Jack Sheen

Jack Sheen is a conductor and composer from Manchester, recognised for his inventive approach to music-making, which blends orchestral traditions with an expansive interdisciplinary perspective. His own music spans orchestral and chamber compositions, installations and site-specific spatial performances, cultivating a compositional understanding in his interpretations of core repertoire that have been praised for their precision and insight.

Sheen has conducted some of the world’s leading orchestras, including London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as contemporary music specialists such as Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, Ensemble 10:10, Bit20 Ensemble and London Sinfonietta. This season he makes his debut with Ulster Orchestra, BBC NOW, Manchester Camerata and Klangforum Wien.

Equally at home in opera, he made his Royal Opera House debut in 2022 conducting the world premiere of Oliver Leith and Matt Copson’s Last Days, to great acclaim, which returns to Covent Garden later this year. In 2024 he conducted an ‘incisive’ and ‘wonderfully precise’ (The Guardian) new production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress with English Touring Opera, and returned to Tanglewood Music Centre as Guest Conductor, conducting Sir George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence.

As a composer, Sheen has been commissioned and had works performed by many of the orchestras and ensembles he conducts, alongside commissions from eminent arts organisations such as Venice Biennale, Casa de Serralves in Porto, and London’s V&A and Camden Art Centre. Recent projects include Lag, a spatialised orchestral piece commissioned by BBC SSO and Ilan Volkov for Tectonics Festival; Press, a piano quintet commissioned by Wigmore Hall and Apartment House; and Ceremony Container, a spatialised performance commissioned by Ensemble Mosaik and Berlin’s Silent Green.