Shawn Conley, bass

Hawaiian born bassist and composer Shawn Conley grew up loving all types of music. This love of diversity of sound developed into a career that straddles many genres. He is a longtime member of the Silkroad Ensemble and a member of the Brooklyn-based chamber orchestra The Knights. Recent projects include Silkroad’s Grammy Award-winning album Sing Me Home, an upcoming release of the Brahms and Beethoven violin concertos with Gil Shaham and The Knights, the world premiere tour of Osvaldo Golijov’s Falling Out of Time (commissioned by Silkroad), as well as an international tour of the performance-art piece The Head and the Load created by South African visual artist William Kentridge. Shawn can also be heard on The Knights album Azul, featuring Silkroad founder Yo-Yo Ma.

As a studio musician, he has performed on multiple soundtracks including True Grit, Moonrise Kingdom, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, and the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. 

Shawn studied at Rice University with Paul Ellison and in Paris, France with Francois Rabbath. He currently lives in Honolulu, where he is the Principal Bassist with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra.