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Joe Sheehan is a composer, pianist, and educator immersed in three music environments: jazz, classical, and global folk traditions. His music and performances embrace a diversity of music traditions and perspectives, woven together to express ideas of tolerance, unity, and wisdom.

Open to many paths of musical expression, Sheehan has performed with jazz masters in Pittsburgh and NYC; folk musicians from Ghana, Uganda, and China; classical crossover artists in Italy; rappers and DJs; and classical chamber ensembles. His piano playing is rooted in Pittsburgh’s historic jazz scene, and his compositions and performances have been heard at jazz clubs, concert halls, music festivals and conferences, universities, and museums throughout the U.S. and in Canada, Ghana, Hong Kong, Italy, and Uganda.

At the heart of his work is the ensemble Kinetic, a music collective whose performances blend global folk traditions with modern jazz. The group recorded two albums, Dances of Lake Volta (2021) and Songs of Lake Volta (2018), interweaving Ghanaian folk song with original music by Sheehan. The recordings draw “magnificent connecting threads from classical music and contemporary jazz to the music of West Africa… buoyed by soaring melodies and infectious rhythms” (Textura.org) and “make a fascinating, in-depth, approach to a creative universe… a real treasure” (Sonagrama Magazine). Informing this work were three trips to Ghana to study traditional music with local masters between 2008-2014.