Whitney Sheng
Whitney Sheng is a New York and Miami-based composer whose work is informed by a sensitivity to texture, gesture, and timbre. Drawing inspiration from visual art, her music often inhabits spaces where beauty and unease coexist, blending whimsy and omen through shifting sonic landscapes.
Recent projects include a commission for Duo Pleiades Ensemble, with forthcoming performances by The Astra Collective, Koe Duo, and Women Composers Collective. Her compositions have been performed by KLK String Orchestra, Divergent Trio, institut .abeceda, Contemporaneous Ensemble, NYC Brass Choir, Zephyr Brass Collective, Black and White Brass Quintet, Cowgirl Brass Quintet, Jacksonville State University Brass Choir, Dr. Carla Rees, Emma Meinrenken, Joseph Staten, and Abrielle Scott, with performances across the United States and Europe.
Her work has been presented at venues and festivals including the Lviv Philharmonic, Nottingham Contemporary, the Heidelberg New Music Festival, CLICK FEST, Bled Contemporary Music Week and Festival, Divergent Studio, and FOU Gallery. Upcoming festival presentations include Foxfire at the Flute New Music Consortium New Music Festival in Oklahoma City in October 2026 and the premiere of her audiovisual work Re/vision at NOIS//E in Milan in November 2026. She is also a composer with the South Florida Composer Performer Collective and the founder of the Common Resonance Concert Series, which expands audiences for contemporary classical music through interdisciplinary programming and provides a platform for living composers; the series has produced sold-out performances across New York City.
Her work Foxfire for solo alto flute was named second runner-up in the 19th annual John Eaton Memorial Competition, presented by New York Composers Circle in 2026.
She studied theory and composition with Christopher Cerrone, Cerulean S. Payne-Passmore, Martin Brody, and Jenny Olivia Johnson, and piano with Alan Feinberg and Lois Shapiro. She holds degrees from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Wellesley College, where she graduated summa cum laude in Mathematics and Economics.