Evan Shinners Bio
Short:
Host of ‘The WTF Bach Podcast ,’ pianist Evan Shinners attended The Juilliard School where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. A devotee of the music of J.S. Bach, Evan is a clavichordist and studied harpsichord with Béatrice Martin. He is the founder of The Bach Store: temporary concert halls where Evan performs the complete keyboard works of Bach, for free, daily, in unused real estate spaces around the world.
Bach Stores were/are in: Manhattan in 2018 and 2019, The Thüringer Bachwochen in Germany in 2022 and 2024, Brighton, UK in 2025, and the Bach Festival of Schaffhausen, Switzerland in 2026.
His ambitious podcast dissects daunting subjects, such as the structure of The Art of Fugue, aimed at an audience of amateurs and non-professionals. His guests are among the most influential in current Bach thought: Brad Mehldau, Robert Hill, Chris Thile, Christoph Wolff, Joshua Rifkin, and others.
He was recently the first laureate of a Career Achievement Award from the Music Academy of the West in California. On May 17th, the first three of a projected twenty-four albums, covering in depth the entire scope of Bach’s solo keyboard works, will be released.
Mr. Shinners is a Yamaha Artist.
Long:
Founder of ‘The Bach Store’ and host of ‘The WTF Bach Podcast,’ Evan Shinners began his musical studies at age 9 and made his orchestral debut at age 12. Mr. Shinners grew up in the tradition of European sacred music, receiving lessons in singing and choral conducting from a young age. He attended The Juilliard School in New York where he studied piano with Jerome Lowenthal. Mr. Shinners holds two degrees from the institution (BM’08, MM ’10.)
Since 2010, Evan has devoted himself almost exclusively to the study and performance of the works of J.S. Bach. In 2011 he began studying the clavichord, and in 2018 began his ongoing harpsichord studies with harpsichordist Béatrice Martin. In 2012 Evan began a campaign to ‘Bach-upy America,’ to perform Bach in non-traditional venues in 48 states. The tour was featured on national television.
Mr. Shinners became a Yamaha artist in 2015. Using the Disklavier, he was able to record Bach’s ‘organ sonatas’ on piano- the first of its kind. In 2018 Mr. Shinners founded a nonprofit organization with the goal of ‘bringing Bach to the masses in non-typical venues’. In
November of 2018, Evan opened his first ‘Bach Store’ in a 5,000 sq. ft. former bank on 56th and Broadway in Manhattan. There, he performed Bach for five hours, every day, for 37 consecutive days. In the evenings, Mr. Shinners hosted different guest artists every night, seeing nearly 70 different musicians perform Bach in the space during the run. His efforts landed him on the front page of the New York Times Arts. He was featured on CBS, ABC, and Fox News, German Public Radio and other international major news outlets.
Since then, Mr. Shinners has been in residence at four additional Bach Stores around the world, in New York, Germany, Switzerland and other locations. He was recently awarded a Career Achievement Award from the Music Academy of the West in California.
Mr. Shinners hosts ‘The WTF Bach Podcast’ which seeks to explain the beauty and structure of Bach’s music to an audience of little to no previous musical knowledge. Fugues are dissected, played with voices isolated into different speakers, or played backwards or upside-down. Even with such daunting subject matter, the podcast has 20,000 listeners in over 50 countries. The guests interviewed are among the most important in current Bach thought: jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, harpsichordist Robert Hill, mandolinist Chris Thile, conductor Joshua Rifkin, and former director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, Christoph Wolff.