Tim Connell

A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and a virtuoso mandolinist with over twenty years professional performing experience, Tim Connell has created a sophisticated and original global style on the mandolin.  Widely regarded as one of the top North American interpreters of the Brazilian choro style on the mandolin, Tim has also developed his own unique voice for the instrument, described in a Mandolin Magazine cover story as “fiery and energetic, soulful and evocative.”

Tim’s latest release “June Apple” is an acoustic tour-de-force with fingerstyle jazz guitarist Eric Skye.  Tim regularly tours Europe and North America in the international mandolin supergroup The Ger Mandolin Orchestra.  He has been a featured guest artist at national conventions of the Classical Mandolin Society of America.  Tim is a restless and prolific bandleader and arranger, sideman and studio musician, currently touring with his Brazilian choro duo, 1930’s-era swing quartet Stumptown Swing, Americana songsters The Old Yellers, riding high on their new release “Ten From Town”.  Tim’s solo act is a rhythmic and passionate distillation of his career-long exploration of the world’s many musical styles as realized on the mandolin and voice.

Tim has performed alongside top Brazilian musicians Dudu Maia, Choro das Tres, Alessandro Penezzi, Eduardo Neves and Almir Cortes.  He collaborates with jazz clarinet superstar Harvey Wainapel and the Berkeley Choro Ensemble and performed in the premiere of Wainapel’s new piece at the Berkeley Festival of Choro in May 2015.  Tim has performed with a roster of the greatest living mandolinists, including David Grisman, Mike Marshall, Avi Avital, Caterina Lichtenberg, Don Stiernberg, Rich Del Grosso, Chris Acquvella, Brian Oberlin and many others.

As a veteran teacher and workshop presenter, Tim teaches at the Mandolin Symposium, Steve Kaufman’s award-winning Acoustic Kamp, River of the West Mandolin Camp, the California Coast Music Camp, Django in June, Walker Creek Music Camp and the Wintergrass Festival Intensives, among many other music camps.  He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Music at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR.  Additionally, Tim was a contributor to the number-one selling mandolin instructional book, Don Julin’s “Mandolin for Dummies”.  He is also in-demand as an ensemble coach for both professional and amateur groups of all styles and instruments, helping bands improve their sound and overall vision and cleaning up arrangements as they head into the recording studio.