Sun Valley Artist Series is funded in part by a grant from the Idaho Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts

Garrett Fischbach, violin

Garrett Fischbach has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 1998, and was a member of the San Francisco Symphony (1996-98) and the National Symphony Orchestra (1995-96). As a member of the MET Orchestra, he is a winner of three Grammy Awards. Each season with the MET, he performs a series of symphonic concerts at Carnegie Hall, and 120 performances of 24 different opera productions at Lincoln Center, with regular live broadcasts via radio, internet, and satellite to cinema screens worldwide. He has performed at the Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals, and toured extensively in Europe and Asia.

An active soloist and chamber musician, he performs regularly in New York City as first violinist of a string quartet with colleagues from the MET Orchestra. In 2012, the quartet presented a benefit concert for Amani Global works, helping raise nearly $70,000 for a medical clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2007 he gave televised performances at the Institute of Italian Culture in Shanghai as first violinist of a string quartet with faculty members from the Shanghai Conservatory. His 2004 recording of the complete Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo by J.S. Bach received critical acclaim in Fanfare Magazine and American Record Guide.

A faculty member at Mannes College of Music in New York City since 2008, Garrett has served on the faculty at International Music Academy Pilsen, Czech Republic, the Sid & Mary Foulger International Music Fesitival, and has presented master classes in China at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, and the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He has served as an adjudicator at the Manhattan School of Music, and is sought after in New York City as a teacher and audition coach for advanced violinists and violists. His article entitled Mastering the Unknown: Guidelines for Successful Orchestra Auditions was published by American String Teachers Association in 2008.

After early studies with his father Gerald Fischbach, Garrett attended the North Carolina School of the Arts as a student of Stephen Shipps and Elaine Richey. He completed his Bachelor of Music degree, magna cum laude, at Boston University where he studied violin with George Neikrug and Yuri Mazurkevich, and chamber music with the Muir String Quartet. He earned his Master of Music degree at Northern Illinois University where he studied violin with Shmuel Ashkenasi and chamber music with the Vermeer Quartet. Additional studies included violin with with Roland and Almita Vamos at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, and Chamber music at The Taos School of Music with the American String Quartet, Michael Tree, and Robert McDonald.