Keir GoGwilt

Keir GoGwilt is a violinist, scholar, and composer based in New York City. His work combines historical research and collaborative experimentation across a range of musical styles and genres. Known as a "formidable performer" (New York Times) with an "evocative sound" (London Jazz News) and "finger-busting virtuosity" (San Diego Union Tribune), he has soloed with groups including the Orchestra of St. Luke's, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Chinese National Symphony, Orquesta Filarmonica de Santiago, and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project. As a founding member of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), he has performed original, collaboratively-devised music, dance, and theater works at the 92nd st Y, Luminato Festival, PS 122 COIL, Stanford Live, the American Repertory Theater, Carolina Performing Arts, the Momentary, and the Ojai Music Festival. His recompositions of renaissance and medieval music with violinist Johnny Chang have been released on Another Timbre; his improvising duo with bassist Kyle Motl has been noted for their "rhapsodic gestures" (The New Yorker) and "keen musical intellects" (The Wire). GoGwilt earned his PhD in Music (Integrative Studies) from UC San Diego in 2021, where he received the Chancellor's Dissertation Medal for the Division of Arts & Humanities. As an undergraduate at Harvard he studied Literature, and was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts. His research has been published in Current Musicology, Naxos Musicology, MDW Press, and the Orpheus Institute Series.