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NEW COMPOSITION FOR BAND

Dreidel Fanfare

​Stephen Shewan is an award-winning composer who has filled numerous commissions for orchestra, band, choir, vocal and instrumental chamber music. Please contact him here if you are interested in commissioning another composition.

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News & Quotes

The Piping Rock Singers, from Houston, Texas under the direction of Kevin Clarke recently released a CD which includes Shewan’s (2017) SATB a capella choral work “Virga Jesse”.

    Listen to the recording of Virga Jesse here.

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Shewan’s “Four Poems by Laura E Richards Volume 1” received an Honorable Mention in the 2019 Freudig Singers Choral Composition Competition.

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In 2018, Shewan won two national choral contests: “The Little Cradle Rocks, ” for SATB choir and oboe, won the American Composer’s Forum and Vocal Essence Welcome Christmas Carol Contest. 

   Listen to the premiere performance by Vocal Essence under the direction of Philip Brunelle here.

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Also in 2018, Shewan’s “Mother Goose Gems” received the Edwin Fissinger Choral Composition Prize at the Challey School of Music at North Dakota State University.

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In 2016, Shewan’s popular new setting of “Silent Night” for SATB choir and piano (also a version for choir and orchestra) won the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay Christmas Carol Contest.

   Listen to the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay premiere here.

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Now available! Just Sayin’ is a 5’15” work for trombone and piano. It was written for trombonist Joshua Britton in the summer/fall of 2015. It’s got attitude and it’s not for the faint of heart!  The demo recording is available under the Just Sayin’ icon in the chamber instrumental products section.

   Listen to Just Sayin’ here.

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Commission of two choral works: Christ Has No Body But Yours, text by Teresa of Avila and All Creation Is a Song of Praise, text by Hidegard Von Bingen for the women of Bella Voce, Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa Idaho, Dr. Judy Marlett, conductor. Premier March 10, 2015.

“The Sonata for Horn and Piano features contemporary sounds presented in an accessible way… It is a strong new work for horn that deserves to be performed often… Congratulations to Stephen Shewan for this excellent addition to the repertoire.”

   Katie Johnson, Horn Call  (February 2016)

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“The Elegy for Strings is a melancholy work with beautiful climaxes. Movement II of the Sonata for clarinet and piano is a beautiful Ballad. Shewan’s music garnered acclaim years ago from David Bond (2000) and Philip Greenfield (2006). I like it, too.”

   Barry Kilpatrick, American Record Guide (2016)

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“This is an intriguing and unique composition that many performers and audiences will be delighted to experience.”

   Brian Winegardner, ITG Journal (March 2016, review of the Suite for Trumpet and Piano)

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“That Hoedown! is terrific fun” and in King David’s Dance, “jazz meets pop meets bop meets mambo meets Stravinsky in this music orgy of biblical proportions. It’s all great fun.”

   Colin Clark, Fanfare, November/December 2015

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“Stephen Shewan is a considerable composer who deserves a wide audience.” 

   John Rutter

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“Stephen Shewan is a very talented composer, worthy of much higher acclaim than he has attained already. His music is highly evocative and expressive.” 

   American Record Guide

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“The Celebration Overture has an infectious energy brought about via bright orchestration and stompable rhythms, a sort of Copland but with Bernstein’s fire…the Elegy is moving…the splendidly intimate central ballad of the Sonata for clarinet and piano…if the spirit of Ives does to an extent hang around the finale (March) the wit is all Shewan’s.” 

   Fanfare Magazine

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“The most pleasurable work (on the program), A Celebration Overture (for orchestra) was unabashedly boisterous. Many times, its style was cubist Aaron Copland’s harmonies, rhythms and colors like his, but cut up and re-spliced, imaginatively and infectiously.” 

   The Houston Chronicle

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(Shewan) “shows a well-developed understanding of choral voice leading, good control over it’s potential for expressing excitement, and a comfortable command of both lyrical expression and varied romantic-to-modern harmonization.” 

   The Buffalo News