Delaware County Symphony
Sebastian Grand, Music Director
SOLOISTS
Acclaimed for her “wonderful, rich tone” and “particularly expressive and finely nuanced playing”, Noelle Casella Grand leads a varied and active career as orchestral cellist, soloist, and international educator. As concerto soloist, she has appeared with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Guernsey Sinfonietta (UK), Old York Road Symphony, Bach Festival Orchestra, Providence Chamber Orchestra, and Amici Strings performing a wide variety of repertoire ranging from Vivaldi to Korngold. As orchestral cellist, Noelle regularly performs with the Bach Festival Orchestra, Capital Philharmonic of New Jersey, Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Ocean City Pops, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and Opera Philadelphia as well as performances with baroque ensembles La Fiocco and the New York Consort of Viols. Most recently Noelle has been appointed Assistant Principal cello of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic.



As an internationally active pedagogue, Noelle is in high demand as an educator both in the US as well as abroad. Noelle has recently been appointed as cello professor at The College of New Jersey, is a frequent guest artist at Lehigh University and the Greater Princeton Youth Orchestra, and is cello professor at Bucks County Community College. She also directs the Grand School of Music, conducts for the Youth Orchestra of Bucks County, and is on the faculty of the Elizabeth College Summer Orchestral Course in Guernsey, UK. In 2023 Noelle was named the winner of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra Music Institute’s 10th Annual Ovation Award for her work as an outstanding music educator in the region.



Noelle’s private cello students have participated in both the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra and New York Youth Symphony, attained some of the highest marks on advanced ABRSM performance exams, and been competition winners for the Philadelphia International Music Festival, Youth Orchestra of Bucks County, and the King’s Peak International Music Competition. Her students have been accepted into the Manhattan School of Music, NEC, Mannes, Oberlin, Eastman, University of Michigan, and the University of Maryland.



Noelle is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music (UK) where she received a Master of Arts and LRAM Teaching Diploma with distinction. Noelle also holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.



