Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Announces Leonard Bernstein Award Recipient

Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe will perform with the Schleswig-Holstein Orchestra in August as the 2022 winner of the Leonard Bernstein Award. He joins the likes of previous recipients including violinist Charles Yang, pianist Jan Lisiecki, and cellist Leonard Elschenbroich.

Shibe is committed to expanding the guitar's concert repertoire and has become known for his innovative programming and genre mixing. He has collaborated with composers such as Sofia Gubaidalina, Brian Bolger, and James MacMillan towards this goal, and frequently gives premieres of new works.

Shibe won particular acclaim for his second album softLOUD, which he released in 2018. The album contains both ancient music, such as guitar arrangements of Scottish lute manuscripts, and more recent music, such as arrangements of works by Steve Reich. Shibe performs on both acoustic and electric guitar.

As part of the Bernstein award, Shibe will perform Rodrigo's Concerto de Aranjuez with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra and conductor Christoph Eschenbach at the festival prize-winners concert on August 19.

“This recognition is deeply moving, perhaps particularly so because it is the first time that the Leonard Bernstein Award has been awarded to a guitarist - but mostly because it feels like a ratification of an artistic direction that, while deeply felt by myself, at the time seemed risky and peculiar to many of my colleagues," said Shibe. "Thank you, SHMF, for instead encouraging me further!”

“Sean Shibe is an impressively versatile young musician who inspires with the classical guitar as well as with the electric guitar or lute, opening up whole new musical worlds for us," said Oliver Stolz, President of the Sparkassen-und Giroverband for Schleswig-Holstein.

"We are excited to see where his journey will take him and are very pleased to support him on his way with the Leonard Bernstein Award!” he added.

You can view Shibe's performance of Daniel Kidane's work Haze, which was commissioned by the Barbican.