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Dr. Seán Boulware is a conductor, vocalist, educator, and theater artist whose career connects international performance with a deep commitment to community music-making. His leadership on the Monterey Peninsula includes 17 years with Monterey Peninsula Voices, where he is the ensemble’s longest-serving conductor, and 15 years as the founding and current conductor of Aria Women’s Choir. With Aria, he has built a musical home in which women’s voices, stories, and artistry take center stage.
Boulware has conducted more than a dozen concerts at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and has led choirs and performance tours across Europe, as well as in Brazil and Japan. In 2012, he led the Monterey Peninsula Choral Society during the London Summer Olympic Games. He has prepared choruses for John Alexander, Seiji Ozawa, Gerald Wirth, Keith Lockhart, and John Rutter, and his collaborations have included Josh Groban, Michael McDonald, Tommy Sims, and Keith and Kristyn Getty.
As a vocalist, he has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, New Jersey Symphony, and Los Angeles Renaissance Consort. His theatrical experience includes national tours of Les Misérables and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, alongside work as a director, performer, and sound engineer. In February 2027, he returns to the stage as Jean Valjean in Pacific Repertory Theatre’s Les Misérables, directed by Gary Bolen.
His work also reaches beyond the podium. During the pandemic, he kept five choirs singing online and collaborated with musicians and scientists on research into safer singing and singer’s-mask design. As Western Region Program Consultant for Encore Tours, he helps choirs, bands, and orchestras develop meaningful performance experiences abroad.
He also serves as a Board Member of the Monterey Peninsula Theatre Trust, which provides grant support to college and community theatre and other nonprofit performing arts programs in Monterey County.
His mentors include Lynn Bielefelt, Joseph Flummerfelt, James Jordan, Rodney Eichenberger, and John Alexander. He lives in Salinas with his wife, Michelle, a fellow choral conductor and music educator. Throughout his work, Boulware returns to the same purpose: bringing people together through expressive singing, thoughtful programming, and the shared experience of making music.
