“stunning...work founded on passion”

“passionate, lush, and moving”

“spell-binding...lusciously beautiful”

(comments from reviews)

Randall Shinn composes operas and concert music. Reviewers have described his works as “lyrical,” “passionate,” and “harmonically and contrapuntally rich.” Other reviewers have called his works “engaging” and “powerfully expressive.” One reviewer wrote that Shinn integrates “modern music and language with more familiar classical styles to create a sound that is uniquely his own.”

Reviewers have also noted the sensation of dance-like physical motion in his music. This physicality is a core component of Shinn’s music, as he himself has written.¹

Shinn’s works explore a broad expressive range, from comic to tragic. His primary goals as a creative artist are to engage, excite, move, and entertain. He frequently mixes influences from art, folk, and popular music to create his personal expressive style.

Shinn’s interests as a music listener are broad—he might dance to a blues band one night and attend an opera production the next. So he finds it natural to write music with unexpected combinations of material. The influences on his music are just as broad, and his manner of dealing with these multiple influences has become a distinctive musical fingerprint.—Peter Laki, program notes for the Phoenix Symphony

Librettos and other writings

Shinn has written original librettos for four operas and received grant support from the NEA as both a librettist and a composer.

His posts on this site comment on his aesthetic interests.