Biography

Shawn Bennett is a dynamic conductor, educator, arranger, trombonist and choral singer from Clarenville, Newfoundland and Labrador. He holds Bachelors degrees in Music Performance (Trombone) and Music Education from Memorial University of Newfoundland, as well as a Masters of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Toronto. Shawn was recently announced as one of the inaugural Artistic Directors of the Laurier Academy of Music & Arts "NextGen Youth Orchestra" in Waterloo, ON, with duties commencing in Fall 2024. He has served as Associate Conductor for the UofT Campus Philharmonic since 2021, and is looking forward to upcoming performances with the newly formed Rosedale Symphony Orchestra in 2025 and 2026. He has conducted numerous professional and educational ensembles throughout his career both at home and abroad. Some of these include l’Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, l’Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Toronto, the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Wind Symphony, the University of Redlands Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensembles, and MacMillan Singers (CA), the Summerhill Orchestra, the Milton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rouge River Winds, the Toronto Saxophone Collective, the Oakville Youth Symphony, the Newfoundland Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Shallaway Youth Choir (NL), and the “Off the Cuff” Community Choir (NL), for whom he served as Artistic Director from 2017-2019.

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Shawn has had the pleasure of learning from many beloved and respected conductors throughout his studies and travels, including Yannick Nézet-Seguin (OM, Philadelphia Orchestra, Met Opera), Kensho Watanabe (Philadelphia Orchestra, Met Opera), Daniel Raiskin (Winnipeg Symphony), Otto Tausk (Vancouver Symphony), Matthew Lynch (London Philharmonic Orchestra), Dr. Jonathan Girard (UBC), Michael Newnham (OT), Prof. Uri Mayer, Dr. Gillian MacKay and Dr. Jamie Hillman (UofT), Dr Nicholle Andrews and Prof. Co Boi Nguyen (University of Redlands), Charles Gambetta (Embodied Conducting Institute), Kellie Walsh (Shallaway Youth Choir), and Dr. Jason Caslor (Arizona State University). 

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​Shawn is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, and has been the recipient of such prestigious recognitions as the University of Toronto Fellowship in Music, the OSOTF Feldbrill Fellowship, the Newfoundland and Labrador Centennial Study Award, the Bo Ying Wat Endowed Scholarship and the Friends of Music Endowed Scholarship from the University of Redlands, and the Shallaway Choral Scholarship.

Shawn is based in Toronto, ON on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, where he lives with his wife, Leah, and teaches instrumental music at the Sterling Hall School. He is a fierce advocate for composers from underrepresented backgrounds, and has in the last two years alone championed works by Violet Archer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Reena Esmail, Augusta Holmès, Jessie Montgomery, Florence Price, Clara Schumann, and Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel.

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