Rodney Sharman
Photo credit: Mark Mushet
Rodney Sharman lives on traditional Musqueam territory in Vancouver, Canada. He teaches composition at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra School of Music, and is the Victoria Symphony’s Mentor-Composer in Residence. He has been Composer-in-Residence of Early Music Vancouver’s “New Music for Old Instruments”, the Victoria Symphony, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and Composer-Host of the Calgary Philharmonic’s New Music Festival, “Hear and Now”. In addition to concert music, Sharman writes music for cabaret, opera and dance. He sings, conducts, plays recorders and flutes. He works regularly with choreographer James Kudelka, for whom he has written scores for Oregon Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet and Citadel & Compagnie (Toronto). He had written two chamber opera with filmmaker Atom Egoyan, Elsewhereless (1998), and Showroom (2023). Sharman was awarded First Prize in the 1984 CBC Competition for Young Composers, the 1990 Kranichsteiner Prize in Music (Darmstadt, Germany), the 2013 Dora Mavor Moore Award for outstanding sound design/composition (Toronto), and is the recipient of the 2017 Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts.
Sharman teaches compositional technique in all its aspects, helping students bridge the gap between their imagination and technique, assisting artistic growth without getting in the way of finding their personal voice.