The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has appointed Goosby as the 2025 MAC Music Innovator, for a community-focused artist residency that includes educational programmes celebrating diversity
The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) has announced violinist Randall Goosby as its 2025 MAC Music Innovator. The role is supported by the Multicultural Awareness Council (MAC) and awarded to a Black leader of classical music who embodies artistic innovation and a passion for community engagement and education.
Goosby’s residency will feature educational and community engagement programmes, including masterclasses with students from the CSO’s Nouveau Program and the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestras.
’It is a special honour to receive the 2025 MAC Innovator Award from my friends at the Cincinnati Symphony,’ said Goosby.
’No matter where I go, or what I play, building community and sharing the transformative power of music with young people is at the centre of what I do. I look forward to the exchange of ideas, perspectives, and experiences, which I hope will inspire and motivate students to embrace music for all its wonders!’
Goosby is deeply committed to passing on his passion for music to the younger generation.
‘I seek out orchestra-partnered schools or any groups of children that I can casually play for and talk to, for the purpose of giving students what may be their first exposure to live classical music – communities where classical music is not part of people’s way of life, students who don’t have access to regular concerts, to instruments or teachers,’ Goosby told The Strad in the September 2023 cover feature.
’Ideally, I’d like to create a lasting relationship, whether it’s between myself personally and the students, or just between the orchestra and the institution.’
Goosby made his debut with the CSO and Louis Langrée in 2023, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. He will return 8 and 9 February 2025 to perform Florence Price’s Violin Concerto no.2 and Ernest Chausson’s Poème with the Orchestra under the direction of CSO music director designate Cristian Măcelaru.
The violinist is considered a champion of music by under-represented composers, evident in his 2021 debut album Roots, which featured music by Black composers and included premiere recordings of music by Florence Price, plus works by William Grant Still, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, and fellow Sphinx and Young Concert Artists alumnus Xavier Foley.
Goosby is the recipient of numerous honours including the inaugural Harmony for Change Award by Midori & Friends, the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant, plus the inaugural Robey Artist by Young Classical Artists Trust in partnership with Music Masters in London in 2019. In 2020, he became an ambassador for Music Masters, mentoring and inspiring students in schools across the UK.
’The MAC Music Innovator, in name and purpose, enacts a core mission of the CSO Multicultural Awareness Council, to showcase the diversity of performers within American classical music,’ said Dr. Kori Hill, chair of MAC.
’This community-focused artist-in-residence programme is an essential tool to connect with audiences and inspire the next generation of music lovers, supporters, and professional musicians in the Greater Cincinnati region.’
Read our September 2023 cover feature ‘All it takes is one’ - Violinist Randall Goosby
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