Musicians

Sean Sutherland - Pianist, Composer, Arranger, Percussionist

​Born in St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Sean Sutherland serendipitously discovered the piano as a child and was instantly enamored. At 15, Sean was offered a scholarship to study piano at one of the Royal Schools of Music in the United Kingdom but had to decline under strong parental directive, as he had not yet completed high school. Even though his opportunities for studying piano were limited in St. Vincent, Sean remained active training choirs and accompanying singers and instrumentalists. Upon his arrival at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he resumed his piano studies while earning a bachelor’s degree in Music, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
 
After working in several industries, Sean pursued an MBA at McGill University in Montréal. Following this degree, he started a niche tutorial service that specialized in standardized test preparation (SAT, ACT, SSAT, and GMAT) and lectured at McGill as an adjunct professor of international finance and information systems. Given his interest in education, Sean completed a master’s degree focused on Learning and Design Technologies at Stanford University in 2017, following which he moved to Toronto where he works as a Product Manager. 
 
Over the years, Sean has continued to pursue his passion for classical piano music as a pianist and has performed solo recitals across Canada, Dallas USA, Germany, and throughout the Caribbean. Sean has also collaborated with many instrumentalists and singers and has a keen interest in performing classical music on the steelpan. This work includes transcribing classical works for steel orchestra and performing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto as a soloist with the National Steel (Steelpan) Symphony Orchestra of Trinidad and Tobago in 2011. Sean has appeared with traditional symphony orchestras, including the National Sinfornia of Trinidad and Tobago, Las Colinas Symphony, Fort Worth Symphony, and the International Symphony Orchestra, with whom he played Gershwin’s Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue over two nights in October 2023.
 
Sean has competed creditably on the amateur piano circuit, a journey that began with him getting to the semifinals of the 2016 Van Cliburn Amateur Piano Competition in Fort Worth. Sean was a prize winner at the 2022 Van Cliburn Amateur Piano Competition and won the 2021 Chopin Amateur Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland. Sean’s contribution to music in the Caribbean was regionally recognized when he became the recipient of the 2021 Anthony Sabga Caribbean Award for Excellence in the Arts and Letters. Most recently, Sean was invited to play an opening recital at the 2024 Warsaw Chopin Amateur Piano Competition.