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Scholarship Winners 2022
 

CoCo is pleased to announce our 2021-22 Music Scholarship awardees. The scholarships are available to student musicians residing in Delmarva and attending either middle or high school, public or private. Scholarship awards may be used for music camps, university courses, instrument purchase or repair, or for private music lessons. All musicians are eligible.

The 2021-2022 Coastal Concerts’ Scholarship program awarded a total of $4,000 to eight students, two in high school  and six in middle school and was funded by generous contributions from Sussex County Council, Minnie Shorter, Rob Young, Carol Dennis, and Pete and Joanne Harrigan.

The Harrigans established the Dorothy and Elizabeth Musical Scholarship Fund in 2014 to honor their mothers’ “love of music and appreciation of learning.” The scholarship is an annual award in addition to those otherwise funded in any given year and presented to a talented student musician to further their music education.

This year’s Dorothy and Elizabeth Music Scholarship was awarded to Maxwell Brown. Additional scholarship winners include: Annabelle Wei, Andres Ramos, Gabriela Salvador-Riera, Mackenzie Vitolo, McKayla Hwang, Ava Hoang and Valentina Ramos.  

The annual scholarship program is just one element of Coastal Concerts’ comprehensive commitment to promoting classical music appreciation on Delmarva. Other initiatives include school-based performances by professional concert artists; free youth and discounted student admission to concerts; free community lectures and performances; and collection of used but playable musical instruments for donation to local schools. 

Since the introduction of the scholarship program in 2006, 56 students have received awards totaling $51,000.

Daniel Qi

Wilmington, Delaware

Violin

 

Daniel Qi is a freshman at Archmere Academy in Wilmington Delaware. He also studies violin with Charles Parker at the Temple University Music Prep’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians (CGYM).

 

Daniel made his solo orchestra debut at the age of 11. In 2020, he was selected as finalist in the Philadelphia Orchestra Albert M. Greenfield Competition. He is a two-time winner of the Delaware Concerto Competition for Young Musicians (2019 and 2021), a gold winner of the 2021 Bösendorfer Youth Music Festival, the first-place winner of the 2019 Estella Hillersohn Frankel Violin Scholarship and the winner of 2021 Delaware MusicTeachers Association in junior string division. Daniel recently won the 2022 Newark Symphony Orchestra Betsy L Kent Youth Concerto Competition and performed the third movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the orchestra in March 2023.

 

Daniel has played in masterclasses with many renowned violinists and chamber groups, including Ida Kavafian, Robert Chen, Daniel Phillips, Soovin Kim, Jennifer Koh, Katherine Cho, Hagai Shaham, the Takács Quartet, theJasper Quartet, and the Aizuri Quartet.

 

Daniel has previously participated in Delaware All State Orchestra and Delaware Youth Symphony Orchestra. 

 

This summer, he will tour Iceland with the Temple Music Prep’s Youth Chamber Orchestra and attend Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s string quartet workshop. He is also selected for Carnegie Hall’s NYO2, an intensive summer orchestral training program, and will perform at Carnegie Hall with NYO2 and then travel tothe Dominican Republic for the ensemble’s first-ever international residency and concerts. Daniel loves being a member of the CGYM’s Youth Chamber Orchestra. He frequently performs at local Retirement Communities. His other interests are reading, gardening and playing soccer.

 

Daniel plays The Howard A. Levin, M.D. violin, an 1855 Derazey, on generous loan from Temple Music Prep.

 

Valentina Ramos

Wilmington, Delaware

Piano

Valentina Ramos is currently 13 years old. She is a 9th grade student at Archmere Academy in Delaware. Valentina plans to further her music performances at the Helena Raskob Arts Institute at her school. She began piano studies at eight years old, followed by learning the harp two years later. Valentina is proud to be under the private tutelage of esteemed pianist Natalia Varlashova, a graduate of the Irkutsk State Pedagogical University, Russia. Master Varlashova actively prepares pianists for conservatory studies, high level competitions, and masterclasses in Philadelphia and New York. Valentina is also extremely fortunate to be a harp student of Master Eunice Kim, an alumni of the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Master Kim currently teaches a select handful of advanced harp students and prepares them for international competitions.

