Virginia Symphony Orchestra

African American
Fellowship Program

In Collaboration with Old Dominion University

Application Deadline: Feb. 10, 2023

Live Auditions: Mar. 6, 2023

The Virginia Symphony Orchestra’s African American Fellowship Program for up to 4 early-career orchestral string musicians is intended to advance the goal of increased diversity of orchestral musicians nationwide. This initiative is a continuation of the VSO’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Fellows will perform as part of the VSO in over 100 services throughout eastern Virginia and engage in public school residencies and educational performances. Professional development opportunities, including private lessons and mentorship, will better equip Fellows to achieve in their careers as performers and educators. Through these activities, Fellows will receive 12 university-level course credits from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, according to each Fellow’s degree level: undergraduate, graduate, or post-graduate course credit. For those Fellows at a post-graduate level, these 12 credits culminate in a Graduate Certificate in Music Performance.

“As an African American musician with the Virginia Symphony for over 38 years, I can say I am very excited about our fellowships for next season and look forward to wonderful music making with them.”

Beverly Kane Baker

Principal Viola, Virginia Symphony Orchestra

“As a person of color, it is of utmost importance to me that I am able to nurture the diverse artists of tomorrow. As our Symphony turns 100, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate our future and build our arts community!”

Ismar Gomes

Cello, Virginia Symphony Orchestra

We are excited about the many ways this program will impact our field and our community.

The classical music industry benefits from investment in the pipeline for more aspiring African American musicians to receive the training they need to become successful professionals.
Local public school music students and their teachers benefit from building individual relationships with these accomplished African American musician role models and string instrument coaches.
The Fellows benefit from the experience of playing with a full-time professional symphony and the opportunity to receive regular coaching from VSO players.

Meet the 2022 Fellows

Avery Robinson

Emmanuel Losa

Omari Imhotep Abdul-Alim

Zacherie Small

Check out our Mid-season interviews with our recipients

Eligibility & Requirements

Applications due via email or mail: Feb. 10, 2023
Live Auditions: Mar. 6, 2023

VSO Fellows will participate in the breadth of work performed by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, including:

Classics and Regional Classics
Pops
Peanut Butter & Jam family concerts
Young People’s Concerts
Outdoor community concerts
Chamber music
Small ensemble educational concerts for elementary school students
Mentorship and coaching for middle and high school students
Coaching college students

Compensation:

$16,000 stipend for orchestra services and education work performed
Free housing
$200/month Health Insurance Stipend
Full scholarship to receive university-level course credit for Fellowship activities, conferred by Old Dominion University (culminating in a Graduate Certificate in Music Performance for those who qualify)

Eligibility:

Graduate work or degree preferred. Exceptional performers with a bachelor’s degree also encouraged to apply.
Applicants must be string players
Candidates must self-identify as Black / African American

Application process:

Submit 1-page Resume and 3 References (Be sure to include your name, instrument, phone number, address, and email).
Submit Personal Statement (500 words) describing your interests in the program and in community service and civic engagement.
Attend live audition on March 6, 2023 in Norfolk, Va. at Old Dominion University. If you have a barrier to traveling, please contact Dr. Christy Havens or Helen Martell for more information. We will also accept unedited video recordings of the required excerpts, which will be due by March 3, 2023.
(Once selected for the program, fellows will be required to submit school transcripts.)

Materials may be submitted by email to fellowship@virginiasymphony.org and by mail to:

Attn: Fellowship
Virginia Symphony Orchestra
150 Boush Street, Ste. 201
Norfolk, VA 23510

“I’m so pleased that we are starting this program. I look forward to identifying and encouraging talented young musicians— a win-win-win for them, for our orchestra and for our community.”

Vahn Armstrong

Concertmaster, Virginia Symphony Orchestra

“I am excited that the Virginia Symphony Orchestra will launch this program next season while we celebrate its 100th birthday, and I am looking forward to making music with these talented young African American musicians across the Hampton Roads as VSO continue it’s equity, diversity and inclusion commitment to the society.”

Yun Zhang

Associate Concertmaster, Virginia Symphony Orchestra

Repertoire Lists

Please direct all questions to:

Dr. Christy Havens
fellowship@virginiasymphony.org
(757) 213-1438

Helen Martell
fellowship@virginiasymphony.org
(757) 213-1438

150 Boush St, Suite 201, Norfolk, VA 23510

Frequently Asked Questions

What do you mean when you say you have to “Self-identify as Black” to be eligible?

If you consider yourself to be part of the Black or African American community, this Fellowship is for you! We are not interested in making that determination for you, whether you are Black Hispanic, biracial, have any known African Black ancestry, etc. If being introduced as one of our African American Fellows resonates with you, we encourage you to apply!

How was the $16,000 stipend calculated?

The stipend was calculated based on the number of orchestra services and education activities the Fellows will participate in, using the rates in our Orchestra’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. We want to ensure that the Fellows are being paid as professionals at the same scale as Virginia Symphony Orchestra member musicians. But our Orchestra stays very busy, so we also want to be careful not to overload the Fellows’ schedules with a fulltime schedule so they can still fully engage in the Fellowship’s other professional development opportunities and continue to take auditions. We also include free housing and an insurance stipend to further support the Fellows in their year with us.

