The Application Deadline is Approaching for the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship

Get paid to perform with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra while earning a full scholarship to pursue your graduate degree at CCM as a CSO/CCM Diversity Fellow.

UC’s College-Conservatory of Music and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra are accepting applications for the 2020-22 class of CSO/CCM Diversity Fellows. The application deadline is Dec. 1, 2019. For application and audition requirements, visit us at ccm.uc.edu/chance2perform.

Funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this program provides an unparalleled learning experience for graduate-level violin, viola, violoncello and double bass players coming from populations that are historically underrepresented in classical music. Symphony Magazine recently spotlighted the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship in a story that focused on the “new cultural and economic directions redefining and expanding the role of the conservatory in the 21^st century.”

CSO/CCM Diversity Fellow Benefits: 

• Perform the equivalent of five weeks per season with the CSO.
• Receive compensation of $8,000 per season while performing with the CSO.
• Receive full tuition scholarship support while enrolled in a two-year Master of Music or Artist Diploma program at CCM.
• Receive a $10,000 per year graduate stipend and one-time Graduate School Dean’s Excellence Award of $3,000 from CCM.
• Receive access to orchestral audition and professional development stipends.

In addition, as many as five CSO/CCM Diversity Fellows can be selected annually to participate in an eight-week summer residency with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra through a partnership with the Chautauqua Institution of New York.

Participants will be paired with CSO coach/mentors for the duration of their Fellowship. An administrative liaison will also be assigned to support Fellows. Download the informational poster.

Get a look inside the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship in a feature story on Fellow Anita Graef (MM Cello, ’19). You can also learn about Fellow Ian Saunders’ (AD Double Bass, ’19) experience in the fellowship in a radio interview with Cincinnati Public Radio WVXU.

Important Dates

CCM and the CSO are now accepting applications for the 2020-22 class of Fellows. The application deadline is Dec. 1, 2019. For application and audition requirements, visit us at ccm.uc.edu/chance2perform.

Live auditions with CCM faculty will be held on Jan. 17-18, Jan. 24-25 and Feb. 14-15 of 2020.

Finalists will audition for the CSO on March 14, 2020, in CCM’s Robert J. Werner Recital Hall.

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and CCM Announce 2019-21 Class of Diversity Fellows

Five outstanding string players have been selected for the next class of the prestigious Diversity Fellowship program.

The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) have selected five outstanding musicians for the next class of CSO/CCM Diversity Fellows. Born out of a mutual desire to make American orchestras more inclusive, this prestigious performance fellowship program was launched in 2015 with a generous grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Foundation approved a renewal grant of $850,000 in 2017, providing funding for the innovative program through June 2021.

With this collaborative Fellowship program, CCM and the CSO hope to provide new opportunities for underrepresented musicians, while simultaneously fostering a more inclusive environment in the orchestral industry.

“Reflecting our community and the world around us at every level — on stage, around the office, in the board room, and in neighborhoods throughout the region — is one of our highest priorities,” said CSO President Jonathan Martin. “We welcome the new class of Fellows, look forward to the artistic contributions of the continuing class, and congratulate the Fellows who are now completing the program after two years.”

Here is the incoming class of CSO/CCM Diversity Fellows:
• Magdiell Antequera, 23 (violin)
• Jordan Curry, 24 (violin)
• Cristian J. Diaz, 28 (viola)
• Michael Martin, 24 (double bass)
• Denielle Wilson, 23 (cello)

“The CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship embodies the University of Cincinnati’s commitment to experience-based learning and community partnerships,” said CCM Dean Stanley E. Romanstein. “Our five newest Fellows possess enormous talent, and we are delighted to welcome them to Cincinnati. Once you have an opportunity to see the Fellows perform, you will understand why we boast that ‘Next Lives Here.’ We are grateful for the ongoing generosity of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through which CCM and the CSO can continue to work together to make the arts more inclusive.”

These five exceptional string players will officially join the two-year fellowship program in August 2019 bringing the total number of CSO/CCM Diversity Fellows to nine for the 2019-20 academic year and performance season.

The second class of Diversity Fellows, which is comprised of Anita Graef (cello), Ian Saunders (double bass), Weiyi Shao (violin), and Dan Wang (viola) recently completed the program at the conclusion of the 2018-19 season.

