Each recipient receives an award of $25,000, to be used for specific needs in advancing a career
The administrators of the Avery Fisher Artist Program in the US have named the recipients of the 2025 Avery Fisher Career Grants. Violinist Joshua Brown, cellist Tommy Mesa and the Viano Quartet will all receive grants worth $25,000 (£19,200) ‘to be used for specific needs in advancing a career’.
Joshua Brown, 23, won the second prize and both audience wwards at the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels. He also received first prizes at the 2023 Global Music Education International Violin Competition in Beijing, China, and the 2019 Leopold Mozart International Violin Competition in Augsburg, Germany. In addition, he has received the Kronberg Academy’s 2023 Manfred Grommek Prize and been named a Pirastro Artist, Yamaha Young Performing Artist, and Luminarts Fellow. He is currently studying for an artist diploma at the New England Conservatory of Music with Donald Weilerstein, having previously studied with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago. He plays a c.1635–40 Nicolò Amati violin.
Cuban–American cellist Tommy Mesa received the Sphinx Organization’s 2023 Medal of Excellence. In January it was announced that he would be joining the strings faculty of the Manhattan School of Music (MSM) as of the autumn 2025 semester. Mesa is an alumnus of the MSM, having received his Doctor of Musical Arts there in 2023. As a performer and recording artist, he has premiered and toured concertos by composers including Terence Blanchard, Michael Abels, and Jessie Montgomery’s cello concerto, which he recorded for Deutsche Grammophon in 2023. He performs on a 1767 Nicolò Gagliano cello with a bow by Andre Richaume.
The Viano Quartet, comprising violinists Lucy Wang and Hao Zhou, violist Aiden Kane and cellist Tate Zawadiuk, received the first prize at the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition. Thr group has also won prizes at the Wigmore Hall, Osaka, Fischoff, Enkor and Yellow Springs chamber music competitions, and is currently in-residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Bowers Program until 2027. According to the group: ‘The name “Viano” was created to describe the four individual instruments in a string quartet interacting as one. Each of the four instruments begins with the letter “v”, and like a piano, all four string instruments together play both harmony and melody, creating a unified instrument called the “Viano”.’
Since 1976, 179 Avery Fisher Career Grants have been awarded (including this year’s grants), and all recipients are currently active musicians. Former Career Grant recipients include cellist Jay Campbell and violinists Augustin Hadelich and Bella Hristova.
Read: String players among 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipients
Watch: Tommy Mesa performs Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1
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