Musician of the Month: Sean Shepherd

Sean Shepherd is a composer of contemporary music. Originally from Reno, Nevada in the USA, he composes music for orchestras, ensembles, duos and solo piano.

Year 2 have been learning about Shepherd’s composition style in context with his piece Tuolumne (which is a word from the Native American language Miwok), inspired by several photographs of Yosemite National Park in California. There are three movements to his piece of music, each representing a different photo, titled: “Water over Rock”, “Winter Sunrise”, and “Merced Lake Country”. He wrote music that told a musical story that was shaped by the aspects found in the photos, such as the shape of the mountains or light and dark areas of the landscape. Below is a quote from Shepherd talking about the way he used the photos to compose his piece, Tuolumne:

“The three movements of Tuolumne are, in my view, best understood as emotional responses to these works of art. I intended neither to illuminate nor describe the photos in a deliberately programmatic or pictorial sense. […] The story of the music, with its twists and turns, peaks and valleys, and shifts of mood and character, may or may not mirror one’s experience of the images.” – Sean Shepherd, quoted from his website.

Click Read More to learn more about Shepherd's music and to listen to a piece!

Shepherd’s most recent orchestral composition was not inspired by photographs, unlike Tuolumne. Instead, Shepherd says it was his love of Russian orchestral music, as well as Russian folklore that prompted him to write his piece for orchestra in 2013 called Magiya. This word is, in fact, Russian for ‘magic’. Listen to a short excerpt of Magiya in the video below, played by the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, (and for which the piece was written for):