RODNEY SHARMAN (b. 1958) lives on traditional Musqueam territory in Vancouver, Canada. His music has been performed in more than forty countries and at festivals of new music including the Bourges Festival (France), Ars Musica (Belgium), International Gaudeamus Music Week, Festival Confrontaties, Holland Festival (Netherlands), Wien Modern (Austria), Nyyd Festival (Estonia) the Almeida and Huddersfield Festivals (UK), ISCM World Music Days (Canada, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland), North American New Music Festival, New Music Across America, Sub-Tropic Music Festival, Bang On A Can (USA) and Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music (Germany), at which he was awarded the 1990 Kranichsteiner Music Prize.

His music has been performed by orchestras in Canada, US, and Europe under conductors Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Mario Bernardi, Andrey Boreyko, Sergiu Comissiona, Charles Dutoit, Hans Graf, Eri Klas, Pavel Kogan, Tania Miller, Ed Spanjaard, Bramwell Tovey, and Bruno Weil. Others interpreters include the Aventa Ensemble, Vancouver New Music Society, ARRAYMUSIC, Ensemble SMCQ, Ensemble Exposé, CIKADA Ensemble, het Nieuw Ensemble, Ives Ensemble, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Arditti, Bozzini and St. Lawrence String Quartets, pianists Rachel Iwaasa, Anthony de Mare, Michael Finnissy, Louise Bessette, Yvar Mikhashoff and John Snijders, organist Hans Ola Ericsson, violinist Jonathan Crow, doublebassists Stephano Scodanibbio and Robert Black, flutists Camilla Hoitenga and Mark McGregor, harpsichordist Colin Tilney, harpists Rita Costanzi, Erica Goodman, Ernestine Stoop and Sharlene Wallace, the Hilliard Ensemble, musica intima, and The Esoterics, singers Valdine Anderson, Romain Bischoff, Andrea Ludwig, Brett Polegato, and Krisztina Szabó.

His music has been choreographed by Marie-Josée Chartier, David Earle, Christopher House ,and James Kudelka for Chartier Danse, Toronto Dance Theatre, Oregon Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, Citadel & Co. and the National Ballet of Canada. Elsewhereless, a chamber opera with Atom Egoyan, was staged thirty-five times since its 1998 premiere in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver and in concert excerpts in Amsterdam, Rome, Montreal, and Victoria. His dance-opera with Alex Poch-Goldin and James Kudelka, From the House of Mirth, won the 2013 Dora Award for outstanding sound design/composition for dance.

Dr. Sharman is a graduate of the University of Victoria School of Music (Victoria, B.C.), the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik (Freiburg, Germany) and the State University of New York at Buffalo, from which he received a Ph.D. in May, 1991. His former teachers include Murray Adaskin, Rudolf Komorous, Brian Ferneyhough, Morton Feldman, David Felder, Frederic Rzewski, Louis Andriessen and Lucas Foss.

 Rodney Sharman is the Victoria Symphony’s Composer-Mentor (2021-), Composer-in-Residence of New Music for Old Instruments, Early Music Vancouver (2017-19), the Victoria Symphony (2008-2010), the National Youth Orchestra of Canada (2004), the Vancouver Symphony (1997-2000) VSO Composer/Music Advisor (2000-2001), and Composer-Host of the Calgary Philharmonic’s New Music Festival “Hear and Now” (2009-2010). During 1983-84 he was guest composer at the Institute of Sonology (Utrecht, Netherlands). He taught at Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of British Columbia School of Music, the School for the Contemporary Arts and Faculty of Graduate Liberal Studies, Simon Fraser University, and has given guest lectures and masterclasses in Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, UK, and USA.

He was President of the Canadian League of Composers (CLC) from 1993-98 and was President of the Canadian Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) from 1991-95. He served on the CLC Council from 1988 to 1999, returning in 2016 as Vice-President of the Canadian Section of the ISCM to assist the World New Music Days in Vancouver, and President of the section since 2019.  

Dr. Sharman is recipient of the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts (2017), Djerassi Artist-in-Residence Woodside, California (2014, 2020), Paul Fleck Fellow, Banff Centre (2003), the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award (2001) Kranichsteiner Musikpreis, (1990), Commission Prize (1988) and Tuition Prize (1986) from the Darmstadt Summer Music Course, Germany, the Woodburn Fellowship, State University of New York at Buffalo (1986-90), the Mikhashoff Award (June in Buffalo, 1986), 1st Prize CBC National Radio Competition for Young Composers (1984), CAPAC Awards (1982, 84) scholarships from Stiftung Kuenstlerhaus Boswil, Switzerland (1983, 84, 86) and several student prizes.

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