Sean Powers

With a combination of technical versatility and over a decade of professional performing experience, Sean Powers is considered by many students, educators, and fellow musicians as a professional both on and off the stage. Through the years of traveling and learning interdependently with many artists, Sean has discovered unique adaptations of chord voicings, tones, and soloing styles on the guitar which he has incorporated over genres such as Jazz, Rock, Blues, Fusion, New-Age, and Folk. Sean’s collaborative leadership, elaboration, and partnership with students and musicians of all ages has earned him a large recognition for inspirational innovative musical strategies which are commonly found in his techniques within the performing and educational environments. 

​As a multi-instrumentalist performer and educator, Sean has participated not only in the classroom but on stage with groups such as the KIDS From Wisconsin and CWETA (Central Wisconsin Educational Theater Alliance), while also engaging in smaller groups with his family and friends for over nearly a decade and a half. While his youth was full of traveling with his father and brother, his independent career took off on the 51st tour of the KIDS From Wisconsin. Since then, Sean has performed as the lead guitarist in the 53rd tour (“LIVE! In Living Color”) the 54th tour (“BIG BANG BOOM”) and the 55th tour ("Star Struck") and traveled thousands of miles to perform all over the Midwest. ​

​Since his recent successes with numerous like-minded artists in the KIDS From Wisconsin, CWETA, and his smaller groups, he has strived to make an impact on the next upcoming musicians, where he encourages expression and individuality through the instrument. With expression becoming much more of an apparent contemporary practice in today's society, he says, “I have found that success is determined by the individual’s ability to work for something they feel passionate about. Curiosity fuels passion, passion prompts excellence, excellence evokes inspiration." Sean not only tries to promote that in his teachings, but also incorporates that into his performing styles, which helps him always listen and collaborate with fellow artists to always continue to bring something unique to the music realm.

Aside from being a performing guitarist for many large and small groups, Sean graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with a degree in Guitar Performance and currently serves in the United States Navy as a guitarist, primarily performing in Jazz, Classical, Blues, Folk, Country, New-Age and Contemporary guitar.

The teaching style that I primarily use is objective based. With students, everyone is at a different place.... whether it is in how fast they learn, how long they have been playing, what they want to play, etc. The most important thing to me is that the students are getting something beneficial out of the lesson, and that they are learning what they want to learn!