What is the housing like?

Fellows will be provided with a private room in a two-bedroom apartment on campus at Old Dominion University.

What if I can’t make the in-person audition?

We want to hear all interested candidates! Please let us know what your barriers are so we can help find a way to include you.

For example, Sphinx’s National Alliance for Audition Support offers audition grants to cover the cost of travel, accommodations, and incidentals for audition trips. Click here for details.

We will also accept unedited video recordings of the required excerpts, which will be due by Friday, March 3rd, 2023.

Eric Jacobsen

Hailed by the New York Times as “an interpretive dynamo,” conductor and cellist Eric Jacobsen has built a reputation for engaging audiences with innovative and collaborative programming. He is the newly-named Music Director of the Virginia Symphony, becoming the 12th music director in the orchestra’s 100-year history, and will assume that post on July 1.

Jacobsen is Artistic Director and conductor of The Knights, and serves as the Music Director for the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. Jacobsen founded the adventurous orchestra The Knights with his brother, violinist Colin Jacobsen, to foster the intimacy and camaraderie of chamber music on the orchestral stage. As conductor, Jacobsen has led the “consistently inventive, infectiously engaged indie ensemble” (New York Times) at Central Park’s Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, (Le) Poisson Rouge, the 92nd Street Y, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center; at major summer festivals such as Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Ojai; and on tour nationally and internationally, including at the Cologne Philharmonie, Düsseldorf Tonhalle, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Salzburg Großes Festspielhaus, Vienna Musikverein, National Gallery of Dublin, and the Dresden Musikfestspiele. Recent collaborators include violinists Itzhak Perlman and Gil Shaham, singers Dawn Upshaw, Susan Graham, and Nicholas Phan, and pianists Emanuel Ax and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Also in demand as a guest conductor, Jacobsen has led the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Detroit, the New World, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck and the Tonkunstler Orchestra, with whom Jacobsen appeared at Vienna’s legendary Musikverein.

In the coming season, Eric Jacobsen returns to the Detroit Symphony for the world premiere of James Lee III’s “Amer’ican,” a contemporary response to Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony which also features on the program. He also makes his La Jolla Summerfest debut, conducting three concerts featuring Summerfest Artistic Director Inon Barnaton and other artists. He appears twice with the Virginia Symphony, with guest artist Branford Marsalis and also performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and travels to Bilkent, Turkey, to appear with the orchestra there. With The Knights, he returns to the Tanglewood and Caramoor Festivals and to Central Park’s Naumburg Bandshell, and appears at Wolf Trap in a new piece by Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Aoife O’Donovan. In the spring, Jacobsen and The Knights close their season with a multi-city US tour featuring pianist Aaron Diehl.

The 21-22 Orlando Philharmonic season sees the return of the “Resonate” festival, a unique blend of old and new orchestral and chamber works, performed in standard and more intimate concert formats. This season’s edition features Artist-in-Residence Stewart Goodyear performing the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven as well as orchestral repertoire. The Orlando season will close with a semi-staged production of Orff’s “Carmina burana,” with staging by Alison Moritz and choreography by John Heginbotham.

In recent seasons, Eric Jacobsen and The Knights performed a fully-staged centennial production of Bernstein’s Candide directed by Alison Moritz at the Ravinia Festival, and toured Florida with Gil Shaham. With mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, Jacobsen and The Knights undertook a 15-concert European tour, including performances at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and Vienna’s Musikverein. In New York, Jacobsen and The Knights performed at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall; with groundbreaking countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo at National Sawdust in music of Handel and Philip Glass; and at the Park Avenue Armory, where they helped create the music for William Kentridge’s The Head and the Load. With the Bridgeport Symphony, Jacobsen performed with his brother Colin, with whom he recorded a video of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending that was featured on London’s Classic FM and The Violin Channel.

At the close of a successful sixth season with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Jacobsen has continued to pioneer the orchestra’s programming and community engagement in new and exciting directions. During the 20-21 season, the Orlando Philharmonic was one of the few orchestras internationally that was able to perform live concerts, including with renowned pianist Yuja Wang, and they closed their season with “America, Come,” an Orlando Philharmonic commission from Aoife O’Donovan honoring the centennial of the 19th Amendment. Previous seasons included Inside the Score, in which Jacobsen led the audience on a guided exploration of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique; appearances by multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón as composer-in-residence; and guest appearances by Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Rhiannon Giddens and internationally acclaimed cello virtuoso Jan Vogler.

Under Jacobsen’s baton, The Knights have developed an extensive recording collection, which includes the critically acclaimed albums Azul, with longtime collaborator Yo-Yo Ma, as well as the Prokofiev Concerto in the Grammy-nominated Gil Shaham album 1930s Violin Concertos. Their most recent release, featuring Gil Shaham in performances of the Beethoven and Brahms Violin Concertos, was met with critical acclaim upon its release in Spring 2020. The Knights issued three albums for Sony Classical including Jan Vogler and The Knights Experience: Live from New York; New Worlds, and an all-Beethoven album, as well as the “smartly programmed” (National Public Radio) A Second in Silence on the Ancalagon label. Jacobsen’s first release on Warner Classics was the ground beneath our feet. We Are The Knights, a documentary film produced by Thirteen/WNET, premiered in September 2011.

