Sean Connors is an engaging teacher and performer devoted to the highest quality of percussion performance and education. He currently teaches percussion at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and has a keen interest in promoting and performing contemporary music. Sean has made appearances with several new music groups including eighth blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Signal, Metropolis Ensemble, Third Coast Percussion, Volta Trio, Society for New Music, and Eastman’s Musica Nova led by Brad Lubman. Sean has worked with such renowned composers as John Adams, Tan Dun, John Luther Adams, Augusta Read Thomas, Sydney Hodkinson, Helmut Lachenmann, David Lang, Jack Fortner, Chen Yi, Eric Whitacre, Alejandro Viñao, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, David Liptak, Robert Morris, Allan Schindler and Juan Trigos, and has collaborated with vocalists Tony Arnold and Jamie Jordan, violinist Oleh Krysa, violist John Graham, clarinetist Ken Grant, pianists Rita Sloan and Antoinette Perry, and percussion virtuosi Anders Åstrand, Bob Becker, Michael Burritt, Bill Cahn, and Steve Schick.
While pursuing doctoral studies at the Eastman School of Music, Sean worked on the board of OSSIA new music, was featured as concerto soloist with the Graduate Composer’s Sinfonietta, and twice traveled to Mexico to perform at the Cervantino Festival and Festival Internacional de Guanajuato with Eastman Broadband. He has performed the world premiere of over sixty works and has had pieces specifically written for him by several emerging young composers including Drew Baker, Jennifer Bellor, Michaela Eremiasova, Hannah Lash, Lena Neitfeld, and Scott Worthington. His own ventures into composition include the marimba duo “No Parking Anytime” which is published by Keyboard Percussion Publications.
For two consecutive summers, Sean was a fellowship member of the Aspen Music Festival where he was the percussionist in the Contemporary Ensemble led by Sydney Hodkinson, was a featured marimba soloist with that group, and was broadcast on American Public Media’s Performance Today. While at Aspen, he co-founded the Aspen Open Ears project, a new music festival that brings contemporary and avant-garde music to a diverse audience through free public concerts.
Sean is extremely dedicated to arts education and believes that the key to the success of music in our modern society is teaching others about the beauties of varied traditions of music. He was recently the interim Professor of Percussion at Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, NY, where he co-hosted the Central New York Day of Percussion. Sean has taught Percussion Methods class to music education majors at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY and was awarded the Teaching Assistant Prize for teaching the same class at Eastman. He was also the percussion mentor for the New Horizons Program through the Eastman Community Music School through which he worked with seniors of various abilities and backgrounds. Sean taught general classroom music to elementary and middle school students in the northern suburbs of Chicago for two years. He has also given clinics at the Jump Start Day of Percussion in Lake Villa, IL, and the Woods Charter School Percussion Festival in Chapel Hill, NC.
Sean received a master’s degree from Northwestern University where he graduated with Program Honors. At Northwestern, he won the school-wide concerto competition and performed the United States premiere of Tobias Brostrom’s ARENA Concerto for Percussion. He is an alumnus of the Eastman School of Music where he received a BM in percussion performance and music education, and was awarded the school’s prestigious Performer’s Certificate. While at Eastman, Sean was named a 2004 percussion scholar by the Zildjian Company, received certificates from both the Arts Leadership and World Music programs, and toured Asia with the Eastman Wind Ensemble.
CLICK HERE FOR A LISTING OF SEAN'S EVENTS
Some of Sean's other projects:
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"SUN" by Baljinder Sekhon with Volta TrioI was lucky enough to recently record Baljinder Sekhon's new percussion trio with Chris Clarino and Erik Lutters of Volta Trio. Check out the end result and please purchase this fantastic new piece from Baljinder!
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"Lennon Scatters and Fleeces His Flock" by John Liberatore, with John Graham, violaOn November 22, 2010, virtuoso viola soloist John Graham and the Eastman Graduate Composers Sinfonietta premiered my friend (and talented composer) John Liberatore's LENNON SCATTERS AND FLEECES HIS FLOCK. The piece is based upon an experience that John had walking down the street and encountering a rather disheveled looking man wearing a sandwich board poster that read "Lennon Scatters and Fleeces His Flock" with no other explanation. He was intrigued enough to write a piece about it and the work now exists in two forms: as a chamber piece for viola and percussion and as an orchestral piece with a viola soloist. This is a recording of the world premiere performance of the viola and percussion duo version from Sunday April 17, 2011 at Memorial Gallery of Art, Rochester, NY.
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"No Parking Anytime" with Tim Briones of the Eastman Percussion EnsembleMany thanks to Prof. Michael Burritt of the Eastman School of Music for programming my marimba duo on an Eastman Percussion Ensemble concert and many many many thanks to my good friend Tim Briones for learning it. Notice that just like when Zlotnick and I play it, I gave Tim the hard part! Here's the performance from February 24, 2011 on the beautiful Eastman Theater Stage at Kodak Hall, Rochester, NY.
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"Marimba Spiritual" by Minoru Miki
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Eastman BroadBand in Mexico This past fall I traveled on my second tour with Eastman BroadBand to New York City's Miller Theatre, Festival Internacional Cervantino in the beautiful Mexican town of Guanajuato, and Mexico City's Conservatorio Nacional de Música. The ensemble, founded at the Eastman School by composers Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, seeks to perform the most stirring music of our time with uncompromising eloquence and warmth. This short film features music by Sanchez-Gutierrez, Zohn-Muldoon, BroadBand conductor Juan Trigos, Luciano Berio and Toru Takemitsu, and was shot and directed by Reed Nisson. Check out the BroadBand site for more info: http://www.carlossg.com/broadband.html
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"Inuksuit" by John Luther Adams
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