Shane Shanahan

Biography

Shane Shanahan has combined his studies of drumming traditions from around the world with his background in jazz, rock and Western art music to create his own unique, highly sought-after style. Since 2000, he has been touring around the globe performing with Yo-Yo Ma as a founding member of the genre defying, Grammy® Award-winning Silkroad Ensemble and served as Co-Artistic Director (2017-2020) and Learning Programs Advisor (2012-2020) for the organization.

In addition to his playing, his arrangements and compositions are featured on several of the group’s seven recordings and he can be heard and seen on Mr. Ma's Grammy® Award-winning holiday CD/DVD release, Songs of Joy And Peace. Shane has performed and/or recorded with Bobby McFerrin, Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, Philip Glass, Alison Krauss, Deep Purple, Jordi Savall, Sonny Fortune, Chaka Khan, Bill Frisell and Glen Velez, among others. Shane’s dynamic performances have brought people to their feet in the greatest concert halls of the world, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Concertgebouw, Santory Hall, Disney Hall, and the Hollywood Bowl. He has also performed twice for President and First Lady Obama, once at the White House and once at the Kennedy Center Honors.

A strong believer in the transformative power of education, Shane frequently presents workshops and clinics at the world’s leading universities, including Princeton, Harvard, Cornell, The Eastman School of Music, Juilliard, and the University of Michigan. He is currently on faculty at the Hartt School and was also the Lead Teaching Artist for Silkroad’s arts-integrated education initiative, Silk Road Connect, which brought music, dance, and visual arts into NYC public schools. In 2017 he was a Blodgett Distinguished Artist at Harvard University, where he co-taught a course with Ethnomusicology faculty.

For the last several years Shane has been engaged in intensive work with students of all ages at the Lame Deer School on an Indian American Reservation in Montana. He collaborates actively with the dance, theatre and yoga communities in the New York area and while not on tour, he teaches drumming classes and lessons out of his studio in Brooklyn to students from seven to seventy years old. Shane has also played in the pit orchestras of several Broadway musicals including Caroline, or Change, The Color Purple, Shrek, Spider-Man, Fun Home, Tuck Everlasting, and Mean Girls.