Bravo! Delaware

Named as Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals of the Year and as the recipient of the Delaware Governor’s Award in the Arts, Sean Gao is one of the world’s most successful performing art professionals. He is a presenter, producer, fundraiser, composer and pedagogue in performing art administration and violin. As a concert violin soloist, his musical integrity and virtuoso technique have gained accolades from audiences and reviewers around the world. He has also been a featured soloist performing with more than 100 orchestras worldwide and many world leaders. 

As a composer and songwriter with a focused mission to attract new and younger audiences to performing arts, Sean Gao created “Shanghai Sonatas,” a hybrid new musical that combines musical theatre, live classical music and visual art. It is based on the memoirs of Jewish refugee musicians who escaped Nazi Germany and found refuge in Shanghai and how music helped them to survive the war. This production is currently being developed by Tony award-winning producers and touring as a concert production.

Praised by the Chicago Tribune for his “incredible performance,” violist Elias Goldstein has distinguished himself as one of the great instrumentalists of his generation. Prize winner in the leading viola competitions of the world, including the 2011 International Primrose Competition, the 2010 Lionel Tertis Competition, he is also the first American to be awarded a top prize in the Bashmet International Competition in Moscow. He has achieved recognition and critical acclaim as a champion of his instrument, being the first violist invited to Carnegie Hall to perform all 24 Caprices by Paganini, a program that later toured the United States and Europe.

As a recitalist he has performed in many of the great halls of the world including Alice Tully, David Geffen, Seattle Symphony’s Benaroya Hall, the Kennedy Center, Salle Cortot, George Enescu Philharmonic and Musikiitalo Helsinki. He frequently collaborates with the world’s foremost musicians including Julian Rachlin, Vadim Gluzman, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Johannes Moser, Nobuko Imai, Eli Eban, Ilya Kaler, the Pro Arte, Shanghai, Latin American, Arianna and Cavani Quartets. His solo and orchestral appearances have brought collaborations with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic and festival appearances include the George Enescu International Festival, Valdres International Festival, Beijing International Music Festival and Chautauqua Festival. He has been featured live on Medici TV,  Classical King FM Seattle, WFMT Chicago, Romanian National Television and Nacional Clásica Argentina.

Dedicated to the expand the repertoire for viola, he has commissioned and premiered works by Jennifer Higdon and William Bolcom. In 2019 he gave the world premiere of Grammy Award Winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s Viola Songs and in 2018 was personally invited by William Bolcom to perform for the composer’s 80th anniversary concert at Merkin Hall in New York.

Eileen Grycky, professor of flute at the University of Delaware School of Music, is a recipient of the University’s Excellence in Teaching Award. She performs with two resident ensembles at the School of Music: Tiger Lily Trio (flute, clarinet and piano) and the Christiana Winds. The Tiger Lily Trio is dedicated to performing the works of underrepresented composers and has presented concerts throughout the United States, in Canada and at the Victoria International Arts Festival in Malta. The trio’s video recording of “Ocean of Glass,” a work they commissioned by composer Jennifer Margaret Barker, was a finalist for the American Prize in Virtual Performance.

​​Grycky is a member of the orchestra of the Opera Philadelphia and the Delaware Symphony. In addition, she maintains a busy performing and recording schedule with Brandywine Baroque, a noted period instrument ensemble in Delaware that has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival. She has also performed as a Baroque flutist with the Dorian Baroque in New York City. She appears on many recordings with the Brandywine Baroque as well as on recordings with the Christiana Winds, the Taggart-Grycky Flute Guitar Duo and the Delaware Symphony.

In 2019 Grycky became a member of the Serafin Ensemble, a group of international performers who present chamber works for up to eight players throughout the state of Delaware.​

Critically acclaimed clarinetist Christopher Nichols enjoys a dynamic career with performances as a soloist and in ensembles across the United States and abroad. As a professional instrumental soloist, he received praise from the American Prize: “…lovely long line, evocative playing, flexible…tone is rich and round, welcoming, clean and elegant…fine performances from a skilled artist.”

Nichols regularly performs with orchestras such as the Philharmonia of Greater Kansas City, the Pennsylvania Philharmonic, the Kennett Symphony, the Delaware Symphony, Mid-Atlantic Symphony and the Allentown Symphony Orchestra. He is a member of Christiana Winds, Tiger Lily Trio. He has recently collaborated with the acclaimed Serafin String Quartet, the Copeland Quartet, the Taggart-Grycky Duo, and members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He has served for more than two decades in Army Bands with performances throughout the United States, Germany, France and Austria. He is currently serving as the Acting Commander the 287th Army Band in Wilmington, Delaware.

