Sean Shibe is a classical guitarist. He currently studies at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, having been the youngest ever student to join the establishment. He has performed in many parts of the world and this year won the Royal Over-Seas League’s Annual Music Competition. This year, he has three concerts in the Fringe, including a solo show, Latino Nights. 

I wanted to ask you a bit about the programme of Latino Nights. Why did you choose music by South American composers?

Well I didn’t actually choose the programme or the title. But South American composers are important to the guitar because we don’t have that many mainstream European composers composing for us. So when it comes to the 20^th century, generally a lot of our music comes from other parts of the world. We take music from as far a field as, say, Japan.

Is this the first time you’ve been involved in the Fringe?

Last year I didn’t do anything because during the Fringe I was taking a break. But the year before that I was in the Royal Overseas League series as well. And then the year before that, I just organised some of my own things.

It’s kind of interesting because, whereas if you organised three concerts outside of the Fringe, you’d have to have three different programmes or something like that. But in the Fringe, when I played the same programme for three nights, the audience doubled each time. So word of mouth is very important within this festival.

What’s the significance of winning the Royal Over-Seas League competition?

It’s like fifteen grand, isn’t it? And I have Wigmore Hall debut next year, which is nice. And then I got to play in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which was also nice. And it does have links all over the world. They have club houses in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong and then they have reciprocal clubs as well. I think often they send prize winners away to the old colonies to give concerts and that kind of thing.

What was it like being the youngest person at university?

There was a certain novelty to it, but novelty wears off in a few days. As for the social life, we just went round and had like flat parties at other people’s places. But in reference to the age thing, a lot of people are like ‘this guy plays very well and he’s very young’, but so what? He’s young. It means nothing.

What kind of work do you see yourself doing in the future? What would you like to do and what do you think you’ll do?

I’d like to perform. But it’s very hard. To get concerts, you have to win competitions, and I don’t like doing competitions. Competitions are very detrimental, I think, to the music world as a whole.

Is it the atmosphere, or is it what you have to do?

Well, it’s not a sport, right? It’s not like, this guy runs fastest so he wins. The perfect thing about a sport is that you can judge accurately who wins. In music, corruption often plays a part. You see that some people regularly do better than others.

Do you think that there’s a very narrow definition of what a competition winner is?

You have this kind of pasteurised player who wins the competitions, the kind of boiled down, not quite so nutritious, not quite so exciting player. You always get that player getting concerts, right? So when only that kind of player gets promoted and only that kind of player gets concerts, then in the next twenty-five, thirty years those are the players you will see. Can you imagine how many talents are squandered because of competitions circuits?

So ideally you’d like to stop doing competitions?

Yeah, well, nobody does competitions after their mid-twenties. I’d like to perform, certainly, but getting concerts is hard. I suppose it can be done with the right promotion, but ultimately I’ll probably end up getting a job in some university and teach there. That’s what always happens.

Interview by Julia Rampen.

Sean Shibe plays in Latino Nights, Royal Over-Seas League (ROSL), August 16, 10.30pm; Mozart At Teatime, ROSL, August 17, 4pm; and Bach For Breakfast, ROSL, August 19, 9.30am.

Tags: Features, Music