The Dutch/American pianist Shane van Neerden has a fast growing career as soloist, in chamber music settings, and as soloist with orchestra. He has played live in concert halls throughout Germany, the Netherlands, England, Italy, Portugal, Austria, France, and in the United States as well as for public radio in the U.S., Portugal (Antena 2), and in the Netherlands (Radio 4, NTR, and on the television program Podium Witteman).

 

In May 2024, Shane won the Dutch Classical Talent Award which concluded a trajectory of fourteen concerts in the most important Dutch classical music venues (Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, Musis Sacrum Arnhem, Philharmonie Haarlem, Theater aan het Vrijthof Maastricht, TivoliVredenburg Utrecht, De Vereeniging Nijmegen, etc.). For the competition, he developed the performance Lantaarns, including a commissioned work for composer Rick van Veldhuizen. During the finale of the competition in TivoliVredenburg, the jury praised his rich musical wealth, courage, and imagination. According to NRC reviewer Marnix Bilderbeek, his velvet touch, sensitive phrasing, and warm color palette made him a deserved winner.

​

In 2022/2023, Shane was one of the four musicians in Toonzetters, the project out of which the current ensemble emerged, where he played, together with pianist Ramon van Engelenhoven and percussionists Arjan Jongsma and Agostinho Sequeira, 20 new pieces by 20 young composers (a.o. Mathilde Wantenaar, Jan-Peter de Graaf, Celia Swart, and Rick van Veldhuizen) in a tour throughout the Netherlands and Italy. A CD for this project was released by the label 7 Mountain Records.

​

Highlights from Van Neerden’s 2023-2024 season include a solo CD recording with the radio and television broadcaster AVROTROS, his solo recital début in the Small Hall of Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and the début performance of the Toonzetters Ensemble, the modern music collective follow-up to the original project, coached and supported by Oranjewoud Festival. In the first half of 2025, Shane played two concerts as soloist with the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in the Big Hall of TivoliVredenburg (Vrijdagavondconcert) and the Big Hall of het Concertgebouw in Amsterdam (het Zondagochtendconcert). The second half of 2025 will consist of a solo CD recording with the record label 7 Mountain Records, a tour with PHION (Orchestra of Gelderland & Overijssel) and Prokofiev's 1st piano concert, a tour with SALIX chamber opera, and in may 2026, a solo recital in the Small Hall of Concertgebouw as part of Concertgebouw's own program Jonge Nederlanders..​

​​

Shane began piano lessons at age six and has studied with celebrated pianists Jacques Rouvier, Robert Levin, Heinrich Schenk, Sasha Starcevich, Peter Takács and Susan Starr. Shane has also had private lessons with French Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin and Portuguese percussionist and conductor Pedro Carneiro. After private lessons with pianist Carl Cranmer, he began his undergraduate studies at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Frank Peters. As a first-year student, he played Franz Liszt's Totentanz with the Symphony Orchestra of the Conservatory of Amsterdam conducted by Ed Spanjaard and completed his studies in 2022 with 10 'cum laude'. Recently, Shane graduated from his masters playing Charles Ives' monumental Concord Sonata, also with a 10 'cum laude'. Shane studied at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Italy with Eliso Virsaladze in 2021.