Ensemble ACJW
Ensemble ACJW is an energetic collective of outstanding young musicians from The Academy that has earned accolades from critics and audiences alike for its fresh, open-minded approach to performance and programming. In a variety of venues, they have played a wide range of music—from works written centuries ago to those completed days before—with verve and total commitment to their art.
The group performs its own series at Carnegie Hall and regularly appears at Paul Hall at The Juilliard School. As part of a partnership with Skidmore College that began in 2007, Ensemble ACJW gives master classes to university students and performs for the Saratoga Springs community.
All Ensemble ACJW members are alumni or current fellows of The Academy, a two-year fellowship program started in 2007 by Carnegie Hall’s Executive and Artistic Director Clive Gillinson and The Juilliard School’s President Joseph W. Polisi to support young professional musicians in developing their careers as excellent performers, innovative programmers, and dedicated teachers who are fully engaged with the communities in which they live and work.
Fellows of the two-year Academy program—chosen for their musicianship, but also for their leadership qualities and commitment to music education—come from some of the best music schools in the country, including the Curtis Institute of Music, Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, Mannes College The New School for Music, New England Conservatory, Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, and Yale School of Music.
Each season, the fellows partner with music teachers in New York City public schools. The hour-and-a-half-per-week that each of the 20 fellows spends in a classroom is an education not only for the students, but for the fellows as well. In their second year, the fellows develop innovative, community-minded group projects. Among those produced in recent years were a collaboration with residents of a Bronx family apartment complex, a pen-pal program that paired young students with professional musicians, and a performance of George Crumb’s Voice of the Whale in the American Museum of Natural History’s Millstein Hall of Ocean Life.
Exemplary performers, dedicated teachers, and advocates for music throughout the community, the fellows of The Academy that make up Ensemble ACJW are redefining what it means to be a musician in the 21st century. Visit acjw.org to learn more.
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