Eshima, Shinji

Double Bass

Shinji Eshima, born in Berkeley, has been a double-bassist in the San Francisco Opera since 1980. He joined the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra in 1982 and holds the position of Associate Principal Contrabass. His instrument is the 1843 Charles Plumerel bass that is seen in the Edgar Degas 1870 c. oil on canvas painting The Orchestra at the Opera which hangs at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Eshima earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Stanford University and a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School. His primary teachers were his first bass professor, Charles Siani (Stanford University), and David Walter (The Juilliard School). As a composer, he studied with Heinrich Taube.

His career highlights as a composer include Yuri Possokhov's RAkU, which the San Francisco Ballet commissioned in 2011. The score was recorded by the SF Ballet Orchestra and released the following year. Swimmer, which was also commissioned SF Ballet, was his second collaboration with Possokhov. A vinyl recording of that score was released in 2023. In 2019, Carolina Ballet set his composition Bariolage (for double-bass and cello), which was choreographed by Robert Weiss and Zalman Grinberg. This led to a commission by that company for a full-length Snow White ballet which premiered in 2022. His next full-length ballet for Carolina Ballet, Jekyll and Hyde, premieres in October 2024. His most recent major commission as an opera composer is Zheng, about the late mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao. It had a successful workshop with Opera San José in 2023 and included Frederica von Stade as herself, in the role inspired by her deep friendship with Zheng.

He has served on faculty at San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

He was the recipient of the Stanford Humanities Award and was honored by the city of Berkeley with a declaration on December 6, 2011 as "Shinji Eshima Day" for his contribution to the Arts.