Duo
Sam Gray and Ben Nylander are a violin & piano duo that regularly present concerts across various locations in the New York Tri-State area. They are also co-founders of a chamber music program for adult amateur musicians, the “Hamilton-Hudson Chamber Music Academy & Festival”.

Sam Gray is a New York-based violinist, violist, and music contractor. In his performance career, Sam has shared the stage with many great artists of our time, including Cyndi Lauper, Mariah Carey, Darren Criss, Titus Burgess, Alex Newell, Billy Eichner, and Kate Baldwin. Described as “immensely talented” by Broadway World, his work in musical theater includes the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical, and Boop! The Musical. In Fall 2024, he sat Concertmaster of the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Live in Concert National Tour produced by Sony in association with Marvel. 

A fervent believer that music is healing to the soul, Sam produces intimate chamber music performances around New York City. He is the co-founder of Hamilton-Hudson Chamber Music Festival, an annual classical chamber music festival for adult amateur musicians in collaboration with pianist and composer Benjamin Nylander.

Sam began his musical studies at the age of nine. His formative teachers include Patricia Cosand, Steven Moeckel, Sarah Plum, and Gary Kosloski. He performs on a 2014 Samuel Zygmuntowicz violin generously on loan from Jay and Michiko Jones.

Benjamin T. Nylander is a composer and pianist living in Brooklyn. His work, inspired by philosophy, spirituality, and dreams, often embraces a reverence of nature; it is an encapsulation of wonder at the universe. 

Nylander holds a Master’s in Music Composition from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio and a Bachelor’s in Piano Performance from Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. He has studied composition with Marilyn Shrude, Christopher Dietz, Mikel Kuehn, and Patrick Long as well as piano with Solungga Liu and Naomi Niskala. Highlights from his university studies include a 2017 performance at Niigata University in Japan, and as the winner of the 2018 Susquehanna University Concerto Competition, the performance of Saint-Saëns’ 'Piano Concerto no. 2 in G minor' (Movement 1) in 2019.

Nylander has attended residencies at the Virginia Creative Center for the Arts in Mt. San Angelo, Virginia and at Snow Pond Music Festival in Sidney, Maine, where he conducted the premiere of his saxophone ensemble piece, Once More to the Ocean. Recent collaborations have entailed composing for various film and theatre projects, a contemporary classical album performed with saxophonist Joshua Heaney, and an international debut in Harbin, China for the 2025 World Saxophone Congress. Most notably, Nylander frequently performs with violinist Sam Gray, with whom he founded the Hamilton-Hudson Chamber Music Academy in 2025.

While not performing, Nylander can be found working as repetiteur in the opera studios of Ron Raines, Dona Vaughn, Elisabeth Stevens, and Alison Bolshoi. He teaches a large private studio of his own piano, composition, and theory students throughout the greater New York City area and beyond.