In December 2012, Jacobsen and his brother Colin were selected from among the nation’s top visual, performing, media, and literary artists to receive a prestigious United States Artists Fellowship. Eric splits his time between New York and Orlando with his wife, singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan, and their daughter.

VSO Guest Artist: Andrew von Oeyen

Hailed worldwide for his elegant and insightful interpretations, balanced artistry and brilliant technique, Andrew von Oeyen has established himself as one of the most captivating pianists of his generation.

Since his debut at age 16 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mr. von Oeyen has extended his interpretive voice to a broad spectrum of repertoire as both a soloist and recitalist. He has collaborated with such ensembles as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Mariinsky Orchestra, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony, Grant Park Orchestra, Ravinia Festival Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, Utah Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Marseille, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Spoleto USA Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic and Slovak Philharmonic. As both soloist and conductor he has led concerti and orchestral works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel and Kurt Weill. On July 4, 2009, he performed at the U.S. Capitol with the National Symphony in “A Capitol Fourth,” reaching millions worldwide in the multi-award winning PBS live telecast.

‍Mr. von Oeyen has appeared in recital at Wigmore Hall and Barbican Hall in London, Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Boston’s Symphony Hall, Zürich’s Tonhalle, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall, St. Petersburg’s Philharmonia, Dublin’s National Concert Hall, Royce Hall in Los Angeles, Herbst Theater in San Francisco, Spivey Hall in Atlanta, Sala São Paulo, Teatro Olimpico in Rome, in Mexico City, Hanoi, Macau, and in every major concert hall of Japan and South Korea. Festival appearances include Aspen, Ravinia, Grant Park, Mainly Mozart, Saratoga, Schubertiade, Spoleto, Brevard, Grand Teton, Chautauqua and the Mariinsky’s “Stars of the White Nights.”

Mr. von Oeyen has recorded for Warner Classics since 2017. His albums under that label, including works for piano and orchestra by Saint-Saëns, Ravel and Gershwin and a disc including Debussy’s Fantaisie pour Piano et Orchestre, have been met with critical acclaim. Mr. von Oeyen has also recorded award-winning recital albums of Liszt, Debussy, and Stravinsky under the Delos label.

Mr. von Oeyen, of German and Dutch origin, was born in the U.S. He began his piano studies at age 5 and made his solo orchestral debut at age 10. An alumnus of Columbia University and graduate of The Juilliard School, where his principal teachers were Herbert Stessin and Jerome Lowenthal, he also worked with Alfred Brendel and Leon Fleisher. He won the prestigious Gilmore Young Artist Award in 1999 and also took First Prize in the Léni Fé Bland Foundation National Piano Competition in 2001. Mr. von Oeyen lives in Paris and Los Angeles.

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Virginia Symphony Orchestra

African AmericanFellowship Program

In Collaboration with Old Dominion University

Application Deadline: Feb. 10, 2023

Live Auditions: Mar. 6, 2023

We are excited about the many ways this program will impact our field and our community.

Meet the 2022 Fellows

Avery Robinson

Emmanuel Losa

Omari Imhotep Abdul-Alim

Zacherie Small

Check out our Mid-season interviews with our recipients

Eligibility & Requirements

VSO Fellows will participate in the breadth of work performed by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, including:

Compensation:

Eligibility:

Application process:

Repertoire Lists

Please direct all questions to:

Frequently Asked Questions

What do you mean when you say you have to “Self-identify as Black” to be eligible?

How was the $16,000 stipend calculated?

What is the housing like?

What if I can’t make the in-person audition?

Tone Poem

What is a tone poem?

Symphony

What is a symphony?

Viola

What is a viola?

Concerto

What is a concerto?

How do you pronounce "Concerto"?

Is the soloist part of the orchestra?

How do you choose the music/soloist?

Zacherie Small

Omari Imhotep Abdul-Alim

Emmanuel Losa

Avery Robinson

Simone Paulwell

Eric Jacobsen

STAR OF BROADWAY MUSICALS THE GERSHWINS’ PORGY AND BESS, THE COLOR PURPLE, THE LION KING, and RAGTIME

STAR OF BROADWAY MUSICALS SHOW BOAT, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, and THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE

STAR OF BROADWAY MUSICALS THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, EVITA, THE WOMAN IN WHITE and BOMBAY DREAMS

STAR OF BROADWAY MUSICALS THE GERSHWINS’ PORGY AND BESS, THE COLOR PURPLE, THE LION KING, and RAGTIME

STAR OF BROADWAY MUSICALS THE GERSHWINS’ PORGY AND BESS, THE COLOR PURPLE, THE LION KING, and RAGTIME

VSO Guest Artist: Andrew von Oeyen

African American
Fellowship Program