As a freelance violist, Sean Brennan performs professionally several dozen times per year. He specializes in chamber music, having “wowed the crowd” with Andrew Sords and Friends (Dave Deluca, Star Beacon, 2017) and collaborated with such renowned musicians as Evan Kahn, Everett Hopfner, and Alyssa Wang. As an orchestral violist, he has performed with over a dozen city symphonies throughout the Great Lakes Region. He was Principal Violist for the Altoona Symphony Orchestra’s 2014-15 season, and has appeared as Acting Principal Violist for the Battle Creek Symphony and the Holland Symphony Orchestra. Brennan has also played in numerous professional orchestra pits. In 2013, he joined Resonance Works Pittsburgh’s “thrilling maiden production” of Verdi’s Macbeth (Thomas Dyer, Berkshire Fine Arts, 2013).
Brennan has given world premieres of new music on multiple continents, and has presented both livestreamed and recorded virtual premieres. His arrangements for solo viola, string trio, and string quartet have been used professionally and range from Renaissance madrigals to jazz standards, video game soundtracks, and alternative rock. As a session violist, he was featured on the 2015 album Houghton-Hancock Hum-Alongs by Blake Morgan (Chanticleer, Voces8). He was also featured with the Olive Trio on the 2012 EP Black Hatted by Michigan-based folk-rock group At Average. In 2019, he formed the acoustic-alternative duo Lavish Dude with his close friend and Carnegie Mellon classmate, Andrew Russell. Lavish Dude released its debut album, Leading Off, in September 2022, and has received airplay on Local Spins on WYCE Grand Rapids.
Brennan believes in the principle that music is fundamentally about sharing, a philosophy that drove him to a full-time career in music education. A veteran teacher with eight years’ experience in the profession, Brennan currently serves as the Director of Orchestras at Bloomfield Hills High School in Metropolitan Detroit. Previously, he held similar roles in the Michigan cities of Portage and Battle Creek. Within the public classroom, Brennan prioritizes student agency in all parts of the music-making process. While he is pleased to have directed many ensembles that received superior ratings in adjudicated festivals, his true pride comes from the times when his students have independently conducted sectional and full-ensemble rehearsals, coordinated independent extracurricular chamber groups, increased average concert attendance by promoting events to district and local officials, planned outreach events for younger students, and organized charity concerts to benefit those in need locally and nationally.
Brennan has enjoyed a growing profile in recent years as a clinician and section coach. Among the groups that he has served in this capacity are the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra and its preparatory ensembles, the Albion College Symphony Orchestra, the MASTA Summer String Camps, and the Flint School of Performing Arts. The teaching profession thrives on collaboration, and Brennan has sought to contribute his ideas and experience to the professional community. He has mentored over a dozen intern and pre-intern teachers as they completed their Bachelor’s degrees in music education. He has twice been a guest speaker for Western Michigan University’s student chapter of the American String Teachers Association, and in August 2021 he presented a session on aggregating meaningful assessment data to a cross-disciplinary cohort of educators across Southwest Michigan. In January 2024, he co-presented a session on engaging student leadership at the 19th Annual Michigan Music Conference.
Brennan holds a Master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied with David Harding, and a Bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University, where he studied with Igor Fedotov. He has also studied with violists Roger Chase and Valentin Ragusitu. His principal mentors in music education are Dr. John Lychner and Karen Nofsinger. Brennan plays on a viola made in 2006 by Bronek Cison of Poland, and a bow made in 1961 by Bernard Millant of France.