The Balourdet Quartet, plus violinists Njioma Chinyere Grevious and Julian Rhee are among the winners of the annual $25,000 grants
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The five recipients of the 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grants have been announced. They are the Balourdet Quartet; violinists Njioma Chinyere Grevious and Julian Rhee; pianist Clayton Stephenson and Sandbox Percussion.
Presented annually, Avery Fisher Career Grants of $25,000 give professional assistance and recognition to talented instrumentalists who the recommendation board and executive committee believe have great potential for solo careers.
The Balourdet Quartet, comprising violinists Angela Bae and Justin DeFilippis, violist Benjamin Zannoni, and cellist Russell Houston, received Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award in 2024. The ensemble is currently the graduate quartet in residence at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and recently graduated from the New England Conservatory’s professional string quartet programme.
In 2023, Njioma Grevious won the Grand Prize of the Concert Artist Guild (CAG) and the Young Classical Artist Trust (YCAT) CAG Elmaleh Competition, as well as the Robert F. Smith First Prize and the Audience Choice awards in the Senior Division of the Sphinx Competition. She is violinist of the Abeo Quartet, which recently completed graduate studies with Ryan Meehan and the Calidore Quartet at the University of Delaware.
Julian Rhee was the silver medalist of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis in 2022, winner of Astral Artists’ National Auditions, the first prize winner of the 2020 Elmar Oliveira International Competition, where he was also awarded the special Community Award, and the 2018 Johansen International Competition for Young String Players. He performs on the 1699 ’Lady Tennant’ Antonio Stradivari violin and Jean Pierre Marie Persoit bow on extended loan through the Mary B. Galvin Foundation and the Stradivari Society, a division of Bein & Fushi, Inc.
Performances by all five career grant recipients for an invited audience followed the announcement. Hosted by WQXR’s Elliott Forrest, the career grant performances will also be webcast live by WQXR, New York’s all-classical music station, at www.wqxr.org, and broadcast on Thursday 11 April at 8 p.m. and Saturday, 13 April at 7 p.m. on 105.9 FM.
Since 1976, 176 Career Grants have been awarded (including this year’s grants), and all recipients are currently active musicians. Former career grant recipients include violinist James Ehnes, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, double bassist Nina Bernat and the Calidore and Isidore Quartets.
Read: Abeo Quartet appoints new cellist
Listen: The Strad Podcast #77: 2023 Sphinx Competition winner Njioma Grevious
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