“The combination of performing with a major professional orchestra while getting a graduate degree from a top conservatory provides the ideal combination of educational and professional development,” said Yan Izquierdo, who will begin his second year in the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship in the fall. “I believe this Fellowship has significantly enriched my career and I highly recommend it to any music student, particularly those seeking opportunities in American orchestras.”

CSO/CCM Diversity Fellow Ian Saunders, CCM Dean Stanley Romanstein and CSO Instructional Programs Manager Carol Dunevant recently stopped by WVXU’s Cincinnati Edition to discuss the fellowship program with host Michael Monks. Listen to the full segment at www.wvxu.org.

How the Fellowship Works

The CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship Program is open to exceptional violin, viola, cello, and double bass players coming from historically underrepresented populations in classical music.

The program’s tagline — “Bravos Without Barriers” — gets to the heart of its mission: eliminating obstacles that can prevent extraordinary musicians from achieving their full potential.

Fellows perform the equivalent of five weeks per season with the CSO while enrolled in a two-year Master of Music (MM) or Artist Diploma (AD) graduate degree program at CCM. Each class of Fellows is selected through a rigorous series of auditions, which saw hundreds of graduate-level musicians audition for CCM faculty members. Select players were invited back to Cincinnati for a final round of auditions judged by CSO musicians in Springer Auditorium at Cincinnati Music Hall on March 16, 2019.

Each Fellow receives full tuition scholarship support from CCM, in addition to a $10,000 per year graduate stipend and a one-time Graduate School Dean’s Excellence Award of $3,000. Each Fellow also receives compensation of $8,000 per season while performing with the CSO.

Meet the Incoming Fellows

Magdiell Antequera, Master of Music (MM) student, Violin
Venezuelan violinist Magdiell Antequera, 23, made his first debut as a soloist in with the Falcon Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela at the age of 10 and has continued to play as a guest soloist in various orchestras in South America and the United States. His work has been praised by legendary violinists including Midori Goto, Margaret Batjer, and Glenn Dicterow. Antequera has participated in multiple master classes and private lessons with acclaimed professors from a number of conservatories including the Juilliard School, and has won and received recognition from important competitions such as the Solo Competition at the Academia Latinoamericana de Violin (Venezuela), Thursday Musical Competition (Minnesota), Schubert Club Competition (Minnesota), Texas Rising Stars, Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition (Italy), and others.

Antequera attended Shattuck-St. Mary’s School as a member of the Pre-Conservatory Program from 2012–15, where he studied with Sally O´Reilly at the University of Minnesota. In 2015 he was awarded a full scholarship to the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with Brian Lewis and kept an active solo career.

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Jordan Curry, Artist Diploma (AD) student, Violin
Jordan Curry, 24, resides in West Olive, Michigan. He began playing violin at the age of six using the Suzuki method. A graduate of West Ottawa High School in Holland, Michigan, Curry continued to play violin and study music throughout his formative years.

He has participated in the Illinois Chamber Music Festival at Illinois Wesleyan University, the Michigan All-State Orchestra, and the Holland Area Youth Orchestra. Curry furthered his studies with Korean violinist Young Shin and Mihai Craioveanu, professor of violin at Hope College.

He received his bachelor’s degree in violin performance at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo under the instruction of professor Renata Artman Knific. Curry plays a violin from famed maker Mario Miralles on loan from acclaimed violin soloist Tai Murray. He recently received his master’s in violin performance the University of Denver under Linda Wang.

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Cristian J. Diaz, Master of Music (MM) student, Viola
Cristian Diaz, 28, is a violist from Colombia who holds a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from Colombia’s National University- Conservatory of Music, and a master’s degree in chamber music from Kent State University. His former professors include members of the acclaimed Miami String Quartet, Keith Robinson and Cathy Meng Robinson, and his viola professor Joanna Patterson Zakany, member of the prestigious Cleveland Orchestra.

Diaz has been part of many orchestras across the globe, and was runner up in the Kent State University concerto competition (2017), he was selected to become part of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra Academy 2018 in Dortmund, Germany, winner of the inaugural Diversity Fellowship of the CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, and is also a member of the Efferus String Quartet.

He has attended the XI Cartagena Music Festival (Colombia, 2017), the first and second International Festival of String Quartets (Colombia, 2015 and 2016), III Bogota’s Viola Festival (Colombia, 2015), Santa Catarina Music Festival FEMUSC (Brazil, 2012), and also the Kent Blossom Music Festival (2019). Diaz will begin his master’s degree at CCM in the fall of 2019 where he will study with professor Catharine Lees.

