Sean Wayland

Musician and composer

Sean Wayland was born in Sydney, Australia. He has been residing in NYC for almost 25 years. He is well known and respected for his prolific writing, unique harmony, and rhythm. Also well known for his work with some of the best musicians of his time like Allan holdsworth, Wayne Krantz, Tim Miller, David Binney, Frank Gambale and Madeleine Peyroux. He is from a musical family, his father's love of jazz enabled Sean to hear the music of Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea and others as a young child. His grandma Muriel Cohen was a concert pianist and the first Australian to perform Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'Oiseax publicly. To this day Sean is still entranced by Debussy and Messiaen. Sean studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with numerous piano teachers including Mike Nock, Roger Frampton, Judy Bailey, and Paul Macnamara in Australia. In New York he studied with Barry Harris, Kevin Hayes, Geoff Keezer, George Colligan, Sam Yahel and Bruce Barth. While at the Conservatorium he received the Jack Chrostowski piano award. In 1993 he was a finalist in the National Jazz Piano Awards at the Wangaratta Festival. In 1999 Sean received a grant from the Australia Council to study jazz piano in New York which helped him to relocate there. Sean has released over 35 critically acclaimed CDs, featuring musicians such as Adam Nussbaum, Dennis Irwin, Seamus Blake, Chad Wackerman, Steve Kirby, Alvester Garnett, Jesse Harris, James Muller, Jochen Rueckert, Matt Penman, Donny McCaslin, Will Vinson, Keith Carlock, Adam Rogers and Tim Lefebvre. Sean has successfully toured internationally. He has performed in many countries such as US, China, Japan, England, Germany, Hong Kong and New Zealand under his own name. As well as recording his own CDs he has Sean and his compositions have appeared on numerous other jazz releases. Many musicians have dedicated pieces to Sean Wayland, inspired by his music including: Dale Barlow "seany", Matt Penman "waylo", Florian Ross "quahog wayland", Gerard Masters " Sean Wayland", Brian Charette " mode for Sean Wayland”. Sean has a passion for technology. He has completed a Bachelor of Computer Science degree and enjoys building musical applications in his spare time.

"Frightening yet fascinating" Dr Spock