Kyle Shepherd

Kyle Shepherd (born 8 July 1987 in Cape Town) is one of South Africa's leading pianists, film and theatre composers. As a film composer he has scored Netflix hit TV series (Unseen S1, Savage Beauty S1 and Blood and Water S2) all of which reached the Netflix Global top 10 in viewership. As a performing pianist Kyle has released 7 albums as a leader and performed in 32 countries around the world in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris), The Barbican (London), The Sydney Opera House and over 50 concerts on 11 tours to Japan.

Life and work
Kyle Shepherd is one of South Africa's leading jazz, film and theatre music composers and pianists of his generation, internationally recognised for his distinctive compositional style and performances. He was the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Jazz in 2014 and the UNISA piano competition winner in 2019, and has performed in 32 countries around the world, including 11 concert tours to Japan.

He has released seven jazz albums to date with an impressive number of film, television and theatre score credits. These include Unseen, season 1 (reached #3 on Netflix's global ranking for April 2023), Blood and Water, season 2 (Netflix), Savage Beauty, season 1 (Netflix), Surviving Paradise, as additional music composer (Netflix), Indemnity and Barakat, South Africa's official entry into the 2022 Academy Awards and winner for Best Score at the 2022 Silwerskerm Film Festival, Fiela se Kind (2019) also winner for Best Score at the 2020 Silwerskerm Film Festival, Vlugtig (Kyknet) and Noem My Skollie (Call Me Thief), South Africa's official entry to the 2017 Academy Awards. He was awarded the 2018 South African Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) Award: Book, Creative Collection and Digital Contribution 2018, hosted by the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), for Best Musical Composition for his score for, Noem My Skollie. Shepherd is also the co-creator of the hit Afrikaans television show, Koortjies with Jonathan Rubain (Kyknet).

Along with multiple SAFTA, SAMA and Silwerskerm nominations, he most recently was nominated for a Fleur du Cap Best Sound Design, Original Music, Soundscape or Live Performance award for Lara Foot's award-winning Life & Times of Michael K. The production, adapted for the stage by Foot and the world renowned Handspring Puppet Company, is based on the Nobel prize-winning novel by J.M Coetzee and won the Fleur du Cap award for best theatre production 2023.

Kyle has just completed a celebrated run of performances at the Theatre de Chatelet in Paris and continues international touring with Waiting for the Sibyl, a chamber opera created in collaboration with world renowned visual artist William Kentridge and co-composer Nhlanhla Mhlangu. The opera won the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award (2023) in the UK.

The 36-year old Shepherd holds a Masters degree (Cum Laude) in Music upon receiving a scholarship from York University (UK) in collaboration with the Africa Open Institute (Stellenbosch University).

Prizes and awards
In 2014 he won the Standard Bank Young Artist Award  for the genre Jazz. Silwerskerm Film Festival awards for his scores to feature films Fiela se kind and Barakat. And an Olivier theatre award for "Waiting for the Sibyl", a co-creation with William Kentridge and Nhlahla Mahlangu. Humanities and social sciences award for his film score Noem my Skollie.

Albums

 * fineArt (Sheer Sound 2009, with Buddy Wells, Dylan Tabisher, Claude Cozens)
 * A Portrait of Home (Sheer Sound 2010, with Shane Cooper, Jonno Sweetman)
 * South African History! X (Sheer Sound 2012)
 * Dream State (Sheer Sound 2014, with Shane Cooper, Jonno Sweetman and Buddy Wells)
 * Kyle Shepherd, Lionel Loueke,  Sound Portraits from Contemporary Africa  (Jazzhaus 2017, with Mthunzi Mvubu, Shane Cooper, Jonno Sweetman)
 * Into Darkness: Solo in Japan
 * After the Night, The Day will Sure Come. Solo Piano