Artistic Staff

David Christopher has held the position of Artistic Director since 2005. Recent major oratorio and choral credits include Ein Deutsches Requiem (Brahms) with Delaware ChoralArts and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Messiah (Handel), Grand Mass in C (Mozart), Holocaust Cantata (McCullough), Chichester Psalms (Bernstein), Judas Maccabaeus (Handel), Lux Aeterna (Lauridsen), and Requiems by Duruflé, Fauré and Rutter.

As a conductor, David has built a varied and highly successful history as an interpreter of choral, orchestral and stage works. He has served as associate conductor for OperaDelaware where he made his opera conducting debut to critical acclaim in The Gondoliers (Gilbert & Sullivan), conducted Die Fledermaus (Strauss), and served as assistant conductor for numerous productions. Other operatic credits include Die Zauberflöte (Mozart), The Merry Widow (Lehar), La Traviata (Verdi), Savitiri (Holst), The Tender Land (Copland), Carmen (Bizet), The Nightingale (Stravinsky), as well as most of the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire.

Through his association as conductor for the City of Wilmington, David has served as conductor and music director for the All-American Tribute Orchestra as part of the annual 4th of July Celebration in Tubman-Garrett Park at the Riverfront in Wilmington. On several occasions he has conducted concerts featuring the sacred music of Duke Ellington (featuring jazz orchestra, soloists, chorus and dancers) in collaboration with Tina Betz and the City of Wilmington as part of the DuPont Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in Wilmington.

Also a recognized leader in training children’s voices, David founded The Wilmington Children’s Chorus in 2002 in collaboration with the Mayor of Wilmington’s Office of Cultural Affairs and The Episcopal Church of Saints Andrew and Matthew. Now a multi-cultural ensemble with over 100 children and staffed by some of the area’s finest music educators, The Wilmington Children’s Chorus has become one of the premiere children’s choirs in the region.

A native of York, PA, Gabriel Benton enjoys a multifaceted life in music as a church musician, accompanist, performer and teacher. He lives in Wilmington DE, where he is the director of music and organist at Grace United Methodist Church. He holds degrees in harpsichord and organ performance from Oberlin, Juilliard, and Yale. Passionate about working with singers, he has been both accompanying and singing with various choirs from the time he was in high school.

As a harpsichordist and early music specialist, he regularly performs solo recitals, chamber music, and orchestral music across the United States. He is harpsichordist
for the Serafin Ensemble in Delaware as well as for American Bach Soloists in San Francisco. Other regular collaborations have included Brandywine Baroque in Delaware, American Baroque Orchestra in Connecticut, La Speranza in Texas, and New World Symphony in Florida.

Gabriel has been the recipient of several awards including first place in the York Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerto Competition, the Earl Russel Award in historical performance, and the Charles Ives organ scholarship. In 2022 he was awarded the Jeffrey Thomas award for “exceptionally gifted emerging professionals in the field of Early Music who show extraordinary promise and accomplishment.”

Jonathan Fox Powers, Associate Conductor, has enjoyed a multi-faceted career in the areas of piano, voice, acting, accompanying, arranging, composing, and musical direction. During his fifteen years living and working in New York City, Jonathan performed extensively on stage and from the pit, creating many new roles o􏰀-Broadway, including Mr. Darcy in a musical adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Blifil in Tom Jones, Smike in Nicholas Nickleby, and Johnny in Time It Is: To Music. He has performed roles with several opera companies including Amore Opera, Bronx Opera, Light Opera of New York, Utopia Opera, The Blue Hill Troupe, The Victor Herbert Renaissance Project, and with Theater for the New City. He enjoys a varied career in concert, frequently collaborating in recitals or oratorio including as bass soloist for Mozart’s Requiem. Favorite roles in opera and light opera include Papageno, Figaro, Strephon, and Dr. Falke. In 2022, Jonathan was called upon to help create and music-direct Bliss Street, a new indie-rock musical which follows one family’s true survival story from interbellum Europe to NYC in the heart of the emerging Punk scene of the 1970s. Other music directing credits include Rappaccini’s Daughter, Out the Window, Speakeasy and In Questionable Taste. In the realms of composing and arranging, Jonathan has set collections of poetry to music including works of ee cummings and Tennyson. He collaborated with his wife, Paige Cutrona, to create a new song cycle, Jane the Quene, which tells the story of the ill-fated Nine Days Queen of England, Lady Jane Grey, which premiered in 2024. Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from SUNY Oswego where he studied voice, piano and conducting, and has recently relocated to Wilmington, Delaware. He is on the vocal and piano faculty of The Music School of Delaware and is a bass with the all-professional choir at Christ Church Christiana Hundred. Visit www.jonfoxpowers.com.