Conversations in Color

Based out of New York City and Toronto, Sean Mayes enjoys a varied career internationally as a conductor, music director, orchestrator, arranger, composer, author, and educator across North America and Europe, spanning the range of numerous musical styles between Broadway, theatre, opera, classical, and pop.

In New York, Mr. Mayes serves as a conductor between two Tony Award-winning Broadway productions, sharing his time as Assistant Conductor of MJ and Associate Conductor of Hadestown.

Internationally, Mr. Mayes serves as Musical Supervisor of the Finnish premiere of Come From Away, and in Fall 2022, served as Music Director and Conductor of the new musical Mandela, inspired by the life of Nelson Mandela and co-produced by the Mandela family for production at the Young Vic Theatre in London, UK.

As Music Director for Broadway luminary André De Shields, Mr. Mayes was Music Director, Orchestrator, and Arranger for An Evening With André De Shields with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2021.

Select recent work includes serving as Composer and Musical Supervisor of the National Tour of Fall On Your Knees, the stage adaptation of the best-selling Canadian novel; Composer for the Stratford Festival's 2023 Mainstage production of King Lear; Music Supervisor of AFROPUNK @ Lincoln Center, Music Supervisor of Rent: In Concert at the Kennedy Center, and Composer and Conductor of Aportia Chryptych, commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company for production in 2024.

As an author, Mr. Mayes' writing and scholarship is dedicated towards unpacking systemic issues surrounding representation, having previously published on disproportionately represented Black music directors (Reframing the Musical, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and the retracing of Black British musical theatre history in An Inconvenient Black History of British Musical Theatre (Bloomsbury, 2021), which was celebrated for release in concert at Wigmore Hall, London, in September 2021.

@maestromayes