 

Valentina was honored to perform at Carnegie Hall on the piano and harp in 2019. She has been the first-prize laureate for the prestigious Bi-Annual American Harp Society Competition (Philadelphia) 2019 & 2021, The Princeton International Piano Competition, and The Delaware Concerto Competition. She has garnered many more domestic and international accolades on both instruments.

 

In July 2022, Valentina was invited by the Honorary Consul of Kranj, Slovenia and the Director of the International Academy S.P.E.K.T.R. of Slovenia under the patronage of the Embassy of Ukraine to perform in a special Gala Concert in Rogaska with her brother. She traveled to Slovenia and performed on piano and harp at the historic Grand Rogaska Crystal Ballroom, made famous by visits from Emperor Ferdinand and extravagant performances from world-renowned pianist Franz Liszt in 1846. In December 2022, Valentina traveled to Szeged, Hungary for The Camac International Harp Competition. She won the Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Artistry and Musicality by Svetlana Paramonova, the principal harpist of the Russian National Orchestra and the Bolshoi Ballet. One week later, Valentina flew to Paris to perform on the piano in the Amphithéâtre Cité de la Musique-Philharmonie de Paris. Most recently, she took masterclasses from pianist Maestro Rossetti and harpist Maestro Ostuni in Lugano, Switzerland. 

 

Valentina is a member of the Girls Varsity Tennis team at Archmere Academy and has played USTA (United States Tennis Association) tournaments for a long time. She loves food, visual arts and world languages. Valentina feels blessed to be a part of the Archmere community. She extends her heartfelt thanks to her friends and faculty members, especially Mrs. Mary Ellen Schauber, director of the Helena Raskob Arts Institute, for supporting her music.

 

 

Avalon O'Brien

Dover, Delaware

Piano

 

Avalon Lessett, a senior at Dover High School, has been formally involved in music for almost ten years, and playing the piano since she was eight years old. While living in Hawaii, she attended the Junior Music Academy and the Manoa School of the Arts, and studied piano with Camara Kambon.  When she was 16, she moved to Delaware, and now plays in the big band as lead pianist at Dover High School. She is also tutoring a lowerclassman to fill that role when she graduates.   

In addition to playing the piano, Avalon also composes and produces music privately.  She is looking forward to the day she can publish her work, and finally express her love for music to the world.

Ethan Xie

Wilmington, Delaware

Violin

Ethan Xie is a 6th-grade distinguished honors student at the Henry B. DuPont Middle School. He fell in love with classical music when he started playing violin at the age of six. When he was nine, he joined the Delaware Youth Symphony Orchestra (DYSO), where he currently plays first violin. He was honorable mention of the 2023 DYSO Concerto Competition. In addition to violin, he plays piano and guitar. 

 

Ethan loves music because it enables him to connect with and touch people. He has used his instruments to entertain friends and teachers at his school and residents at a local nursing home. He plans to use the scholarship to attend a summer music camp to further his musical education.

Charlotte del Rossi

Milford, Delaware

Flute

Charlotte Del Rossi is a junior at Milford Senior High School and she has been playing flute since fourth grade. Currently, she studies under Margaret Swinchoski. Charlotte performed with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra’s Young Musicians Debut Orchestra for two years before joining the Delaware Youth Symphony Orchestra where she plays flute and piccolo.

 

In addition, Charlotte plays in a flute/cello/violin chamber group through the Music School of Delaware. She also plays flute for the high school’s Concert Band and Marching Band where she is a section leader. She has performed with the Kent County Honors Band and Delaware All State Band for the last four years. In the summer before her junior year, Charlotte participated in the Delaware Governor’s School of Excellence for flute performance.

 

In addition to flute, Charlotte is also an accomplished pianist. In 2022, she was awarded the prestigious Paderewski Medal by the American College of Musicians National Guild. The award is presented to students who have completed 10 years of piano auditions in the Guild, performing a national program of 10 memorized pieces and receiving a rating of superior each year. Charlotte plans to attend a four-year college with a focus in global studies and will continue her flute studies as well.

 

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