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Michael Martin, Artist Diploma (AD) student, Double Bass
Raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Michael Martin, 24, began his study of the double-bass with local Suzuki pedagogue Domenick Fiore in early high school, after years of playing in school ensembles and teaching himself at home. Quickly finding that he had a deep love of the bass and music, he joined the Philadelphia Sinfonia and Young People’s Philharmonic youth orchestras in the area, and began further studies with Joseph Conyers of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

An alum of Oberlin Conservatory (B. Mus., 2017) and Northwestern University (M. Mus.,2019), Martin studied with renowned bass pedagogues Tracy Rowell (Oberlin Conservatory, CIM Mari Sato Preparatory Program) and Andrew Raciti (Milwaukee Symphony, Northwestern University). Other mentors have included Peter Dominguez (Oberlin Conservatory) and Scott Dixon (the Cleveland Orchestra). In addition to his studies with Rowell and Raciti, Martin spent his summers as an undergraduate studying the method of bass virtuoso Francois Rabbath at the Domaine Forget International Academy in Charlevoix, Quebec. He has also been an Orchestra Fellow at the Emmanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival Orchestra Institute in Houston, Texas.

Martin plays a modern instrument made especially for him by Christopher Savino, and a bow by acclaimed Canadian bow maker Reid Hudson.

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Denielle Wilson, Master of Music (MM), Cello
Denielle Wilson, 23, is a cellist from Lithonia, Georgia. She currently lives in Evanston, Illinois, plays in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and maintains a studio of private cello students. She completed an undergraduate degree at Northwestern University in 2017, having majored in cello performance and music education. Her musical mentors have included Hans Jørgen Jensen, Joel Dallow, and Nan Kimberling. She has spent summers at the Meadowmount School of Music, Bowdoin Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Grant Park Music Festival. She plays in a piano trio with her siblings, and they enjoy sharing classical and religious music with their local community.

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Learn more about the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship by visiting ccm.uc.edu/chance2perform.

Bravos Without Barriers: Inside the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship

CSO/CCM Diversity Fellow Anita Graef performing with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Anita Graef really wanted a cello for her birthday when she turned two years old. She remembers being frustrated when her parents made her wait until she was four. Now the 24-year-old graduate student plays cello with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Graef is in her second year of the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship, which connects students with paid professional performance experiences with the CSO while they receive full tuition scholarships to pursue graduate degrees at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). The program is currently accepting applications for Fall 2019.

Funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship aims to change the face of American orchestras by making them more inclusive. It provides new opportunities for exceptional violin, viola, cello and double bass players from populations that are historically underrepresented in classical music. The program utilizes a broad definition of diversity that encompasses race and culture while also including first-generation college students and individuals who took non-traditional pathways to higher education.

The program’s tagline — “Bravos Without Barriers” — gets to the heart of its mission: eliminating obstacles that can prevent extraordinary musicians from achieving their full potential.

“All of these people running the program have invested in me, believe in me and support me,” Graef says about her time in the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship. “It’s incredibly moving that all of these people want to see me succeed and are in my corner.”

Anita Graef plays her cello at age four.

Obviously, Graef eventually received the cello she so coveted. She began studying cello when she was four years old and made her concerto debut at age 12. Her parents are both professional musicians — her father, Richard Graef, is the assistant principal flutist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and her mother, Emily Seaberry Graef, is the founder and flutist of Chicago’s Juliani Ensemble. They encouraged her to pursue any career she desired and did not want to pressure her to follow in their musical footsteps — but she did anyway.

Graef was home schooled until junior high school, which gave her a flexible schedule to practice cello, explore Chicago and get involved in a number of other activities. She was a competitive horseback rider until college, played volleyball for six years, trained in ballet for seven years and studied piano for 10 years. She was also involved in sports, art classes, photography and worked on her high school year book.

“There were a lot of other things that I really enjoyed doing, but I never seriously considered anything else,” Graef says. “I feel like most of my formative years were me planning for the future and banking on becoming a professional musician.”

She was able to sample what life was like for professional musicians through her parents. When her father went on tours with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Graef, her mother and siblings went with him. Together, they visited Europe and China.

Graef earned her bachelor’s degree in cello from the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre and Dance. When she arrived at CCM to audition for the college’s graduate cello program, a few professors encouraged her to attend an introductory meeting about the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship.

