Euan Shields was the winner of the 2nd Siemens Hallé International Conducting Competition. He began a 2-year engagement as the assistant conductor of the Hallé Orchestra and music director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra in Fall 2023. He has also received the Solti Foundation’s Career Assistance Award in both 2023 and 2024.

In May 2023, Shields completed a Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting at the Juilliard School under the guidance of David Robertson. He completed a Bachelor of Music at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, where he studied cello with Antonio Lysy and orchestral conducting with Neal Stulberg. 

Shields is a Japan-born American conductor known for his emotionally charged performances, technical skill, and a passion for collaboration. Among the orchestras Shields has conducted are 
The Hallé, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, South Denmark Philharmonic, Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, the Juilliard Lab Orchestra, and Juilliard’s AXIOM Ensemble. 

Recently he has worked as the assistant and cover conductor for Mark Elder, Kahchun Wong, 
John Adams, Xian Zhang, Roderick Cox, Giancarlo Guerrero, Jeffrey Milarsky, and Jonathon Heyward. 

In June 2022, he was a finalist in the 5th Evgeny Svetlanov Conducting Competition in Monaco and conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. Also, he was a semifinalist in the Llíria City of Music Conducting Competition in 2021.