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Brennan Sweet, violin
Born in New York City, Brennan Sweet began violin studies at two years of age in Edmonton, Alberta. In 1977 he studied violin at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. Beginning his college education as an engineering student at Washington University in St. Louis, Mr. Sweet transferred and earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University, eventually serving for three years as teaching assistant to Distinguished Professor Emeritus Josef Gingold before joining the faculty for another two years as a Lecturer. Concertmaster of several orchestras during his time at Indiana University, including the Evansville Philharmonic and Owensboro Symphony Orchestras, Brennan was also a founding member of the Evansville String Quartet. He performed as Assistant Concertmaster of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder under Maestro Giora Bernstein, and in 1994 he won the position of Associate Concertmaster with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, subsequently leading the orchestra for three seasons as Acting Concertmaster under Maestro Zdenek Macal. Mr. Sweet was a founding member of the Mostly Mozart at Monteux Festival in Hancock, Maine, and has served as coach and performer at the Raphael Trio Chamber Music workshop in New Hampshire and ASTA-NJ’s Chamber Music Institute. After holding the position of Concert Artist faculty member at Kean University for several years, Mr. Sweet began teaching at the Mason Gross Extension Division at Rutgers University in 2013, and in 2016 he was invited to join the collegiate faculty at the Mason Gross School of the Arts as Violin Instructor. Recently he joined forces with pianist Allison Brewster-Franzetti to form a duo performing a wide selection of repertoire in various venues in northern New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area.