About
Named as Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals of the Year in 2021, Sean Gao is one of the world’s most successful presenters, producers, composers, and pedagogues. 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 for world leaders including two U.S. Presidents, three Chinese Presidents, and other European leaders. In 2014, he was granted the Delaware Governor’s Award for his contribution in the arts.
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.
As a solo violinist and founder of 6-WIRE trio(violin, erhu & piano), a world-traveling crossover ensemble, highlights of Sean’s recent season’s engagements include Carnegie Hall solo and chamber performances; commissioning and world premiere of Bright Sheng’s piano quartet for 6-WIRE in New York and Hong Kong; the North American premiere of Eduard Tubin’s violin concerto No. 1 with the Detroit Symphony; China and Israel tour of the world premiere of Mark Hagerty’s concerto “Beyond These Horizons” for 6-WIRE and orchestra; China and U.S. tour of the world premiere of Kristin Kuster’s “Two Jades” for solo violin and symphony band in Disney Hall, Los Angeles and the National Center for Performing Arts, Beijing, China; solo performances with orchestras worldwide including the Czech Philharmonic, the Gothenburg Symphony-National Orchestra of Sweden, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic of Russia, the Estonia National Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Memphis Symphony, the Aspen Music Festival orchestras and the Knoxville Symphony.
Mr. Gao lives in Newark, Delaware, where he is the Trustees Distinguished Professor of Music and the founding director of the Master Players Concert Series & Festival at the University of Delaware, a flagship presenting organization in the Mid-Atlantic region. He performs on a fine violin made by master maker G.B. Ceruti of Cremona, Italy in 1794. The University of Delaware purchased this rare instrument to support Mr. Gao’s international performing career. In 2007, the Stradivari Society in Chicago selected Mr. Gao to be a recipient of world famous Stradivarius violins for his international solo career. Mr. Gao is represented by the California Artists Management and a proud alumnus of the University of Michigan (BM and MM.)
Between his busy music activities worldwide, Mr. Gao enjoys mentoring and teaching violin and performing arts management students the most. He can also be found cooking Chinese cuisine, golfing, fishing, hiking, watching college football or skiing with wife Renee, an accomplished researcher and college professor in linguistics and Chinese language education. They share their home with daughter Samantha, who is a young violinist, and two Tonkinese cats, Luna and Mika.