Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe marks Canadian debut with Vancouver Recital Society, November 2

Grammy Award–nominated artist to play a mixed program of works by Steve Reich, J.S. Bach, Thomas Adès, and more

SPONSORED POST BY Vancouver Recital Society

Sean Shibe. Photo by Iga Gozdowska

Vancouver Recital Society presents Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe, a boundary-pushing force in contemporary classical music, in his Canadian debut at the Vancouver Playhouse on November 2 at 3 pm.

Highlights of Shibe’s 2025-26 season include the world premiere of Mark Simpson’s electric guitar concerto ZEBRA at the BBC Proms, his debut with London Symphony Orchestra, residencies at England’s Southbank Centre and Portugal’s Casa da Música, and recital tours across the U.K., Europe, and the U.S.

Shibe consistently garners critical acclaim for his recordings and has received six Gramophone Award shortlistings to date. His latest solo album Profesión won the BBC Music Magazine Award. His collaboration with tenor Karim Sulayman, Broken Branches, was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, and his solo album Lost & Found received an OPUS Klassik award. His forthcoming 2026 release, Vesper, features world-premiere recordings of classical guitar pieces by Thomas Adès, Harrison Birtwistle, and James Dillon.

Shibe studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Kunst-Universität Graz in Austria and in Italy under Paolo Pegoraro, and is currently a guitar professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He won the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award in 2018 and the Leonard Bernstein Award in 2022. Among the guitarist’s recent engagements was a residency at Wigmore Hall that featured a special programme for Pierre Boulez’s centenary. Shibe also recently debuted in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and toured with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Shibe is an ardent supporter of contemporary music, taking a hands-on approach to new commissions and working with composers to experiment with and expand the guitar repertoire. He is equally committed to the canon, regularly pairing bold new pieces with his own transcriptions of J.S. Bach’s lute suites and 17th-century Scottish lute manuscripts.

For his Vancouver Recital Society concert, the guitarist will perform contemporary works by Steve Reich, Sasha Scott, Tyshawn Sorey, and his frequent collaborator Adès. He’ll also play Frank Martin’s Quatre Pièces Brèves and a guitar arrangement of J.S. Bach’s Suite No. 1 for Cello Solo in G major, BWV 1007.

Tickets are available through Vancouver Recital Society.

Post sponsored by Vancouver Recital Society.

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