University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA)
Chancellor John Mauceri has announced that James Baron Fenwick
III of Todd is the first recipient of The Leonard Bernstein Excellence
Award.
The award was created by Mauceri with a gift from Leonard Bernstein’s
three children, Jamie, Alexander and Nina, and matched by The
William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust.
UNCSA Chancellor John Mauceri
(left) is shown with award recipient Baron Fenwick of
Todd. Photo by
Donald Dietz
Fenwick, 15, is a piano student of Clifton Matthews in the School
of Music at UNCSA, where he is a rising 10th-grader.
Fenwick performed as a violist with the UNCSA Symphony Orchestra
when Mauceri conducted Shostakovich’s “Symphony No.
5” at the Stevens Center in Winston-Salem, and subsequently
at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, last winter.
“I am so thankful to Leonard Bernstein’s children for
helping me establish this scholarship in their father’s name,”
said Mauceri.
“Providing assistance for talented, deserving students to
continue their study here perpetuates Leonard Bernstein’s
commitment to teaching and to the arts.
“Interim Music School dean Michael Rothkopf and I chose Baron
because he has not only been a terrific student,” Mauceri
said, “but he has gone the extra mile to represent UNCSA
at frequent events.
“He is a model citizen, and as a freshman in high school,
has set a standard that is absolutely inspirational.
“I know Leonard Bernstein would have been delighted with
this choice,” Mauceri said. “In the words of Nina Bernstein
Simmons, ‘All hail, Baron Fenwick III!’”
The Leonard Bernstein Excellence Award will be awarded annually
to a music student at UNCSA who best epitomizes the talent and
commitment to society of Leonard Bernstein.
“I didn’t know what to think,” said Fenwick, when
asked how he felt about being the first Leonard Bernstein Excellence
Award winner at UNCSA. “It’s such an honor!”
The son of Cynthia Norris and Jay Fenwick, Fenwick has been playing
the piano since age 5.
He has performed as a soloist with the Western Piedmont Youth
Symphony, playing Haydn’s “Concerto in D Major.”
This spring, he shared first prize in the Junior Division of the
North Carolina Symphony’s 2009 Youth Concerto Competition,
playing the first movement of Prokofiev’s “Concerto
No. 3.” He was a finalist in the same competition in 2006.
Earlier this month, Fenwick won third place in the Arthur Fraser
International Piano Competition, for 8th- through 12th-graders,
and, as a result, will be performing the first movement of Prokofiev’s
“Concerto No. 3” with the South Carolina Philharmonic
sometime during its 2010 season.
Before coming to UNCSA, Fenwick competed in the nation’s
largest spelling bee, the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
He was one of only 45 contestants (out of 288) to make it to the
televised semifinals.
To get there, Fenwick won the spelling bee at Green Valley Elementary
School, and went on to win his countywide bee and then the Winston-Salem
Journal Regional Spelling Bee.
Fenwick previously studied piano with Bair Shagdaron at Appalachian
State University, and also violin and viola with Eric Koontz,
also at App State.
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first
state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation.
Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C.
General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem in 1965
and became part of the University of North Carolina system in
1972.
More than 1,100 students from middle school through graduate school
train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: dance,
design and production (including a visual arts program), drama,
filmmaking and music.
UNCSA is the state’s only public arts conservatory, dedicated
entirely to the professional training of talented students in
the performing, visual and moving image arts.
Internationally renowned conductor John Mauceri has been chancellor
of UNCSA since 2006.
UNCSA is located at 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. For more
information, visit the Web at www.uncsa.edu.
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