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 awards 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.