A dedicated pedagogue, Nichols joined the faculty of the University of Delaware School of Music in 2013 where he is associate professor of clarinet and director of graduate studies. As an artist clinician, he regularly appears at universities throughout the United States. His students have found success in competitions, won positions in military bands and served as music educators.

Nichols has appeared as a featured soloist or chamber musician at conferences of the International Clarinet Association, European Clarinet Association, National Flute Association, Victoria International Arts Festival, International Clarinet Festival of Costa Rica, National Association of Collegiate Wind and Percussion Instructors, and College Music Society.

Originally from Orlando, Florida, and based in Newark, Delaware, violinist Daniel Seymour maintains an active performing and teaching career. He holds a core section violin position with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and performs regularly with the Mount Vernon Virtuosi and Symphony in C. This upcoming winter, Seymour will tour South Korea and Japan with the Hollywood Concert Orchestra.

He has appeared in major venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Dr. Phillips Center and the Strathmore Music Center, performing alongside renowned artists including Yuja Wang, Emanuel Ax and Andrea Bocelli. As a guest soloist, he performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Susquehanna Symphony Orchestra and won first prize at the Master Players Festival Concerto Competition. Seymour has also performed with Opera Orlando, the Orlando Ballet, the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra, Maryland Lyric Opera, Bach Festival Orchestra, Gulfshore Opera, Space Coast Symphony, Villages Philharmonic and the Riverside Chamber Orchestra.

A dedicated chamber musician, Seymour performs frequently with the Musiva Concert Series and the String Poets, and has previously collaborated with the Philadelphia String Quartet and Alarcon Music Studios. A passionate educator, he maintains a highly successful private teaching studio and recently served as a chamber music coach with the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra this past summer. His students have earned prestigious placements in the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, All-State ensembles, the Governor's School of Excellence at the University of Delaware and the concertmaster chair at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Pianist and composer Jeffrey Sharkey, became principal of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) in September 2014, leading Scotland’s national conservatoire of dance, drama, music, production and screen. During his tenure, RCS has raised its profile domestically and internationally and has been ranked in the top 10 world leading institutions for six out of the last seven years. He is passionate about all of the RCS’s performing and production arts and the collaboration between them. He has grown several key partnerships, having RCS join the Nordic Association of Conservatoires as well as CUK and AEC.

Sharkey served as director of Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute from 2006–2014 where he helped to revitalise the curriculum and start a number of successful programmes with the colleges of Arts and Science, Engineering, Business, Education and the School of Medicine. Jeffrey served on the Board of Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, an institution founded by the Peabody Institute, contributing to its strategic direction and helping it become one of the most important conservatoires in Asia. He also developed key partnerships in Korea, Taiwan and China. In Baltimore, Sharkey started free programs in music and dance to reach out to the wider community. These were connected to key arts organisations in the city and created pathways for talented youngsters to receive support throughout their studies. He also created the academy programs within the Preparatory to serve future professional musicians. Before coming to Peabody he was dean of the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Alison Wells recently returned to the United Kingdom after many years in the United States and is now on the cello and chamber music faculty of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. She was a founding member of the Pirasti Trio, whose performances have been described as “absolutely incandescent” (The Strad) and “eloquent, unfailingly stylish” (Gramophone), and whose recordings on ASV were recommended by BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, International Record Review and Fanfare, and were selected recordings by BBC Radio 3’s "Building a Library."

Her chamber music career has taken her to more than 20 countries throughout Europe, North America and Asia, performing at venues including London’s Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, New York’s 92nd Street Y and Merkin Hall; the Bath, Warwick, and Schleswig-Holstein International Festivals, and the Orlando Festival in Holland.

She has broadcast on BBC Radio 3, London’s Classic FM, Dutch National Radio, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, North German Radio, and WQXR in New York. In 1986 she was featured in a British Channel 4 TV documentary on the Chamber Music of Penderecki, working with the composer.

Wells is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music, studying with Ralph Kirshbaum and David Strange. She holds a doctorate from Yale University, where she studied with Aldo Parisot as a Harkness Fellow. Additional awards from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund enabled her to participate in further studies at Prussia Cove, the Banff Centre and the International Menuhin Academy in Gstaad, Switzerland.