Ethan Gurwitz (b. 2000) is a composer and musician from San Antonio, Texas, currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Composition at the Butler School of Music (University of Texas).
Ethan’s music has been performed by collegiate, professional, and community ensembles from Texas to Scotland, and he has accepted commissions from the Metropolitan Winds, Horns United, the SMU Meadows Wind Ensemble, esteemed Broadway musician and recording artist Ron Wilkins, and budding hornist Shea Kells-Murphy, among others. He has also collaborated with GRAMMY-nominated Sandbox Percussion, the 2023 EAMA Resident String Quartet, Soprano Bethany Jelinek, librettist Emma Bolton, and Horn Choirs of the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University, among others.
He was selected for the 2021 International Trombone Festival Composers Workshop, won the 2021 Alpha Chi Edwin W. Gaston, Jr. National Scholarship, was a finalist for the 2021 and 2022 ASCAP Morton Gould Composition Contest, and has received recognition in multiple other composition contests. He was recently named a 2023 EAMA/Nadia Boulanger Fellow to the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, France. His composition instructors include Drs. Omar Thomas, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Donald Grantham, Lane Harder, Xi Wang, and Robert J. Frank.
In 2022, he received two degrees in Music Composition (BM) and Applied Mathematics (BS) at SMU, graduating Summa Cum Laude and with recognition as Standard Bearer for both the Meadows School of the Arts and Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. As a student at UT Butler and formerly Southern Methodist University, he has participated in both Wind Ensembles, Symphony Orchestras, Operas, and French Horn Studios – and he has studied horn with Mr. Gregory Hustis, Alex Kienle, and Patrick Hughes.
For the 2023-24 school year, he works as a Graduate Research Assistant for the UT Butler Composition Department. As a part of this position, he serves as President and Coordinator of CLUTCH Committee, leading four performances of new works by UT composers. And formerly, he served as president of the SMU Meadows Emerging Sounds Committee, featuring semesterly performances of new works by SMU composers.
In October 2021, he was a featured soloist with the SMU Meadows Symphony Orchestra alongside renowned Hollywood musician James Thatcher and two other SMU students. Recently, he was a member of the winning horn quartet at the 2023 International Horn Society Mid-South Collegiate Horn Ensemble Competition. In June 2022, he performed as a part of the International D-Day Memorial Service with the SMU Mustang Band in Normandy, France. Recently, he began a horn teaching position at Westlake HS, in Austin, TX.
