In 2005, composer Sean Shepherd was a first-prize winner in the international Lutoslawski Prize, was recipient of the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and attended the Tanglewood Music Center as the Wallace-Readers Digest Composition Fellow. His music has been performed both in the United States and abroad, at venues such as Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall, Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Library of Congress, the Aspen Music Festival, the Duke's Hall in London, and the sixth World Harp Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, where he was the youngest composer featured as part of its Contemporary Chamber Music Concert Series. Recent performances include those with the New Music Ensemble at the University of Texas, Ensemble X, and the Minnesota Orchestra. In summer 2006 he will attend the Composition Masterclass at Aspen, and in April 2007 a new piece for the New York Youth Symphony chamber players will premiere at Carnegie Hall. He has been selected as the Deutsche Bank Berlin Prize Fellow for 2007-08, and will reside at the American Academy in Berlin.

He has been a top prizewinner in student competitions, including the Palmer Dixon Prize for Outstanding Composition at Juilliard, the Indiana University Dean's Award in Composition and the Webb Award in Composition from the National Society of Arts and Letters, in addition to awards from organizations such as ASCAP and Ensemble X. In October 2004, he toured New York and London with members of the New Juilliard Ensemble and the Manson Ensemble of the Royal Academy of Music as part of a joint commission by both institutions. Metamorphoses was premiered in New York and London, and was released on the RAM label in 2005.

His music has been written for and performed by noted young artists including mezzo-soprano Brenda Patterson, pianists Aaron Wunsch, Frederic Lacroix, Daniel Spiegel, and harpist Nadia Pessoa. As a conductor, he has presented premieres and performances of new works by composers such as Nico Muhly, Kay Rhie, Marcos Balter, Chris Gendall and David Schober, as well as premieres of his own music, including the June 2005 premiere of Ozymandias for mixed voices, string quartet and clarinet at Tanglewood, performed with TMC Vocal Fellows and the New Fromm Players, and a movement of a new Chamber Concerto performed at Cornell in April 2006. Conductors including Osmo Vänskä, Jeff Milarsky, Simon Bainbridge, Joel Sachs and David Dzubay have presented his music in concert. Upcoming projects include a work for percussionist Sam Solomon, a piece for violin/piano for Ben Sung and Jihye Chang, and a new piece for clarinetist Rick Faria and pianist Xak Bjerken.

Other recent performances include the premiere performances of I believe in democracy (from a text by Woodrow Wilson), with Judith Clurman and the Election Singers at the Library of Congress in Washington in October; surface tension with the Juilliard Symphony, Milarsky conducting, in Alice Tully Hall in April; and Twilight with Kim Walker and the New Century String Quartet in the Bloomington (IN) Arts Week Festival in February 2004. His glimmers of fear and wonder, for large chamber ensemble, was selected to open the Midwest Composers Symposium in 2002.

Originally from Reno, Nevada, Sean is a 2004 graduate of The Juilliard School, where he earned his Master's degree as a student of Robert Beaser. He holds degrees in composition (BM) and bassoon performance (Performer Diploma) from Indiana University, where his teachers included Claude Baker and David Dzubay, composition, and Kim Walker, bassoon. He is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at Cornell University, as a student of Roberto Sierra and Steven Stucky. He worked privately and in close seminars and projects with composers George Benjamin, Michael Gandolfi, John Harbison, Steve Mackey, Bright Sheng, Augusta Read Thomas, Marc-Andre Dalbavie, Sydney Hodkinson, and Christopher Rouse at the Tanglewood and Aspen Festivals.