“Fetner takes risks — compositionally, tonally, artistically — that are too often not taken, and finds therein rich rewards.” — Patrick Wall, Free Times.
A Charleston, SC native, George Fetner (b. 1985) has composed pieces for orchestra, wind ensemble, chamber groups, soloists, computers, installations, improvisers, flash mob, and rock band, and has had premieres in Europe and the United States on programs such as the North American Saxophone Alliance, the UNC Greensboro New Music Festival, the Soundscape Composition-Performance Exchange, The Bennington Chamber Music Conference, The Southern Exposure New Music Series, Baker & Baker at the Columbia Museum of Art, The Nickelodeon Theater, the 21 Sounds New Music Series, Wired Music, and by groups Decoda, Dark in the Song, the ebb-flow new music collective, C-Street Brass, Cica, FretX Duo (Mak Grgic and Dan Lippel) and the South Carolina Philharmonic.
He continues to compose and perform regularly as a soloist and bandleader, including modern works for electric guitar such as Lois V. Vierk’s “Go Guitars” and Louis Andriessen’s “De Staat” on the Southern Exposure New Music Series. His debut album of electroacoustic works, Beneath the Ice, features Michael Harley (bassoon) of Alarm Will Sound and other University of South Carolina faculty and alumni, and is praised as “lucid, transparent, and liquid; it is a voyage into intimate, personal worlds.” (Jasper Magazine).
Other releases include Some Things We’ll Change, a 2017 solo acoustic folk album where “every track feels like it has a place and was hand crafted with painstaking emotion” (SC Music Guide) as well as the 2018 self-titled debut by GFATS (George Fetner and the Strays), “a remarkably tight and well-executed triumph of euphoric classic rock sensibilities, with subtle horn flourishes and joyful backing vocals” (Jasper Magazine), Longer Like This (2020), “something entirely distinct altogether and stretches the limits of genres and categories,” (jambandpurist.com) and Let the Words Be Yours, (2024) a 43-minute instrumental, improvisational rock excursion by TenMileRide.
Fetner holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Music Composition from the University of South Carolina. Awards include the John and Lucrecia Herr Award for Composition, the Trenholm Artist Guild Composition Award, a composition fellowship from the Bennington Chamber Music Conference, and the winner of Osiris Media’s Wordsmith Contest with Phish lyricist Tom Marshall. His primary teachers included Jesse Jones, John Fitz Rogers, Christopher Berg, and Reginald Bain.