Seth Hedquist graduated from The School for Music Vocations at Southwestern Community College in 2005. He works as a full-time professional musician in Des Moines, Iowa. As an educator, Hedquist teaches improvisation - primarily with a guitar focus - to students of all ages at The Seth Hedquist School of Music and Improvisation (SHSMI), and is the jazz guitar instructor at Drake University. As a performer, Hedquist has played and recorded with Des Moines artists such as Bonne Finken, Nella Thomas, James Biehn, and The Maytags. He has played with the Des Moines Symphony since 2015; pieces include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (tenor banjo) and William Bolcom’s Ragomania (guitar). With the Symphony he has also accompanied Tony Award-winning performers such as Audra McDonald, Sutton Foster, Kristin Chenoweth, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Bernadette Peters. He plays at the Des Moines Civic Center for traveling Broadway musicals; past shows include Beautiful: A Carole King Musical, Something Rotten!, Chicago, Mean Girls, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, The Wiz, and MJ: The Musical. And this summer he will play guitar for the Des Moines Metro Opera’s production of The Barber of Seville. Past performances with DMMO include Porgy and Bess (2022) and The Falling and the Rising (2023).

Hedquist is the bandleader for Plymouth Congregational Church’s Saturday Night Band, and is the music director and choral conductor at Wakonda Christian Church.

He lives in Des Moines with his wife and two children.