“I was blown away,” she remembers. “It sounded like an incredible opportunity at a great place while getting a degree, which was really important to me.”

“I think it’s definitely accomplishing its goal in helping prepare you for the future through academic training and professional experience,” Graef adds about her experience in the program so far. “Getting a master’s degree debt-free is amazing.”

The CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship accepts up to five fellows each year, and is currently accepting applications for the 2019-21 class. Fellows perform the equivalent of five weeks per season with the CSO while enrolled in a two-year Master of Music or Artist Diploma degree program at CCM. Each Fellow receives full tuition scholarship support from CCM, in addition to a $10,000 per year graduate stipend and a one-time Graduate School Deans Excellence Award of $3,000. Each Fellow also receives compensation of $8,000 per season while performing with the CSO.

As a master’s student, Graef balances her time between course work and performance work. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays tend to be busier days where she is usually at school from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in a mix of classes and ensemble meetings. Her fall semester at CCM includes courses in music theory, music history, a chamber music seminar with the Ariel Quartet and more. After class, she practices cello or works on school projects.

Shannon Lock, violin, Hyeji Park Miranda, piano, and Anita Graef, cello, after their trio recital.

She is the principal cellist in the CCM Philharmonia and she performs in a trio with CCM students Shannon Lock, violin, and Hyeji Park Miranda, piano. Graef’s favorite concert at CCM was when she performed works by Haydn and Shostakovich with the trio.

“I’m always busy, but busy in the way I want to be — working as a musician,” Graef says. “I’m really grateful to be here and am really inspired on a daily basis.”

When she isn’t in class or at the CSO, Graef enjoys exploring Cincinnati and spending time with friends. She has visited many of Cincinnati’s museums and parks — she loves Eden Park — and is always looking for restaurant recommendations. Graef is also passionate about weight lifting, which helps her posture as a musician, and loves cooking and reading.

She stays on top of everything by looking ahead, staying goal-oriented and communicating with her professors, she says. Graef takes private cello lessons with CCM professor Ilya Finkelshteyn, principal cellist of the CSO, who also mentors her at the orchestra.

“One of the most beneficial parts for me has been the one-on-one lessons I get with my teacher,” Graef says.

“Playing with the CSO is really eye opening. It will push you to be even better than you were before and more alert. It teaches you the ins and outs of what it takes to be in a professional orchestra and the kind of skills you need for that kind of work.”

She most recently performed in the CSO’s “One City: Beethoven 9” concert at Cincinnati’s Music Hall. Last year, during her first year as a Diversity Fellow, Graef performed Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 with the CSO. Graef is looking forward to performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 at the CSO’s 2018-19 season finale in May.

The CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship program is currently accepting applications for its 2019-21 class of fellows. Now in her final year of the program, Graef has some words of wisdom for future fellows:

“It’s a very rigorous program but it’s incredibly rewarding. You learn a lot about music, about yourself, about the process of working and obtaining a permanent job in a symphony orchestra and you’ll meet incredible people along the way and make lifelong relationships.”

Join the CSO/CCM Diversity Fellowship
CCM and the CSO are now accepting applications for the 2019-21 class of Fellows. The application deadline is Dec. 1, 2018. For application and audition requirements, visit us at ccm.uc.edu/chance2perform.

Apply online now at ccm.uc.edu/admissions/application/gradapplication.

Questions? Email us at ccmadmis@uc.edu.

CCM and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Announce the Inaugural Class of Diversity Fellows

Following a rigorous application and audition process, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) have selected five outstanding string musicians for the inaugural class of CSO/CCM Diversity Fellows. Born out of a mutual desire to make American orchestras more inclusive, this groundbreaking fellowship program is made possible by a generous $900,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The inaugural CSO/CCM Diversity Fellows are: Emilio Carlo, 21 (viola); Diana Flores, 26 (cello); Blake-Anthony Johnson, 25 (cello); Vijeta Sathyaraj, 27 (violin); and Maurice Todd, 37 (double bass). The Fellows were selected through a rigorous series of auditions, which saw more than 100 talented musicians audition for CCM faculty members. Twelve string players were invited back to Cincinnati for a final round of auditions for CSO musicians on March 14, 2016.

“For this inaugural class, we have selected a cohort of astonishingly talented musicians, who come to us from a wide variety of backgrounds,” said CCM Dean Peter Landgren. “Our Fellows hail from New York, Georgia, Kentucky, Costa Rica and Hong Kong, and represent the future of American orchestras. Working in close collaboration with our partners at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, we will prepare these Fellows for long and fruitful artistic careers, while challenging the status quo of our industry.”

