About

Biography

Conner Leigh Shaw’s formative experiences in the majestic open spaces of the state so-called Colorado (occupied land of the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Ute, Apache, and Shoshone peoples), and his emotional interpretations on both his life and the cataclysmic events occurring in the world shape his writing and playing into a style simultaneously haunting and beautiful.

Shaw’s music and work is intimately tied with his labor activism and desire to see systemic change in the world to help the global majority, the working class. This includes labor and progressive topics for writing, using record sales to fund progressive international causes, and the practical application of ambient music as a healing mechanism for working people.

From 2019 to 2024, Shaw lived in Los Angeles and pursued a variety of projects, including: writing for Classical music chamber ensembles, performing bluegrass and folk music on multiple instruments including banjo and guitar, performing jazz and ambient music, creating short film scores, and playing electric guitar with the industrial hip-hop metal artist Jurakhan. He now resides again in Colorado, and is looking to record more music and focus on being a performer-composer.

Some notable appearances and releases from the past three years include the release of his opera "A Date With Reality" in April 2024, a show entitled "ExoResonance" with Renegade Ensemble in Minneapolis, Minnesota in October 2023, and a premiere by Sputterbox ensemble in New York City in April 2022.

In 2021, Shaw finished his master’s in music composition from the University of Southern California, and then took a break from composing and performing until 2022.

In 2020, Shaw was featured as a performer with the Gabriela Lena Frank Gig Through Covid Concert Series, and gave a virtual premiere of composer Karalyn Schubring’s rain catcher for electric guitar and electronics.

During the summer of 2019, Shaw’s works were featured at both the SPLICE Festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan as well as Opera Elect’s New Opera series in Boise, Idaho. During this same season, he also released his fifth album entitled ExoResonant, which details humanity’s troubled relationship with space.

In March of 2019, Shaw premiered his first opera entitled Home On Blue Mountain, which relays the enormous struggles his ancestors encountered on their settlement in western Colorado during the 1920’s.

In November 2018, Shaw made his national composer-performer debut at the University of Tennessee Martin New Music Festival playing his yearning, yet elegant electronic-sample and electric guitar art song Pain, Trains; Wane. In October of the same year, Shaw was featured as both performer and composer on the University of Northern Colorado’s contemporary ensemble release UNCOmmon Ensemble at the Tank, which was recorded at the infamous reverb chamber studio The Tank in Rangely, Colorado.

In May of 2018, Shaw released his debut album Portraits, Moods, and Places on UNC’s Bear Records label, featuring twenty-one contemporary chamber pieces with six different groups from around the Northern Colorado area.

Shaw’s first compositional accolade dates to March of 2017, where he won the Open Space Festival Call for Scores with his American art song Epitaph on the World. This same month, Shaw’s first guitar concerto was premiered in Greeley, Colorado. As evidenced by these compositional projects, Shaw’s major influences include Charles Ives, George Crumb, and Ted Hearne.