Noelle plays on a William Forster Jr, cello, c. 1811 London and. Luis & Clark carbon fibre cello.
Noelle Casella Grand
Eugene Albulescu
Eugene Albulescu is an award-winning performer who combines a blazing technique with the artistic integrity and originality to express musical emotions at their most personal level. His work as conductor, soloist and recording artist spans four continents and over four decades. At age 12 Albulescu won First prize in Romania’s National Music Competition, and at 16 he was the youngest competitor and winner of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Young Musicians Competition. His emergence on the international scene came in 1994, when his debut recording (Albulescu Plays Liszt, MANU1446) earned him the Grand Prix du Disque Liszt, awarded for the best Liszt recording of the year, adding Albulescu’s name to that of legendary recipients such as Horowitz and Brendel. Noted New York Times critic Harold Schonberg praised Albulescu for his “infallible fingers of steel,” declaring that “nothing, anywhere, has any terrors for him.” His performances in New York at BargeMusic in 1996 attracted the attention of WNYC, which broadcast Albulescu’s Hammerklavier interpretation live; he later gave his Carnegie Hall debut in the Stern Auditorium in 2001 performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1.
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Since then, Albulescu has worked as conductor and soloist with numerous major orchestras including the New Zealand Symphony, the Romanian National George Enescu Philharmonic, the New York Chamber Orchestra, the Manukau Symphony Orchestra, and Christchurch Symphony. He toured the US with the Barbizon Chamber Orchestra and later led two US tours as music director with the French Chamber Orchestra. His recordings have been released on Ode/Manu label, Ode/BMG, Trust, Downstage Recordings, and on the Naxos label with the New Zealand Symphony featuring the “Rock Concerto,” composed for Albulescu by celebrated New Zealand composer Jenny McLeod. Mr. Albulescu has also recorded solo piano sessions for South African Broadcasting Corporation, as well as Radio New Zealand, and in the US has been a featured artist on NPR’s Performance Today. His most recent release on the AMP label, featuring performances of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos 1 and 5, has earned significant acclaim and unanimously positive critical reviews.
Albulescu’s outreach in over one hundred US high schools has been significant, and his program “Inside the Piano” linking technology and creativity earned him coverage from the major media, including articles in the Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as the cover of Clavier Magazine. Some of his notable performances include two invitations to perform at the White House in 1996 and 1999, as well as performing at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Albulescu has been awarded twice the Steinway Teacher of the Year Award in 2017 and 2022, and was inducted into the Steinway Teacher Hall of Fame in 2023.
Albulescu started his piano studies in Romania at age six, at the Enescu Music School in Bucharest. His family moved to New Zealand in 1984 to escape Romania’s Communist regime. He completed his musical studies with Edward Auer at Indiana University where, at nineteen, he was the youngest person ever to teach as an assistant instructor. A Steinway Artist since 2005, he currently is the Ulrich Professor of Music at Lehigh University.
Jennifer Montone
Grammy Award Winner Jennifer Montone has been hailed by the New York Times for her "flawless horn solos... and warm and noble sound". As Principal Horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and a world acclaimed soloist, chamber musician and teacher, she has been on the faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School since joining the orchestra in 2006.
Previously the Principal Horn of the Saint Louis Symphony and Associate Principal Horn of the Dallas Symphony, Ms. Montone was an adjunct professor at Southern Methodist University, performer/faculty at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and coaches on occasion at the New World Symphony. She was third horn of the New Jersey Symphony from 1997-2000, and has performed as a guest artist with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic.
Ms. Montone regularly performs as a soloist, with orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the National Symphony, the Polish National Radio Symphony, the Warsaw National Philharmonic, among others. Her recording of the Penderecki Horn Concerto, "Winterreise" with the Warsaw National Philharmonic won a 2013 Grammy Award in the category of "Best Classical Compendium". Other recordings include "Jennifer Montone Performs"- her first solo CD, "Still Falls the Rain"- works of Benjamin Britten, "Gabrieli" by the National Brass Ensemble, "Philadelphia Orchestra, Tchaikovsky and Ewald"- featuring the orchestra's principals brass quintet, and "Song of Shinobeu"- works of Haruka Watanabe.
Ms. Montone made her Carnegie Weil Hall solo recital debut on October 22, 2008. She has enjoyed appearing as a featured artist at many International Horn Society workshops, and as a soloist and collaborator with artists such as Emmanuel Ax, Eric Owens, Christoph Eschenbach, Shmeul Ashkenazi, and Joseph Silverstein, and David Soyer, among many others.
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As a chamber musician Ms. Montone performs with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, National Brass Ensemble, Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Bravo Vail Chamber Music Festival,Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music Festival, Bay Chamber Concerts, Spoleto Italy Chamber Music Festival, and the Marlboro Music Festival.
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Ms. Montone is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she studied with Julie Landsman, legendary pedagogue and former principal horn of the Metropolitan Opera. In May 2006 Ms. Montone was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. She is also the winner of the 1996 Paxman Young Horn Player of the Year Award in London, England. A native of northern Virginia, Ms. Montone studied with Edwin Thayer, principal horn of the National Symphony, in the National Symphony Orchestra Youth Fellowship Program. She is married to double bass player, Timothy Ressler, and immensely enjoys spending time with her two young sons, Max and Felix.
Katherine Whyte
Katherine Whyte has delighted audiences and critics alike on opera and concert stages across her native Canada, the United States and Europe. Opera Today has praised her "keen artistic sensibility" while the San Francisco Classical Voice singled out "her glamorous, vibrato-rich voice". Following her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2007 in Strauss’ Die Ägyptische Helena, she has returned to the company for productions of Iolanta, Rigoletto, Jenufa, The Gambler, The Enchanted Island, Two Boys, Parsifal, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and Suor Angelica.
Recent and upcoming engagements for Ms. Whyte include her celebrated Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro with Intermountain Opera Bozeman, the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro with Opera Saratoga, Charlottesville Opera and the Norwalk Symphony, her debut at Dallas Opera as Pousette in Manon, her debut with Syracuse’s Symphoria performing Poulenc’s Gloria; a return to New Choral Society as soprano soloist in Carmina Burana, her debut with Heartbeat Opera as Agathe in Der Freischütz, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte with Opera Grand Rapids, solo recital with Djordje Nesic at the celebrated Kolarac Hall in Belgrade Serbia, and orchestral and opera appearances with Opera Hong Kong, the Kaohsiung Symphony and the Meet in Beijing Arts Festival. Ms Whyte was the soprano soloist for Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Santa Rosa, Louisiana and Eugene Symphonies. She was delighted to debut last summer with Orpheus PDX singing the Role of Aminta in Mozart’s Il Re Pastore and will return this summer to sing Aci in Handel’s Aci, Galaeta e polifemo. This season included singing Poulenc's Gloria with the Greensboro Symphony, a Sibelius Concert with the Vallejo Festival Orchestra, Mimi in Boheme with Intermountain Opera, Elijah with the New Choral Society and Mahler 2nd with the Phoenix Symphony. Katherine reprised her beloved Countess with the Utah Opera and sang Beethoven 9th with the Oregon symphony.
Kwanyun Lucien Loo, 14, is a Southeast Asian-American cellist, a Diploma Candidate and Fellow at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studies with Peter Wiley, Yumi Kendall, and Nick Canellakis. In October 2024, he made his Curtis Symphony Orchestra debut at the Kimmel Center’s Marian Anderson Hall—a distinction achieved by only six students in Curtis’s 100-year history. Before Curtis, he studied with Amy Barston and performed for two seasons with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra.
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At age 11, Kwanyun made his orchestral solo debut with the Ambler Symphony Orchestra after winning the Elmer and Louise Menges Scholarship. Since then, he has won multiple competitions and performed as a soloist with various ensembles, including the Main Line Symphony Orchestra, Lansdowne Symphony Orchestra, and Rowan University String Ensemble. A passionate chamber musician at Curtis and beyond, he collaborates closely with fellow students and faculty in chamber ensembles. He is also a scholarship recipient of the Settlement Music School’s Advanced Study Chamber Program, where he has studied since 2022 with esteemed coaches from the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Daedalus Quartet.
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Kwanyun has performed in masterclasses with renowned artists such as Sheku Kanneh-Mason, David Geber, and the Takács Quartet. He spent multiple summers at the Heifetz International Music Institute, performing annually in its concerts, and was named a String Scholar Fellow in 2024. A graduate of the PMAY Aritsts’ Initiative, he is also dedicated to arts outreach, serving as regional director of the Philadelphia branch of the Back to BACH Project, where he organizes and performs in school outreach concerts.
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Outside of music, Kwanyun is a USA Computing Olympiad (USACO) Silver Division Qualifier and an honor roll student at Cherry Hill High School East, where he serves as class president. He is also a published poet in American High School Poets: Winter 2025 and enjoys playing tennis and basketball with friends.