Colin Stetson was born and raised in Ann Arbor, and spent a decade in San Francisco and Brooklyn honing his formidable talents as a horn player, working extensively live and in studio with a wide range of acts including Tom Waits, TV on the Radio, Arcade Fire, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. Meanwhile, he has developed an utterly unique voice as a soloist, principally on saxophones and clarinets, his intense technical prowess matched by his exhilarating and emotionally gripping skills as a songwriter. He settled in Montreal in 2007.
Stetson has released various solo releases, including his debut and subsequent albums New History Warfare Vol. 1 (2008), 2 (Constellation records – 2011, shortlisted for Polaris Music Prize), & 3 (Constellation records – 2013), a collaborative studio album with violinist Sarah Neufeld entitled Never Were the Way She Was (2015 – Juno award for Instrumental Album of the Year), SORROW: A Reimagining of Henryk Górecki’s 3rd Symphony (2016), All This I Do for Glory (2017), his drone album Chimaera I (2022), and his latest release When we were that what wept for the sea (2023). Since 2013, Stetson has contributed the scores to several films and television series, notably Hereditary (2018), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) and The Menu (2022).
His frequent appearances on stages at SXSW, All Tomorrow’s Parties, and countless stops on the international jazz festival circuit cemented his reputation as a versatile and virtuosic player while bringing his solo work to a broad international audience.