Photo by Shravya K.

Violinist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer Abby Swidler spins sound into immersive dreamscapes that invite listeners to explore and reflect upon the natural world. Abby’s music thoughtfully weaves together organic and electronic textures to create sonic landscapes which are both of the earth and other-worldly. Abby’s music fluidly lives between categories, with threads of contemporary classical, minimalism, folk, ambient, electronic, and experimental music.

Since 2017, Abby has been connecting with the natural world and exploring environmental themes in their music. Their piece Arbor for baroque violin and electronics (2023), explores the theme of deforestation in the United States, and the dualities of past & present, grief & hope, and nature & technology.  Horizon & Retrospect (2021) examines snapshots of evolving landscapes in Portland, ME. Botanical Portraits (JACK Quartet Studio, 2020) is a series of miniatures for string quartet focused on plant life.  Abby hopes to inspire listeners to feel affirmed in their own unique identities, and to encourage care for one another and the planet.

Their solo project tonguetide will be releasing from the outside EP Oct 4, 2024. Their first release under this project, from the outside is a prismatic collection of captivating soundscapes and intimate songs. Instrumentals, vocals, electronics, and sounds from daily-life and nature are interwoven into wondrous sonic collages.

A violinist, violist, vocalist, and passionate collaborator, Abby is a founding member of Diaphanous Ensemble, a genre-bending composer, improvisor, performer collective started with Che Buford & Aimée Niemann.  Diaphanous co-composed, produced, and recorded a work for visual artist Deborah Jack’s seven-panel video installation which will be on exhibit in fall/winter of 2024 in the New Orleans Triennial.  Diaphanous premiered four new string-quartets by its members in Aug, 2023, and performed with Ioanna Gika as part of Jacolby Satterwhite’s A Metta Prayer, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Sep, 2023.

Abby is a touring member of the band Iron & Wine, playing violin, viola, and singing.  Abby’s work is also featured across a variety of collaborations, including ruby, a dream-pop duo with songwriter kim mayo that Bandcamp Daily described as “a striking, evocative work full of hushed beauty,” and Tsubaki, a collaboration with Courtney Swain & Kyle Harris, which released the short film Ripe featuring the group’s layered and haunting compositions. They have also composed film scores for “THE THAW” directed by Sean Temple and Sarah Wisner, “HOLDING BACK THE TIDE” directed by Emily Packer, and “I Await the Devil’s Coming,” directed by Jeff Verlanic.  As a composer, Abby has written works for Palaver Strings, BBC Shortcuts, Dance Visions INC, O Miami Poetry Festival, and the Peabody Essex Museum. 

Abby has performed and recorded with artists including Hamed Sinno, Japanese Breakfast, Angel Olsen, Kishi Bashi, L’Rain, Lady Lamb, Billy Martin, Carla Kihlstedt, Shattered Glass, Mirah, Darlene Love, Jherek Bischoff, Ava Luna, I’m With Her, Band of Horses, Bent Knee, Palaver Strings, and The Jessica Pavone String Ensemble. They have performed on The Tonight Show, at SXSW, Newport Folk Festival, Winter JazzFest, Panama Jazz Festival, Halifax Jazz Fest, National Sawdust, Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Joe’s Pub, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Lincoln Center.  They are featured on over 40 studio albums.

Abby has been an artist in residence at the Banff Center for the Arts, Art Omi, Subcircle Residency, the Turkey Land Cove Foundation for the Arts, The Panama Jazz Festival, and Oak Spring Garden Foundation. Abby was a JACK Quartet Studio Artist, an Experimental Institute fellow at Antenna Cloud Farm, a New Amsterdam Records Genre-Fluid Composers Lab fellow, and a Gabriela Lena Frank Academy of Music fellow.   They received a B.M. in Violin Performance from Eastman School of Music and an M.M. in Contemporary Improvisation from The New England Conservatory. Originally from Missoula, MT, they currently live in Brooklyn, NY.