Shelagh Abate

Shelagh Abate has long been one of New York’s most sought-after musicians. Known for her simultaneously warm, assertive sound and her versatile and musical intuition, she has earned her a place in the lexicon of New York City's busiest performers. Abate has opened more than a dozen Broadway productions, from Mary Poppins and Frozen to The Music Man. She has performed regularly with the MET Orchestra, Mostly Mozart, American Ballet Theatre, and the American Symphony Orchestra; is third horn with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra; and has been principal horn of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, under the artistic direction of Jaime Laredo, since 1999. Through the years, she has worked with some of the greatest musicians of our time: Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, André Previn, Gunther Schuller, Robert Spano, John Williams, Marin Alsop, and Jaime Laredo. Abate has established fluency in the commercial realm as well as the classical, having performed with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, with the Tony Awards Studio Orchestra on live television, and on numerous commercials, film score soundtracks, and video games. She has also recorded with renowned artists such as Hugh Jackman, Sting, the Who, Tony Bennett, Rufus Wainwright, Lady Gaga, Barry Manilow, Joni Mitchell, and Phish’s Trey Anastasio. Chamber music has been at the very core of Abate’s success as a musician; she is a winner of the Coleman Chamber Music Competition (2000). Abate is a founding member of the award-winning band Triton Brass, an assistant professor of horn at Berklee College of Music, and a faculty member of the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (since 2008). She's also a Stephens Custom Horns artist, regularly performing on one of the very first horns handcrafted by Stephen Shires.