Jack Sheen is a musical polymath, in demand as both conductor and composer, as well as a creator of dynamic cross-arts projects. At home in modern and contemporary music, he brings his compositional insight to interpretations of core repertoire that have been highly praised. His rare set of talents and passions drives a vision for the future of classical  music, and he is an active force for change.

Not yet 30, Sheen has already worked with leading orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Britten Sinfonia, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Manchester Camerata. Last season he returned to the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic and London Sinfonietta, as well as serving as a Guest Artist at Tanglewood Music Centre.

This season he has made his Royal Opera House debut, conducting Oliver Leith’s Last Days to great acclaim, and he conducts the London Sinfonietta at Southbank Centre, in a programme of new work including his own Phant Heap Render, as well as working with the group at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. He makes his debut with Bit20 Ensemble at Borealis Festival in Bergen in March 2023, and with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in November.

He also conducts and writes music for Europe’s most progressive ensembles, including Apartment House, EXAUDI, Les Métaboles, London Contemporary Orchestra, Ensemble 10/10 and FontanaMIX Ensemble, in diverse programmes that often include his own world premieres.

His own music encompasses concert works for orchestras, ensembles and soloists, alongside immersive performance-installations that disperse live musicians, audio, film, and dancers around spaces such as galleries or warehouses. He has been commissioned by orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Aurora Orchestra and Manchester Camerata.

Recent works include his debut album, Sub, a 50-minute work for large ensemble written for Octandre Ensemble, and his Solo for Cello, which was given its world premiere at Wigmore Hall. Other composition projects include Croon harvest (1490–1562), a sound-installation for the Venice Biennale Musica with Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart; Croon harvest (Serralves) a four-hour work for 50 voices and ensemble for Casa de Serralves in Porto; and a series of performance-installations as part of residencies at PINK Gallery in Manchester’s city centre and Blackheath Halls.

He was Co-Director of London Contemporary Music Festival from 2018-2023 and is Co-Founder of the critically acclaimed LCMF Orchestra. Awards include PRS Composers Fund (2021), Arts Foundation Fellowship (finalist, 2020), Rovaumont Voix Nouvelle Composition Prize (2018), Royal Philharmonic Prize for Composition (2016), an RNCM Gold Medal (2012) and BBC Young Composer of the Year (2011). In 2019 he was a Jerwood Fellow with Manchester International Festival.Jack Sheen is a conductor and composer from Manchester, England. His music spans orchestral works to performance and sound installations, and he regularly works with leading orchestras, ensembles, galleries, and artists on concert and operatic performances, commissions, and interdisciplinary projects. Especially at home within late-romantic, modern, and contemporary music, Jack brings his compositional insight to interpretations of core repertoire that have been highly praised.

Jack has conducted orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Britten Sinfonia, and Royal Northern Sinfonia, as well as ensembles such as London Sinfonietta, Bit20, Apartment House, EXAUDI, FontanaMix, and Ensemble 10/10. This season, Jack made his Royal Opera House debut, conducting Oliver Leith’s Last Days to great acclaim, returned to Tanglewood Music Centre as a Guest Artist, and will soon make his debut with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and City of London Sinfonia.

As a composer, Jack has had concert works commissioned by orchestras, ensembles and organisations such as the LSO, BBC Philharmonic, London Sinfonietta, BBC Radio 3, Aldeburgh Festival, Apartment House, EXAUDI, Manchester Camerata, Aurora Orchestra, and Les Métaboles, alongside large-scale site-specific installations by Venice Biennale Musica and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Casa de Serralves (Porto), V&A Museum (London), Holden Gallery (Manchester) and PINK (Manchester).

Recent projects include Phant Heap Render, a 15’ large ensemble and audio work commissioned by the London Sinfonietta; his debut album Sub, a 50’ spatialised large-ensemble work commissioned by Octandre Ensemble; Solo for Cello, which received its world premiere at Wigmore Hall by Anton Lukoszevieze, Director of Apartment House, to critical acclaim and later released on CD by The Trilogy Tapes; and a series of open-form performance-installations deconstructing, spatialising and expanding existing concert works across large spaces and extended time-frames, in which the performers’ real-time decisions, the audience’s movement, and the space itself become unpredictable forces on the composition.

Awards include PRS Composers Fund (2021), Arts Foundation Fellowship (finalist, 2020), Rovaumont Voix Nouvelle Composition Prize (2018), Royal Philharmonic Prize for Composition (2016), an RNCM Gold Medal (2012) and BBC Young Composer of the Year (2011). In 2019 he was a Jerwood Fellow with Manchester International Festival.

Jack was one of the curators behind London Contemporary Music Festival from 2018–2023 (‘the capital’s most ambitious and adventurous festival of new music’, The Guardian), and is Co-Founder the LCMF Orchestra. He has worked with many of the world’s leading composers and artists, collaborating with figures ranging from Sir George Benjamin, Elaine Mitchener and Chaya Czernowin to Matthew Barney and Cerith Wyn Evans.