Violinist Joshua Brown Named Winner in 2018 Yamaha Young Performing Artists Competition

April 11, 2018, 9:40 AM · Congratulations to violinist Joshua Brown, who was among 11 young musicians selected as winners in the 2018 Yamaha Young Performing Artists competition. The other winners are listed here.

Joshua Brown. Photo by Sebastian Orr.

The annual program, conducted by the Band and Orchestral division of Yamaha Corporation of America, recognizes young artists ages 18 to 22 years in jazz, classical and contemporary genres. Brown and the other 2018 YYPA winners each receive an all-expense-paid trip to the YYPA Celebration Weekend, which will take place in June as part of the Yamaha's Music for All Summer Symposium at Ball State University, with workshops, clinics, performing opportunities and career advice.

This year's eleven winners include musicians from Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, Berklee College of Music, and Manhattan School of Music, among others. Brown, of Gurnee, Ill., is the youngest and only pre-college winner this year, and he is the only violinist to have been named a Yamaha Young Performing Artist since 2014.

Brown currently studies with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Academy and since 2016 has played a 1679 Pietro Guarneri violin on loan from the Stradivari Society of Chicago. Brown has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, among them the Cleveland Orchestra and Chicago Civic Orchestra. He has received top prizes in numerous international competitions including the Cooper International Violin Competition, International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in Russia, Stradivarius International Violin Competition and ENKOR International Music Competition. He was a National Young Arts Winner in 2016 and 2017, and has been awarded scholarships from the American Opera Society, Highland Park Music Club, Chicago Luminarts Cultural Foundation and North Shore Chamber Music Festival, among others.

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