Brendan Shea is an award winning violinist and chamber musician. His chamber music awards were won when he played with the Wasmuth Quartet and include the Bronze Medal at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, Gold Medal and Audience Award at the Chesapeake International Chamber Music Competition, and Grand Prize at the Coleman Chamber Music Competition. As a founding member of the Wasmuth (now Verona) Quartet, he performed across the United States, Germany, and Japan. 

 

 Brendan has performed with many world class ensembles and performers. As a soloist he has performed with orchestras in Washington D.C, Brussels, Sendai, Indianapolis, and South Bend. His award winning duo, the Shea-Kim Duo, has competed internationally and performed recitals in Asia, Europe and North America. Their awards include the Ackerman Chamber Music Award and Gold Medal at the Manhattan International Music Competition. Their second CD, The Sound and the Fury, was released by Blue Griffin Records in November of 2021. He premiered Frederic Rzewski’s Night, Death, and Devil with the Emmy Award winning 8th Blackbird. He has been a finalist and semi-finalist at the Queen Elisabeth, Isang-Yun, Seoul, Sibelius, and Carl Nielsen, and has taken first place with Honors at the Glazunov International Competition in Paris.  

 

 In addition to his performance career, Brendan is also a sought after violin teacher and chamber musician. He has been a guest violin professor at the Oberlin Conservatory, and the Mahanaim School in New York. He was on the faculty at Indiana University, South Bend for five years where he was a violinist with the Euclid Quartet. He was a two year visiting professor of violin at the University of Notre Dame. He has given masterclasses across the United States at many different universities, such as Michigian State University, Central Washington University, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, and University of Nebraska. He continues to teach and perform at several prestigious summer festivals, including the Encore Chamber Music Festival and the Alaska Chamber Music Festival. In 2017 he founded the summer chamber orchestra intensive at Indiana University South Bend, and is co-founder of Chamber Music in the Bend with Yerin Kim. He is very excited to be joining the Boise Philharmonic as their new concertmaster, and the College of Idaho as Langroise Trio Artist in Residence.

 

Brendan has degrees from: Oberlin (Bachelor of Music and Artist Diploma); Indiana University at Bloomington (Master of Music); Stony Brook University  (Doctor of Musical Arts). He currently performs on a violin made for him in 2021 by Sam Zygmuntowicz.

 

Brendan Shea is currently based in the Seattle area. For more information and videos visit Brendansheaviolin.com and Shea-kimduo.com.