Avery Fisher Career Grants Announces 2024 Recipients

Received by up to five instrumentalists or chamber ensembles annually, the award also includes a cash prize of $25,000 

The Avery Fisher Artist Program was created by the late Avery Fisher as a gift to Lincoln Center in 1974. The program’s Avery Fisher Career Grants support exceptional instrumentalists and chamber groups who are citizens or permanent residents of the U.S.

The five 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipients include VC Artist Balourdet Quartet, violinists Njioma Chinyere Grevious and VC Artist Julian Rhee, pianist Clayton Stephenson, and the Sandbox Percussion ensemble. This marks the first time a percussion ensemble has been awarded a Career Grant.

In addition to receiving $25,000 for career advancement, the winners will get unrestricted use of a professional recording of their performances at the award ceremony, and a custom-designed rosette as a symbol of the Career Grant.

The recipients will be celebrated tonight at 6 PM (ET) at a special ceremony at WQXR's Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, in New York City — which will be streamed LIVE here on The Violin Channel. 

The Career Grant performances will also be webcast live by WQXR, and broadcast on April 11 at 8 PM and April 13 at 7 PM on 105.9 FM. 

Including this year’s grants, 176 Career Grants have been awarded since its founding in 1976. The recipients are nominated by the Program's Recommendation Board, comprising nationally known instrumentalists, conductors, composers, music educators, managers, and presenters.

In addition to its annual Career Grants, the program’s Avery Fisher Prize — the highest form of recognition for outstanding achievement and leadership in classical music — was this year awarded to violinist Hilary Hahn.  

The Program’s final winners are selected by its Executive Committee, which currently includes Emanuel Ax, Deborah Borda, Mary Lou Falcone, David Finckel and Wu Han, Henry Fogel, Anthony Fogg, Pamela Frank, Jeremy Geffen, Gary Ginstling, Yo-Yo Ma, and Anthony McGill, among others. 

Former recipients of the Avery Fisher Career Grant include Yuja Wang, Gil Shaham, James Ehnes, Hilary Hahn, the JACK Quartet, and VC Artist Augustin Hadelich.