Tyler Shepherd
Assistant Professor of Double Bass
Music
Music - Instrumental
Music - Strings
Music - Jazz
Biography
Tyler Shepherd has performed, recorded and toured across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the United States. Formerly Principal Double Bass of the Welsh National Opera, he has appeared as Principal Bass with many orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London), Bergen Filharmoniske Orkester (Norway), BBC Scottish Symphony and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Tyler has also performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony and extensively with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Tyler served two seasons as Principal Bass of the Chattanooga Symphony and Opera after his studies at Boston University, Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music and Walnut Hill School for the Arts. His primary teachers were Edwin Barker, Dennis Roy, and Steve Zeserman. During his time in Boston, he was a member of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, and a Tanglewood Music Center fellow for two summers, where he was awarded the Maurice Schwartz Prize.
As a teacher he has been faculty at the University of Texas at Arlington, the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Young Strings program. He has appeared worldwide in masterclasses at the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, the Royal Scottish Conservatoire, Trinity-Laban Conservatoire of Music and Drama, as well as the University of Colorado Boulder, Texas Christian University, and James Madison University. Tyler was also a tutor at the Britten-Pears Festival Orchestra in Snape, England for two summers. His students have had successful careers, regularly performing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, and Ft. Worth Symphony Orchestra, as well as in folk, musical theater, and jazz groups.
His recent chamber engagements include the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival in Northern England, the Fishguard Chamber Music Festival of Wales, and the Penarth Chamber Music Festival. He has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Chattanooga Symphony and the City of Cardiff Symphony Orchestra. Tyler has performed with artists such as Tan Dun, Fabio Luisi, Ann-Sophie Mutter, Bernard Haitink, Leonidas Kavakos, Bryn Terfel, Vadim Repin, Renée Fleming, Herbert Blomstedt, Midori, Lothar Koenigs, Thomas Hampson, Carlo Rizzi, Rinaldo Alessandrini, and Emanuel Ax.
Additionally, Tyler performs regularly on the bass guitar with the indie rock group The She, and as a frequent performer with Broadway Dallas. His wife is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and they have two daughters and two dogs.