2024 Live Adjudicators

Sybil Shanahan

Lower Strings

Sybil Shanahan

Sybil Shanahan has played the cello for as long as she can remember. A multi-faceted performer, Sybil currently performs with the classical Tadioli Duo and she is the founder of Beaux Strings, a contemporary event music performance business for which she is also a published music arranger. Sybil's lifelong commitment to the cello and the medium of chamber music has taken her to perform on 4 continents to date. Between 2010-2020, she toured internationally and recorded on 4 albums with Ensemble Vivant, "Canada's chamber music treasure" (Toronto Star) and with Solidaridad Tango from 2020-2023. Her first album, Caprice, was released in 2014 and features several previously unrecorded French Romantic cello duos with her mentor Coenraad Bloemendal. With a diverse freelance career, she has played with professional orchestras across the province and was pleased to most recently be a part of Tapestry Opera's production of Rocking Horse Winner and the Musical Stage Company's award winning Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

As a student, Sybil had the privilege of learning from some of the great cellists and pedagogues, including Janos Starker, Ralph Kirschbaum and Laurence Lesser. She now manages a full private teaching studio for adult cellists based in Toronto, and she has been on faculty at Lake Field Music Camp since 2012. Sybil completed her University education in Europe. She holds a Master's Degree from the class of cello soloist Patrick Demenga in Switzerland and a Bachelor from the class of Gregor Horsch in Amsterdam.