Shawn Okpebholo, composer

Shawn E. Okpebholo is a critically-acclaimed and award-winning composer whose music has been described as "devastatingly beautiful" and "fresh and new and fearless" (The Washington Post), “affecting” (The New York Times), “searing” (The Chicago Tribune), “staggering” (The New Yorker), “lyrical, complex, singular” (The Guardian) and “powerful” (BBC Music Magazine). Okpebholo's work as a composer and his music has been featured on PBS Newshour, and radio broadcasts all across the country, including NPR's All Things Considered, NPR's Morning Edition SiriusXM’s “Living American” series on Symphony Hall Channel, and Chicago's WFMT. His artistry has resulted in many prizes and honors, including The American Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Award in Music, First Place Winner of the 2020 American Prize in Composition (professional/wind band division), and Second Place Winner in the 2017 American Prize in Composition (professional/orchestral division), First Prize Winner in the Flute New Music Consortium Composition Competition, Sound of Late Composition Contest, Accent06 International Composition Competition, and the Inaugural Awardee of the Leslie Adams-Robert Owens Composition Award.