Xiang Gao, composer and producer

Recognized as one of the world's most successful musicians of his generation from the People's Republic of China, the New York Times cites Xiang Gao as "a rare and soulful virtuoso."  

In mid-March of 2015, his new musical “Campus Chatter” (as composer and producer) based on true stories from interviews of current college students in America and inspired by the victims of campus shootings in the U.S. enjoyed a very successful premiere in Delaware.

As a concert performer, Xiang Gao’s musical integrity and virtuoso technique have gained accolades from audiences and reviewers around the world, and he has performed as a solo violinist for many world leaders. Most recently, Xiang Gao was a featured soloist performing for the former Chinese President Hu JinTao and the visiting King Carlos I of Spain. In the past 20 years, he has performed with more than 100 symphony orchestras worldwide and is currently the UD Trustees Distinguished Professor of Music and the recipient of the UD Ceruti violin that was purchased by UD in 2004 for his international performing career which made national news.

As a multifaceted musician, concert producer, and singer songwriter, Professor Gao composes, arranges, and performs in the styles of jazz, funk, bluegrass, Asian folk, pop, and Latin American music.  In August of 2012, Xiang Gao was commissioned by the Tsinghua University of China (One of China’s top three universities) to compose the film score Yuan Ming Yuan which was released in October 2012 with the documentary movie. The 40th anniversary of Earth Day’s theme song “Sleep now, O Earth,” - composed by Xiang Gao for children’s choir, Erhu, Indian drums and chamber orchestra - was successfully premiered in Delaware in April of 2010. As a member of the "China Magpie" ensemble established by Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, and the “6ixwire Project,” a crossover duet he and Erhu soloist Cathy Yang formed in 2009, Xiang is frequently featured on CCTV, China's leading TV station, performing live concerts for more than one billion TV viewers worldwide. Both crossover ensembles combine multiple styles, from Chinese folk to western classical and rock music.

With his strong interest in theater and Asian traditional music, Xiang Gao solo performed in the Nederlander Theatre on Broadway. He created the acclaimed Butterfly Lovers Multimedia Violin Concerto, which recreates a popular ancient Chinese fairytale similar to Romeo and Juliet for the western world. This production was successfully premiered in the Grand Opera House of Wilmington, Delaware in 2004 and was most recently awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts. An orchestral debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra took place on February 17 of 2007. Xiang Gao is also the creator and producer of very creative and engaging "iMusic" productions, which successfully humanize classical music in multimedia violin concerts that bring the audience of all ages and performers together with delightful artistic elements and special effects. His current projects include producing and directing “Encounters - the Qing and the West” – a theatrical concert he created to transport the audience on a musical journey of interactions between the Chinese Qing Dynasty(1644-1912) and the West, promoting cultural exchange and understanding. For more information, please visit XIANGGAO.NET, or view live video of his performances/compositions at Youtube.com/user/xianggaomusic.

                                    Joyce Hill Stoner, Lyricist

Joyce Hill Stoner has written music and lyrics for 22 musical theatre productions including I’ll Die if I Can’t Live Forever, which ran Off-Broadway in 1974-75 and was called “the best mini-musical in town” by The New York Times.  It was purchased by Samuel French, Inc., has been performed regionally, and won a gold medal in an international music theatre festival in Arezzo, Italy in 1982.  Her other productions include Turn Back Columbus (Please Don’t Discover Us!) (lyrics, Toronto); Murder at the Last Resort (lyrics, Cleveland); 1000 Words (based on The Picture of Doran Gray) (lyrics and libretto, NYC), 1-900-THE-SHOW (about people who meet people through personals, Delaware and NYC, lyrics and music), Barbie: The Musical or As She Dreams It (Barbie and Ken do Shakespeare’s As You Like It—under the bed instead of in the Forest of Arden, Delaware and NYC, lyrics and music), and The Roswell Follies: An Alien Revue (an investigation of the living conditions for aliens in the Roswell holding facilities, featured in the first annual New York City Fringe Festival and The Triad in NYC, lyrics and co-composer).  Stoner was in the Lehman Engel BMI workshop from 1974 to 1980; classmates included Ed Kleban (A Chorus Line), Maury Yeston (Nine, Titanic), and Alan Menken (Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Aladdin).

Her musical about H. F. du Pont and his collection (chairs came to life and sang about historical styles and the history of the du Pont family) honored Winterthur’s 50th anniversary in March 2002.  In March 2007 she was commissioned to write and perform a song for the 150th anniversary of the City of Wilmington: “Just Cross that Bridge. . . and come on down, to Wilmington the ‘be somebody’ town” accompanied by a 20-minute description of the history of Wilmington in rhymed couplets, performed by Stoner backed up by the Wilmington City Council.  In 2011 she wrote lyrics and music for “Delaware Salutes YouTube” in collaboration with the Wilmington Renaissance Corporation, Downtown Wilmington, and the Wilmington Mayor’s Office; the eight-minute video has had almost 5,000 views to date and was awarded a Delaware Division of the Arts Opportunity grant.

Professor Stoner has taught painting conservation and the history of art conservation for the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation for 37 years and served as its director for 15 years (1982-1997).  In 1996 she was promoted to the rank of full Professor at the University of Delaware and was awarded the Rosenberg professorship in 2009. She is a practicing paintings conservator and art historian.  She has recently been studying the Wyeth family of artists.  Andrew Wyeth painted her portrait in 1999.   Her 890-page, seven-year, 79-international-author book, The Conservation of Easel Paintings, was published in October, 2012, and she is now able to return to more work with musical theatre.

                           William J. Brooke, book writer

As a writer, William J. Brooke’s books for musicals have been performed off-Broadway and around the country; he has also written five children’s books, published by HarperCollins.  As a director, he has staged numerous productions for the Village Light Opera Group and others. As a performer, he has appeared frequently with the New York Grand Opera in Central Park for audiences of several thousand, playing such roles as Goro in Madama Butterfly, Bardolpho in Falstaff and Pang (or was it Pong?) in Turandot. He has specialized in the realm of Gilbert & Sullivan, having performed 31 different roles in the repertory as well as chorusing 10 of the 14 operettas. He met his wife, the talented and beautiful mezzo, Lynne Greene-Brooke, onstage at the Light Opera of Manhattan, where they were frequently married before they ever spoke to each other. He wrote the book for a musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess, which was given its world premiere in 2013 by the Sacramento Theatre Company in California.