Jeremy Kittel

Jeremy Kittel is an American musician and composer.^[1][2] His primary instruments are the violin / fiddle and viola and he has worked in a number of genres including Celtic, Jazz, Pop, Classical, Bluegrass, Folk music, and more.

He leads his namesake group, Kittel & Co.^[3] and has worked with many prominent artists, including Béla Fleck, Abigail Washburn, Zedd, Fleet Foxes, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Shawn Mendes, My Morning Jacket, Yo-Yo Ma, the Silk Road Ensemble, Paquito D’Rivera, Mark O'Connor, Turtle Island Quartet, Jon Batiste, Aoife O'Donovan, Jars of Clay, and Darol Anger.

Kittel grew up in Saline, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance^[4] for his undergraduate degree and earned his master's degree in jazz violin from the Manhattan School of Music in 2007.^[1]

Jeremy Kittel has performed as a soloist with many orchestras including the Detroit Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic and Orlando Philharmonic.^[1] He was a guest twice on A Prairie Home Companion and has played in the house band for Live From Here and Late Night with Stephen Colbert. He has also played the Kennedy Center, Bonnaroo, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and Carnegie Hall.

'Chrysalis,' a track on his group's 2018 album Whorls, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition; the other nominees were John Williams, Alan Silvestri, Terence Blanchard, and Alexandre Desplat.^[5] He has won other awards throughout his career, some of the more notable being the Daniel Pearl Memorial Violin; the Stanley Medal and Emerging Artist Award at the University of Michigan;^[6][7] the Detroit Music Award for Outstanding Folk Artist, Outstanding Jazz Recording and Outstanding Jazz composer;^[8] and the U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Championship.^[9]

In 2015, Kittel co-composed the symphonic work Bull Frogs Croon with Aoife O'Donovan and Teddy Abrams, and it was performed with himself and O'Donovan as soloists. In 2016, the Konzerthaus Berlin commissioned him to compose a piece for the 100th birthday of Yehudi Menuhin. The work, "A Compass in the Tempest," was premiered with violinists Daniel Hope, Roby Lakatos, L. Subramaniam, Gilles Apap, Didier Lockwood and Mark O’Connor. In 2020, alongside the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and Eric Jacobsen he premiered a newly commissioned piece, Stones River, drawing upon upon early American music.^[10] And in 2022, he premiered In the Dream, for Symphonic Band and solo violin, commissioned by the University of Michigan, at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, MI.^[11]

As an arranger, he has worked with Aoife O'Donovan, Zedd, Sara Watkins, Shawn Mendes, Abigail Washburn, Theo Katzman, Yo-Yo Ma, the Silk Road Ensemble, Renee Fleming, the Turtle Island Quartet, Laura Veirs, Chris Thile, My Morning Jacket, John Mayer, Jars of Clay, Camera Obscura, and more.