About me

Sean Swenson is currently a Second-year Masters percussionist and timpanist studying at the Juilliard School in New York City. His teachers include Gregory Zuber - Principal Percussionist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and Markus Rhoten - Principal Timpanist of the New York Philharmonic. Sean received his Bachelors at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in California under SF Symphony Principal Timpanist Ed Stephan and SF Symphony Principal Percussionist Jake Nissly. Before that Sean Studied at Ithaca College under Dr Mike Truesdell and Gordon Stout. A native of Long Island, Sean formally studied with many popular orchestral and drumset based musicians including: Pablo Rieppi, and Steven Blutman. Outside of music, some of Sean's favorite hobbies include cooking and formally taking flight lessons, both careers Sean looked into before deciding on a career in music! 

Sean’s percussion career started back in elementary school, where he garnered the reputation as the boy who “couldn’t stop drumming on his desk”. Luckily after a few years of driving his teachers and fellow classmates crazy, Sean was asked to join the school band as a drummer!  Growing up on Long Island, Sean was fortunate to have relatively easy access to great musical instructors, and an endless supply of some of the highest level musical inspiration one could get. He would frequently see Broadway shows and performances at the Met Opera, and on a few occasions saw a concert by the New York Philharmonic or at Carnegie Hall. By the time Sean got to high school, he was involved in multiple in and out of school wind ensembles, choirs, theater productions, marching bands, and orchestras. Some of these included the West Islip Chorale, West Islip Vocal Motion, West Islip Wind Ensemble, the Nassau Suffolk Performing Arts Wind Symphony, and the Metropolitan Youth Orchestras Principal Orchestra. Some of Sean's greatest achievements include receiving 3rd place with the West Islip Marching Lions on Columbus day in 2017, performing at Carnegie Hall with the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra’s Principal Orchestra, and performing with Conductor and Composer Eric Whitacre at David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center.

Despite having many interests outside of music, including engineering, physics, law, culinary arts, and aviation, Sean made the decision to pursue a career in music, having believed that the world had enough chefs, pilots and lawyers, and what we really needed was more artistic trailblazers. Sean's first step toward this goal was enrolling at Ithaca College building his skills with famed marimba composer and virtuoso Gordon Stout. After Gordon retired at the end of Sean's Freshman year, Sean had the amazing opportunity to spend his Sophomore year studying with new music expert and Juilliard graduate, Dr. Mike Truesdell. At the Ithaca College School of music, Sean was lucky to have performed in multiple percussion ensembles, such as Dr. Truesdell’s new music ensemble performing works by Xenakis, Christopher Rouse and Julia Wolfe, he performed in Conrad Alexander's Steel Pan ensemble performing works by Tito Puente and Len "Boogsie" Sharpe, and Sean also had the amazing opportunity to perform a live improvisation with the famous percussion ensemble Nexus. At Ithaca, Sean also performed frequently with the Ithaca College Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Octavio Mas-Arocas, and Sean played a full month of performances in the Ithaca College Theater Schools production of Sister Act by Alan Menken, playing percussion in their Pit Orchestra.

Although Sean enjoyed his time studying and honing his skills in upstate New York at Ithaca College, Sean missed the vibrancy and wide musical explorations possible closer to a big city. So, Sean decided to transfer to the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. After four years of intense musical training under Ed Stephan, Principal Timpanist of the San Francisco Symphony, and Jake Nissly, Principal Percussionist of the San Francisco Symphony, plus spending a summer at the Aspen Music Festival, Sean's technical abilities and career dreams began to become solidified. He was fortunate to perform dozens of concerts with the SFCM Orchestra, SFCM New Music Ensemble, Aspen Festival Orchestra, Aspen Chamber Orchestra, and Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, performing many works from the standard repertoire and giving voices to newer composers both popular and previously unheard, such as premiering a new violin concerto by Samuel Carl Adams, performing the rarely performed Tereste by Kaija Saariaho, and premiering the new piece “Of Earth and Sky” by Brian Raphael Nabors. After these four instructive and growth-filled years, Sean realized that this was the type of career he wanted, performing new and old music at a high level for loving audiences. He realized that to make this his full time career, his technical level would need to be much higher, he needed more time, more training, and more exposure. So, after taking Grad school auditions, Sean was ecstatic to learn he had been accepted into the Juilliard School in New York where he would be studying with Gregory Zuber, Principal Percussionist of the Metropolitan Opera, Daniel Druckman, Associate Principal Percussionist of the New York Philharmonic, and Markus Rhoten, Principal Timpanist of the New York Philharmonic.

Sean is immensely excited to be back closer to home, where he will have his most intensive training yet. He is excited for new and expanded performing opportunities, a greater and more well stocked place to practice, and to learn from some of the greatest and most influential percussive and musical minds the world has to offer! Sean looks forward to what the future may bring, and what he may bring to the future!