“The road to Carnegie Hall just got a little wider,” writes Zachary Lewis in Friday’s (7/28) Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH). “The Cleveland Institute of Music has a launched a Minority Artist Fellowship (MAF) program, a scholarship track designed to encourage local African-American and Latino teens to enter the field…. At most major symphony orchestras in America, Hispanics and African-Americans are scarce.… As a result, [CIM President Paul] Hogle said, most such organizations don’t accurately represent the communities they serve. Still, in Hogle’s view, the problem is one of supply, not demand…. Hogle noted that at CIM and its partner, Case Western Reserve University, Hispanics and African-Americans comprise just 11 percent of the student population…. The MAF program, which begins this fall [targets] students in grades 7 through 9…. Each of the four students accepted into the program each year through an application and audition process will receive the school’s full preparatory treatment, courtesy of two grants from the George Gund and Cleveland Foundations…. The idea is to train students all the way through junior high and high school so that when it comes time to apply to college, they’re ready for CIM and other high-level conservatories, the gateways to professional positions.”
Posted July 31, 2017
In photo: At the time this photo was taken, in January 2011, then 14-year-old violinist and Sphinx Competition winner Randall Goosby (seen here performing with the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall) would have been eligible for the Cleveland Institute of Music’s new Minority Artist Fellowship. (Photo: The Plain Dealer)
