The mission of the New World Symphony is to prepare gifted graduates of distinguished music programs for leadership roles in orchestras and ensembles throughout the world.
The New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy (NWS), offers postgraduate fellowships for 87 musicians. Fellowships are awarded on a season-to-season basis for up to three seasons. Each year, NWS selects approximately 30 young musicians from among more than 1,500 applicants. Fellows are selected based on their musical achievement and promise and passion. In the 34 years since its founding, NWS has launched the careers of more than 1,150 musicians.
NWS seeks a secure future for classical music and to share its traditions with as many people as possible. NWS’s campus, New World Center, enables the organization’s innovative use of technology for arts education, audience development, community engagement, and alternate concert formats. Through the use of digital technology, video, moving images, and lighting, NWS is helping to broaden and diversify audiences for classical music.
NWS also serves as a laboratory for how classical music is taught, presented and experienced in the 21st century. To expand its appeal to newer, younger, and more diverse audiences, NWS strives to imagine and present alternative concert experiences that intentionally depart from traditional performance models, creating new points of entry into classical music. These experiences are also intended to inspire Fellows to think expansively about different ways to reach modern audiences, both during their fellowships and later in their professional careers.
Carnival Foundation has been a partner of the New World Symphony since its inception and has contributed over $20 million for its mission. NWS believes that orchestral musicians should be community ambassadors for classical music—as advocates, educators, and leaders. Grants provided by Carnival help facilitate NWS’s Community Engagement programs.
NWS’s Community Engagement Programs equip Fellows for leadership roles as educators, communicators, and role models; introduce children to classical music and the concert-going experience; and foster lasting and meaningful relationships between the orchestra and the community. Reaching thousands of South Florida children and youth each year, these programs allow Fellows to mentor student-musicians, offer free music lessons, coach local school bands and orchestras, and offer free concerts tailored to young audiences. In the process, Fellows sharpen their presentation, leadership, and teaching skills, which they will continue to use in their professional lives as musicians.
Support from Carnival also helps fund NWS WALLCAST® Concerts. These performances take place in Soundscape Park, outside of New World Center and are offered free of charge. Thousands of local residents attend this series, experiencing classical music in a casual, family-friendly environment.
Please join us in our partnership as we celebrate the Season Finale for New World Symphony and the honoring of its Artistic Director, Michael Tilson Thomas. For more information, including to purchase tickets or make a donation, visit www.nws.edu.
