top of page

ABOUT

Seth_Van_Embden_Final-09.jpg

Photo courtesy of StagetimeArts

Charleston, South Carolina-based violist Seth Van Embden is a dynamic performer equally at home in a symphony orchestra, chamber ensemble, or historical instrument group, never one to be limited to a single genre or style. Seth was most recently a fellow with the New World Symphony in Miami, and has performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Illinois Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and Charleston Symphony. Seth was the violist for Crossing Borders Music, a Chicago-based group devoted to highlighting underrepresented composers and music, for which he recorded and performed pieces indigenous to Haiti, Palestine, the Balkans, Taiwan, as well as works created by composers from diverse backgrounds such as the LGBTQ and differently-abled communities. He most recently performed the Brahms Piano Quintet, Op. 34  on the Piccolo Spoleto festival in Charleston this spring.
 

Seth’s passion for historical performance has led him to perform across North America, including for the San Francisco Early Music Society, the Valley of the Moon Music Festival in Sonoma, and at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C, performing Haydn quartets on the museum’s collection of Stradivari and Amati instruments. He is a founding member and director of Ensemble Affect, an historically-inspired group devoted to making period performance practice meaningful and accessible to communities in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay area. The group’s concerts highlight cross-discipline collaboration with dancers and visual artists, as well as providing an introduction to classical music for young listeners with interactive children’s shows.


​

As an enthusiastic pedagogue, Seth has served as adjunct upper strings faculty at Joliet Junior College and recently given masterclasses at Whitman College in Washington state, the Guernsey Music Service in Great Britain, and at the Iberacademy in Medellín, Colombia. He delights in teaching orchestral repertoire, and has worked with students from all over south Florida through the Miami Music Project and New World Symphony Side-by-Side programs. He is a certified Suzuki instructor and previously served as elementary orchestra director for the Princeton, New Jersey public school district. 

 

Seth received his Masters degree on full scholarship from Northwestern University as a student of soloist Helen Callus, and a joint Bachelors of Music Education and Performance from Rutgers University under the tutelage of Philadelphia Orchestra principal violist CJ Chang. His other teachers include Li-Kuo Chang of the Chicago Symphony and Lynne Ramsey of The Cleveland Orchestra.

© 2025 by Seth Van Embden

bottom of page