Southern Miss Violinist to Attend Aspen Music Festival on Scholarship

University of Southern Mississippi student and violinist, John Eze Uzodinma II, has received a full scholarship to attend the Aspen Music Festival and School in Aspen, Colo., for eight weeks this summer.

Founded in 1949, the Aspen Music Festival and School is a festival that encompasses more than 600 students from approximately 40 states and 40 countries and artist-faculty 130 from nearly every major U.S. conservatory, music school, and orchestra. With its prestigious list of alumni which includes renowned concert artists such as violinist Joshua Bell and American opera singer, Renée Fleming, the Aspen Music Festival is regarded as one of the top classical music festivals in the United States.

The typical eight-week summer season includes more than 400 classical music events — including concerts by five orchestras, solo and chamber music performances, fully staged opera productions, master classes, lectures, and children's programming .

The Aspen Music Festival and School provides the student- performers with an opportunity for continued study and enrichment at the highest level, and Uzodinma's  acceptance by the faculty and the administration of the Aspen Music Festival and School indicates their confidence in his artistic potential.

Along with private instruction, Uzodinma will rehearse and perform major orchestral repertoire side-by-side with his teachers, which will include principal players from major orchestras, including those of New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, San Francisco, Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

Uzodinma, 21, was born in Madison, Miss., and is the oldest son of Eze and Cynthia Uzodinma. He began studying the violin at the age of 8 at Madison Station Elementary and in 2013, he graduated with honors from Madison Central High School.

He is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance with Dr. Stephen Redfield in the USM School of Music, where he has successfully maintained a cumulative GPA of 3.971 and is a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society. In 2014, he was awarded the USM Undergraduate Musician of the Year for strings. Uzodinma is also the 2016 award recipient of The Presser Foundation's Undergraduate Scholar Award.

He is on track to graduate from Southern Miss in May.