Gary Shields is a composer for media, theatre, film, and puppetry arts and has received commissions from the Nashville Public Library, the Huntington Library, the Dorfman-Katahn duo. Gary also contributed music for the film, The Last Fall, directed by Matthew Cherry.

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Gary is a passionate arts advocate, working to provide youth access to the benefits of music and arts education. Gary works for the California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA) and has previously worked for the GRAMMY Foundation and Recording Academy, Education Through Music-Los Angeles, the Organization of American Kodály Educators, and the Nashville Symphony. Gary is a former piano and composition faculty of Cornerstone Music Conservatory in West LA.

Gary earned a M.M. in Composition from the University of Southern California and a B.M. in Music Theory and Composition from Vanderbilt University. While a graduate student at USC, Gary was a mentee of GRAMMY and Emmy award winning composer Thomas Newman and spent two summers assisting students in composer Christopher Lennertz's Film & Video Game Scoring Track at GRAMMY Camp. Gary studied composition with National Medal of Arts recipient Morten Lauridsen, Frank Ticheli, Erica Muhl, Michael Kurek, and Michael Rose. ​