Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Maybe even Carnegie Hall!

A time for reflection. And a time for celebration… This is where we are right now with NCCMI. This year has been an incredible journey, full of ups and downs. But after watching our ensembles perform with confidence and joy on the final Spring Concerts, it is impossible not to feel optimistic about the future. After all, a year ago, the dominant emotions were uncertainty and even fear. Somehow, our students found a way to excel in spite of the challenges: Trio Serio made it all the way to the semi-final round at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, 4 of our students were selected for the National Youth Orchestra and will travel to Carnegie Hall this summer! Clearly the joyful experience of chamber music helped to feed the spirits, hone musical skills and led our young artists to great heights. Most importantly, it gave all our students a profound sense of TOGETHERNESS in a time of social isolation. 

As we say farewell to our graduating seniors, we are looking forward to a bright future. 

Because of our amazing and resilient community, there is a lot to celebrate…

  • NCCMI brought an increasingly diverse group of young artists and inspiring teachers together to study great chamber music. 
  • Families and church partners (Church of the Nativity) stepped up to provide safe spaces to gather for sessions . 
  • Partners helped us find interesting and accessible performance opportunities (Raleigh Arts and the NC Museum of Art, among others!) and Master Class Opportunities (North Carolina Symphony)
  • Our first-ever Virtual Fundraiser Celebration resulted in a record level of support for our scholarships and programming needs!
  • Corporate partners contributed new sources of support (Silicon Valley Bank, HH Architecture) and continued partners United Arts Council, Raleigh Arts and WCPE- The Classical Station have continued or increased our funding. We are so grateful!
  • Several ensembles won national and state-wide chamber music awards, including  NCCMI Trio Serio- selected for the Quarterfinal round of the nation’s most elite contest, the Fischoff National Competition!
  • An unprecedented number of NCCMI musicians were selected for the elite National Youth Orchestra! 4 out of 5 NC students were from NCCMI. They’re headed for Carnegie Hall this summer!
  • Creative ways of thinking emerged from our all-new “Team Genius” Project:  Groups designed Musical Storybooks in videos and pictures. They composed  musical compositions together. And they did incredible research projects about composers and musical genres. These projects proved to be incredibly popular for our students so we plan to continue to offer them in the future.

Celebrating our Seniors!

As we say farewell to our graduating seniors, we know they will treasure the experiences they had this year in NCCMI. At a time when so much was beyond the control of young people, NCCMI empowered them, giving them a way to express their emotions and be TOGETHER with their peers. This shared experience will give all our young artists important social/emotional resources that will strengthen them for their whole lives. 

A special note of thanks to our graduating NCCMI interns: Max Yates, Ethan Kahn, Eesha Barua, Sophia Knappe, Collin Queen and Hrishikesh Ram. You all rose to the challenges of this year and did AMAZING work! And you will be sorely missed. We thank our graduates for all the wonderful memories and can’t wait to see all the pathways you will explore, musical and otherwise.  To those returning to NCCMI in the fall, we’re going to have so much fun!