With this innovative Fellowship program, CCM and the CSO are providing new opportunities for underrepresented musicians, while simultaneously fostering a more inclusive environment in the world of professional orchestras. According to the League of American Orchestras, just over four percent of orchestra musicians are African-American or Latino. With that statistic in mind, the CSO and CCM want to foster an environment that promotes greater diversity on the stages of American orchestras. The program’s tagline – Bravos Without Barriers – gets to the heart of this mission.

This new two-year program, that is already garnering attention among leaders throughout the music world, consists of frequent performances with the CSO, focused mentorship by professional CSO musicians, and simultaneous instruction by CCM’s illustrious faculty.

“The level of musicianship on display during our final round of auditions is a testament to the merit of this program,” said CSO President Trey Devey. “Through our partnership with CCM and with the extraordinary support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, we can provide a truly transformative experience for these exceptional performers at a crucial time in their careers. We look forward to welcoming our inaugural Fellows to Cincinnati this fall and we can’t wait to share their talents with the Greater Cincinnati community.”

How the Fellowship works

The inaugural class of Diversity Fellows will officially arrive in Cincinnati this August. CCM and the CSO will welcome a second class of five Diversity Fellows in the fall of 2017, bringing the number of Fellows in the program to ten during the 2017-18 academic year and orchestra season.

Each Fellow receives full tuition scholarship support from CCM, in addition to a $10,000 per year graduate stipend and a one-time Graduate School Dean’s Excellence Award of $3,000. Each Fellow also receives compensation of $8,000 per season while performing with the CSO. They will perform the equivalent of five weeks per season with the CSO in a progressive sequence of concert weeks based on program difficulty, with one week focused on community engagement and educational activities.

This unique educational opportunity is the first of its kind to pair a major conservatory with a major orchestra, bridging the pre-professional gap while also fostering a more inclusive environment within professional orchestras. The Sphinx Organization, a Detroit-based national organization dedicated to transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts, will serve as an external evaluator and advisor.

Along with the professional performance experience, Fellows will receive focused mentorship from CSO musicians on top of regular instruction and guidance from CCM’s illustrious faculty. Their mentorship includes coaching sessions before each rehearsal cycle, ongoing stand partner coaching and post-performance feedback. There will also be non- performance related career counseling to prepare the Fellows for their future.

When asked about what made this new program so distinctive, incoming Fellow Emilio Carlo commented:

“Being raised in the Bronx, I would’ve never thought my future would involve classical music. When I attend orchestra concerts, there aren’t many musicians of color seen on stage. In fact, it’s always an ‘aha’ moment when I see a Latino or African American musician playing in a symphony. I knew the Fellowship was my top choice as soon as I read their mission statement: ‘We want to change the face of the American symphony.’”

Meet the Fellows

Emilio Carlo. Photo by Andrew Higley.

Emilio Carlo, Artist Diploma Viola
Emilio Carlo is a native of the Bronx, New York, and currently resides in Washington D.C. He is a first-year Artist Diploma student at CCM and recently graduated from the conservatory with a Bachelor of Music degree in Viola Performance. He previously studied with Catharine Carroll-Lees and Masao Kawasaki and is currently under the tutelage of Jan Grüning of the Ariel Quartet.

In previous years, he has attended the Aspen Music Festival and Japan’s Pacific Music Festival. He was also appointed as Principal Viola for a concert tour under the direction of Maestro Yutaka Sado. Outside of music, his hobbies include attending jazz concerts, cooking and exercising.

Carlo is a 2012 recipient of the Brewster Award for young artists from the John. F Kennedy Center for the performing arts. He is honored to be a member of the inaugural class of the Diversity Fellowship, which he feels will prepare him to win a professional orchestra audition in the near future.

Diana Flores. Photo by Andrew Higley.

Diana Flores, Artist Diploma Cello
Cellist Diana Flores has performed extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Brazil, China and her home country of Costa Rica. At age nine, she started playing cello at the Instituto Nacional de Musica in San José. Ten years later, Flores moved to Boston to complete her undergraduate studies at the Longy School of Music, where she studied under Mihail Jojatu.

During her years in Boston she performed with the Boston Pops and Boston Philharmonic Orchestras. She was a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in the summers of 2012 and 2013 and is a former member of Youth Orchestra of the Americas. She also traveled to Japan to participate in the Pacific Music Festival.

