Coastal Concerts presents student scholarship awards

Coastal Concerts recently announced the presentation of its annual music scholarship awards to five exceptionally talented Delaware middle and high school students.

The awards were presented at the final concert of the 2022-23 season, in which violinist Elena Urioste thrilled the audience with her recital performance highlighted by a duet with last year’s Dorothy and Elizabeth Music Scholarship Award winner, 12-year-old violinist Maxwell Brown.

The annual awards recognize young musicians in various categories. Each award recipient is required to submit a comprehensive application that includes a music resume, an essay, letters of recommendation and video of at least two performances. Applicants also perform in person for a panel of judges. Since the inception of the scholarship program in 2002, $52,470 has been awarded to 61 students. This year, there were five winners and a total of $4,500 in scholarship monies awarded.

Daniel Qi, violinist, is the 2023 winner of Coastal Concerts’ most prestigious music scholarship, the Dorothy and Elizabeth Music Scholarship Award. A rising sophomore at Archmere Academy, Daniel studies violin privately with Charles Parker at Temple University Music Prep’s Center for Gifted Young Musicians. He made his solo orchestral debut at the age of 11 and has taken master classes with numerous renowned violinists and chamber groups, including Ida Kavafian, Robert Chen, Daniel Phillips, Soovin Kim, Jennifer Koh, Katherine Cho, Hagai Shaham, the Takács Quartet, the Jasper Quartet and the Aizuri Quartet. This summer, he will tour Iceland with the Temple Music Prep Youth Chamber Orchestra and attend Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s string quartet workshop.

The Sussex County Council Music Scholarship Award went to flutist Charlotte del Rossi. A rising senior at Milford Senior High School, Charlotte has been playing flute since fourth grade and currently 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 chamber group through the Music School of Delaware. She also plays flute in the high school’s concert and marching bands, 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 excelling at the flute, Charlotte is an accomplished pianist.

Winners of Coastal Concerts’ Musicality Award for High School are pianists Valentina Ramos and Avalon Lessett.

Valentina is 13 years old and a rising sophomore at Archmere Academy. She plans to further her music performance studies at the Helena Raskob Arts Institute at her school. Valentina began her piano studies at the age of 8, followed by the harp two years later. She is under the private tutelage of esteemed pianist Natalia Varlashova, a graduate of the Irkutsk State Pedagogical University, Russia, and studies harp under Master Eunice Kim, an alumna of the Curtis Institute. Kim teaches a select handful of advanced harp students, preparing them for international competitions. In 2019, Valentina was honored to perform at Carnegie Hall on both piano and harp.

Avalon is a senior at Dover High School and has been playing the piano since age 8. While living in Hawaii, she attended the Junior Music Academy and the Manoa School of the Arts while studying piano with Camara Kambon. She moved to Delaware at 16 and is now lead pianist in the Dover High School big band. She is also tutoring a lowerclassman to fill that role when she graduates. In addition to playing the piano, Avalon composes and produces music. She is looking forward to publishing her work to finally express her love for music to the world.

Ethan Xie, violinist, was honored with Coastal Concerts’ Musicality Award for Middle School. Ethan is a rising seventh-grader and distinguished honors student at Henry B. du Pont Middle School. He fell in love with classical music when he started playing violin at the age of 6. At 9 years old, he joined the Delaware Youth Symphony Orchestra, where he currently plays first violin. He earned an honorable mention in the 2023 DYSO Concerto Competition. In addition to violin, he plays piano and guitar.

For more information, go to coastalconcerts.org.