Mr Evan Setiawan

Evan is a professional violinist, teacher, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. He currently holds the position of String Coordinator at a private school on the Gold Coast. As a musician, he performs regularly with the Gold Coast Chamber Orchestra, DeepBlue Orchestra, and the Australian Session Orchestra. As an educator, he has over 15 years of experience teaching privately and has given string workshops to thousands of music students all across the country and overseas.

In 2007, after completing his Bachelor of Music with Honours at the University of Queensland, he joined DeepBlue Orchestra. With them, he has performed across Australia, Asia, and the USA. Some notable past performances include entertaining world leaders and heads of state, including our past Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australian State leaders, the Governor-General of Australia, the President of Vietnam, the Sultan of Malaysia, and the President of Taiwan. Evan has also performed at a private function for Bollywood superstar, Amitabh Bachchan. Other notable performances include the 2008 Adelaide Music Festival, the 2009 Malaysia Food Festival, the Blackberry launch in Bangkok and Jakarta, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, 2009 Queensland 150 Years celebration, 2010 Woodford Folk Festival, Finalist of 2011 Australia’s Got Talent, 2011 Brisbane Festival, 2012 Taiwan Lantern Festival, 2012 Taiwan International Firework Festival, 2014 Hue Music Festival (Vietnam), 2014 Taiwan Children Festival, 2015 Californian Polytechnics University Performances (USA), 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games Arts Festival. In January 2020, Evan played for the ABC live broadcast of the Australian of the Year Award on national television.

Evan was born on the island of Java, Indonesia. In 1998, during the Southeast Asian financial crisis, he was sponsored by an Australian family to immigrate to Queensland. Soon after the move, he started to learn the violin. When he was 17 years old, Evan was awarded the Norman Miller Violin Award from the city of Toowoomba. He has played, collaborated, and recorded for various film soundtracks, artists and bands including Dami Im, Kate Miller-Heidke, John Butler Trio and Marina Prior. In 2007, together with his classical piano trio ensemble, he won the 4MBS Chamber Music Award. On the weekends, Evan plays music at a local church.