpist Lavinia Meijer has given numerous recent performances of Byrnes’ work for solo harp, Visions in Twilight, in the cities of Amsterdam, Athens, Birmingham, Brussels, Cologne, Dublin, New York, Paris, and Vienna among others. She also features the work on her latest CD Visions that derives its name from the piece. Ms. Meijer will be the featured soloist in the premiere of Byrnes’ newly completed commissioned work for harp, string quartet, flute and clarinet in the near future.

Garrett Byrnes has served as Assistant Professor of Theory and Composition at Ball State University, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Composition at Illinois Wesleyan University, and as Associate Instructor of Composition at Indiana University. He received degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (DM), Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University (MM), and The Boston Conservatory (BM), and has studied composition with Sven-David Sandström, Chen Yi, Don Freund, David Dzubay and Larry Bell. Awards include those from the American Music Center, National Association of Composers, American Art Song Competition, ASCAP, USA International Harp Composition Competition, Indiana University, California State University at Northridge, and The Boston Conservatory, and he has received fellowships from the Corporation of Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and resided at the artist house of St. Mary's College of Maryland.

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