After moving to Chicago in 2013, she became a member of the Civic Orchestra, a two-year training program with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. While there, she joined the MusiCorps String Quartet, a music education and advocacy program in which she performed in many Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Park Districts. Flores is finishing her Masters Degree at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, studying under Richard Hirschl.

Blake-Anthony Johnson. Photo by Andrew Higley.

Blake-Anthony Johnson, Artist Diploma Cello
A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Blake-Anthony Johnson began playing cello at age 12 and was self-taught until the age of 18. He has performed and recorded works by Richard Danielpour, Claudio Gabriele, Adam Schoenberg and Poul Ruders. As a soloist and guest Principal cellist, he has worked with conductors across the United States including JoAnn Falletta, David S. Wiley and Carl Topilow. Passionate about chamber music, Johnson is a founding member and former cellist in the Läc Quartet. As the recipient of the Vanderbilt Music Académie grant, the quartet received commissions and residency in Festival d’Aix held in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Additional performances include both orchestral and chamber music at the Spoleto Music Festival, Lev Aronson Legacy Music Festival, National Repertory Orchestra, National Music Festival and Brevard Music Festival. He is the former chair and founding member of the Music Education and Youth Initiative, which served underprivileged children in the greater Metropolitan area of Nashville, Tennessee. Johnson was a prizewinner in the MTNA Young Artist Competition, the World Competition; the Daniel Rains, and Brevard Music Festival Concerto competitions.

Johnson received his Bachelor of Music degree under Felix Wang and Kathryn Plummer at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University and later studied under Bryan Dumm and Alan Harrell of the Cleveland Orchestra for his Master of Music diploma. His most recent education was in the prestigious Orchestral Program at the Manhattan School of Music studying with Alan Stepansky with additional studies under David Geber and Wolfram Koessel.

Vijeta Sathyaraj. Photo by Andrew Higley.

Vijeta Sathyaraj, Artist Diploma Violin
Born in Macau, China, Vijeta Sathyaraj began violin studies in the Philippines at the age of 3.  By age 6, she was featured on the Philippine National Broadcast and was studying with Basilio Manalo.  She went on to study with Fan Ting at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, and later took lessons from Dennis Kim. Sathyaraj graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy, where she studied with Vesna Gruppman. She later earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin Conservatory and her Master of Music degree from Lynn Conservatory.

Sathyaraj has performed solo recitals in Denmark, India, Hong Kong and the United States. In 2001, she was featured in a CNN broadcast, and in 2004, she organized and performed in a piano trio to raise $3,000 for development work in Hanoi, Vietnam. She has performed in the Idyllwild Arts Festival Orchestra and she joined the Oberlin Symphony for a performance in Carnegie Hall under Robert Spano in 2007. She has attended the Meadowmount School of Music, the Bowdoin International Music Festival, and the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival.

Sathyaraj recently completed her Professional Performance Certificate at Lynn University where she studies under Carol Cole. Former mentors include Milan Vitek, Andrew Jennings, Sally Thomas, Ann Setzer, and Midori. Sathyaraj’s commitment to outreach and diversifying audiences to Western classical music led her to apply to CCM.

Maurice Todd. Photo by Andrew Higley.

Maurice Todd, Artist Diploma Double Bass
Originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Maurice Todd received his Bachelor of Music in Double Bass Performance from CCM. He is a current section bassist in the Lexington Philharmonic. In addition to being a seven-time Aspen Fellowship recipient, Todd previously won the Dayton Philharmonic Minority Fellowship, was the low string winner of the CCM concerto competition, earned the National Symphony Orchestra League Scholarship and was a fellowship recipient in the Spoleto Italy Opera Festival. Most recently, he received the distinguished Excellence in Teaching Award from the UC Graduate School.

Todd has performed with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic, Grand Rapids Symphony, Richmond Symphony and Kentucky Symphony. He has been a soloist with the Louisville Orchestra, Seven Hills Sinfonietta, Wired and the CCM Concert Orchestra.

This year, Todd will graduate from CCM with a Master’s Degree in Double Bass Performance, where he serves as the graduate assistant for the double bass studio under the tutelage of Professor Albert Laszlo. His former mentors include Owen Lee, Edgar Meyer, Chris Hanulik, Bruce Bransby, Rob Oppelt, Eugene Levinson and Hal Robinson.