He founded the Eos Orchestra in New York in 1995 as a laboratory of new programming ideas. In 2001, he was invited by a group of musicians and arts donors from Cleveland to lead a new organization with a similar mission. The result: Red {an orchestra}. With the closing of Eos in 2004, Red is now the main outlet for these kinds of innovations.
Born in New York City, Mr. Sheffer graduated from Harvard University, where his teachers included Leonard Bernstein, and later attended The Julliard School and Aspen School of Music.
Mr. Sheffer began studying conducting after working for nearly a decade as a composer and conductor of Hollywood film scores. He made his conducting debut with the San Diego Symphony in 1991. In the early 90's he lead the Seattle Symphony in concerts that combined unusual new works and performers with the standard repertoire, which began the kinds of programming experiments that resulted a few years later in Eos, and eventually, in Red.
In addition to Eos and Red, he has conducted opera, dance and at various festivals, including the New York City Opera, The Spoleto Festival (Italy), and the Ravinia Festival. In 2000, he led the Sapporo Symphony at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan, the New World Symphony in Miami, and the United World Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in Bonn. In the dance world, Mr. Sheffer has conducted the American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera, as well as the Brooklyn Philharmonic, in 1997 performances of the Mark Morris Dance Company at Brooklyn Academy of Music. And in 1996, he led the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with the Martha Graham Dance Company at the Edinburgh Festival.
A prolific composer, Mr. Sheffer's range of works comprises television and feature film scores, works for orchestra, solo piano, concertos, musicals, and short operas. His work was the focus of a Guggenheim Works & Process series event in October 1999. His opera, Blood on the Dining Room Floor, received the Richard Rodgers Production Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was produced off-Broadway in 2000. He has had fellowships at both Yaddo and The MacDowell Colony, and in 2003 he was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. As part of his activities in arts and culture philanthropy and political action, Mr. Sheffer last year joined to the Board of Directors of the VH1 Save The Music Foundation, and currently serves as the appointee of the New York City Council to the Board of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
