Sean Shibe

With his interest in both contemporary and ancient music, classical guitarist Sean Shibe excels at making musical connections between disparate sounds and eras. His acclaimed 2018 collection Softloud: Music for Acoustic and Electric Guitars found him starting off with majestic acoustic interpretations of Scottish lute manuscripts and then wielding an electric guitar for delicate interpretations of avant-garde Steve Reich compositions. Born in 1992 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Shibe learned from the best, studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and in Italy with influential teacher Paolo Pegoraro. In 2018, Shibe was the first guitarist to receive the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Young Artists, an honor awarded on the heels of his being named a Young Classical Artists Trust artist from 2015 to 2017. His recording career supports these honors, with 2020’s Bach, an ornate collection of Bach lute suites, leading to 2022’s electric-guitar-driven Lost & Found.