Composer and pianist Sean Friar grew up in Los Angeles, where his first musical experiences were in rock and blues piano improvisation. His music keeps in touch with the energy and communicative directness of those musical roots, now along with an expansive and exploratory classical sensibility that Slate Magazine describes as “refreshingly new and solidly mature… taking joy in the process of discovery [and] in the continual experience of suspense and surprise that good classical music has always championed.”

He regularly composes for ensembles within and outside traditional concert music, with an output ranging from works for orchestra and chamber ensembles to a junk car percussion concerto, music for laptop orchestra, and a microtonal piano duo. He has received commissions from leading ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic Scharoun Ensemble, American Composers Orchestra, and Alarm Will Sound. His music has been featured at major venues and festivals around the world, such as Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Venice Biennale.

A winner of the 2011 Rome Prize, Friar has also received major awards from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Chamber Music America. Recordings of his music can be found on labels including New Amsterdam, Innova, Microfest, and Parma Recordings. In late 2021, his album-length composition for NOW Ensemble, Before and After, was released on New Amsterdam Records to international critical acclaim and premiered at Le Poisson Rouge in New York.

Also active as a pianist, Sean regularly tours his own music and other contemporary works with his two duo projects featuring saxophonist Jeff Siegfried and Grammy-Nominated Estonian bassoonist Martin Kuuskmann. He released an album with Siegfried entitled Shades on Ravello Records in 2024, and will release his debut album with Kuuskmann in 2027. Starting in 2026, his Little Green Pop is currently part of the multi-sensory light and music show The Celestial Experience, presented at cathedrals in Chicago, Toronto, and Denver.

Friar is Associate Professor and Chair of Composition at the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver. He directs summer composition programs at Sunset ChamberFest (Los Angeles), the Suncoast Composer Fellowship Program (Sarasota and Shanghai), Chamber Music Conference and Composers Forum of the East (New York), and the Lamont Summer Academy (Denver). He was previously Assistant Professor of Practice in Composition at the USC Thornton School of Music and Lecturer of Composition at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Princeton University and undergraduate degrees in Music and Psychology from UCLA. His principal teachers were Paul Chihara, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, and Dmitri Tymoczko.

Selected Commissions & Ensembles

  • Los Angeles Philharmonic

  • Berlin Philharmonic Scharoun Ensemble

  • American Composers Orchestra

  • Alarm Will Sound

  • Crash Ensemble

  • Ensemble Klang

  • Ensemble Modern

  • New York Youth Symphony

  • Redlands Symphony

  • Eastman Wind Ensemble

  • NOW Ensemble

  • Present Music

  • The Curtis Institute

Selected Venues & Festivals

  • Carnegie Hall

  • Lincoln Center

  • Philharmonie Berlin Kammermusiksaal

  • Walt Disney Concert Hall

  • Venice Biennale

  • GAUDEAMUS

  • Aspen Music Festival

  • Bang on a Can

  • Bowdoin International Music Festival

  • Nuova Consonanza

  • Le Poisson Rouge

  • ISSUE Project Room

  • The Kitchen

Selected Honors & Awards

  • Rome Prize in Musical Composition

  • Fromm Foundation Commission (Harvard University)

  • Charles Ives Scholarship (American Academy of Arts and Letters)

  • Chamber Music America Commission

  • ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards (Four-time winner)

  • GAUDEAMUS Prize (Finalist)

  • Copland House Residency

  • Lee Ettelson Award (Composer's Inc.)

  • US Army Band Award Chamber Composition Competition

  • Harold W. Dodds Honorific Fellowship (Princeton University)