Sean Shepherd is an American composer based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

and

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, Pennsylvania. His work has been performed by major orchestras, ensembles, and performers across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Performances include those with the

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1 ...

, the

Cleveland Orchestra The Cleveland Orchestra, based in Cleveland, is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the " Big Five". Founded in 1918 by the pianist and impresario Adella Prentiss Hughes, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Seve ...

, the

New York Philharmonic The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is ...

, the

National Symphony Orchestra The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1930, its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It also performs for the annual National Me ...

, the

BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. T ...

, and

New World Symphony Orchestra The New World Symphony is an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida. Established in 1987, the organization is a training ensemble for young musicians in preparation for professional careers in classical music. Since 2011, the N ...

, at festivals including the

Aldeburgh Festival The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on Snape Maltings Concert Hall. History of the Aldeburgh Festival T ...

Heidelberger Frühling The International Music Festival Heidelberger Frühling is an annual classical music festival held in Heidelberg in March and April since 1997, with over 100 events and 47,000 visitors (2018). In addition to the festival's productions and concer ...

, La Jolla Music Festival,

Lucerne Festival Lucerne Festival is one of the leading international festivals in the world of classical music and presents a series of classical music festivals based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Founded in 1938 by Ernest Ansermet and Walter Schulthess, it curre ...

Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival is a six-week-long summer Festival of chamber music held annually in July and August and located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was founded in 1972 and presented its first series of concerts in 1973. Well-known mu ...

, and

Tanglewood Tanglewood is a music venue in the towns of Lenox and Stockbridge in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts. It has been the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937. Tanglewood is also home to three music schools: the ...

, and with leading European ensembles including

Ensemble Intercontemporain The Ensemble intercontemporain (EIC) is a French music ensemble, based in Paris, that is dedicated to contemporary music. Pierre Boulez founded the EIC in 1976 for this purpose, the first permanent organization of its type in the world. Organi ...

, the Scharoun Ensemble Berlin, the Asko, Schönberg Ensemble and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.

Early life and education

Shepherd was born in 1979 in

Reno, Nevada Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the c ...

. He performed his undergraduate work at the

Indiana University Jacobs School of Music The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, is a music conservatory established in 1921. Until 2005, it was known as the Indiana University School of Music. It has more than 1,500 students, approximately half of whom ar ...

, where he studied under David Dzubay and American composer

Claude Baker W. Claude Baker Jr. (born April 12, 1948 Lenoir, North Carolina) is an American composer of contemporary classical music. Biography Claude Baker attained a B.M. degree, magna cum laude, from East Carolina University in 1970. He subsequently stu ...

. His graduate work was completed at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most ...

, where he studied with American composer

Robert Beaser Robert Beaser (born May 29, 1954, Boston, Massachusetts) is an American composer. Biography Beaser was brought up in a non-musical family. His father was a physician and mother was a chemist. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, where he dist ...

, followed by doctoral studies under Puerto Rican Composer

Roberto Sierra Roberto Sierra (born 9 October 1953) is a Puerto Rican composer of contemporary classical music. Life Sierra was born in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. He studied composition in Europe, notably with György Ligeti in Hamburg (1979–1982), Germany. A ...

and American Composer

Steven Stucky Steven Edward Stucky (November 7, 1949 − February 14, 2016) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer. Life and career Stucky was born in Hutchinson, Kansas. At age 9, he moved with his family to Abilene, Texas, where, as a teenager, he s ...

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

Career

In 2012, Shepherd was named the Kravis Emerging Composer of the

. Shepherd's "Blue Blazes" premiered with

under the direction of

Christoph Eschenbach Christoph Eschenbach (; born 20 February 1940) is a German pianist and conductor. Early life Eschenbach was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). His parents were Margarethe (née Jaross) and Heribert Ringmann. He was orphaned during ...

in 2013. In 2021, Shepherd's work was featured at the

Tanglewood Music Festival The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Stockbridge and Lenox in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts. The festival consists of a series of concerts, including symphonic music, ch ...

and at the

. His work was deemed a "season highlight" when performed at the

Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music is an annual Festival dedicated to contemporary symphonic music by living composers. The music director since 2017 has been Cristian Măcelaru. According to Jesse Rosen, CEO of the League of American Orc ...

in 2021. Shepherd served as a finalist judge in the 2021

Broadcast Music, Inc. Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is a performance rights organization in the United States. It collects blanket license fees from businesses that use music, entitling those businesses to play or sync any songs from BMI's repertoire of over 20.6 milli ...

's 69th Annual Student Composer Awards. He is currently a visiting assistant professor of composition at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

Works

Orchestral

* ''Blue Blazes'', 2012 * ''Concerto for Ensemble'', 2014-15 * ''Desert Garden,'' 2011 * ''Downtime'', 2021 * ''Express Abstractionism'', 2017 * ''Magiya'', 2013 * ''Melt'', 2018 * ''Silvery Rills'', 2011 * ''Songs'', 2013 * ''Sprout'', 2021 * ''Tuolumne'', 2012 * ''Wanderlust'', 2009

Ensemble and Chamber Without Voices

* ''Aperture in Shift'', for violin, cello, and piano, 2006 * ''the birds are nervous, the birds are scattered'', for clarinet, violin, and piano, 2008 * ''Blur'', for ensemble, 2011 * ''Lumens'', for ensemble, 2005 * ''Means of Escape'', for violin, cello, and clarinet * ''Metamorphoses'', for ensemble, 2004 * ''Octet'', for ensemble, 2008 * ''Old Instruments'', for flute and percussion, 2021 * ''Quartet for Oboe and Strings'', for oboe quartet, 2011 * ''Quintet'', for chamber ensemble 2013 * ''String Quartet No. 1'', for string quartet, 2005 * ''String Quartet No. 2'', for string quartet, 2015 * ''String Quartet No. 3'', for string quartet, 2020 * ''Tiny Bright Big True Real'', for oboe, bassoon, and piano, 2022 * ''Trio'', for piano trio, 2012 * ''Twilight'', for bassoon and string quartet, 2001 * ''Vignette: Four Vinaigrettes'', for woodwind quintet, 2003/05 * ''Wanderlust - Seagulls on High'', for large ensemble, 2007

Ensemble and Chamber With Voices

* ''New Poems - 1907'', mezzo-soprano and ensemble, 2002-03 * ''Ozymandias'', for solo voices SATB, string quartet, and clarinet, 2005

Instrumental

* ''Dust'', for violin and piano, 2008 * ''Echo'', for oboe, 2017 * ''familiar'', for cello, 2022 * ''ribboned/braided/spun'', for harp, 2014 * ''wideOPENwide'', for violin, 2016

Chamber Orchestra

* ''These Particular Circumstances'', 2009

Choral

* ''The Daffodils'', 2013

Piano

* ''Preludes'', 2005-06

Solo Instrument and Orchestra

* On a Clear Day, Cello

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shepherd, Sean 1979 births People from Reno, Nevada American composers Indiana University alumni Cornell University alumni Living people