Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Announces Violinist Randall Goosby as its 2025 MAC Music Innovator

CINCINNATI, OH (October 9, 2024)—Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) announced Randall Goosby as its 2025 MAC Music Innovator, a designation that amplifies Black leaders of classical music who embody artistic innovation and a passion for community engagement and education. With support from the Multicultural Awareness Council (MAC), a volunteer group that supports audience engagement initiatives with the Orchestra, Goosby will collaborate with the CSO’s Community Engagement, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) and Learning departments to create a distinctive residency that includes educational and community engagement programs.

Goosby’s CSO residency will include masterclasses with students from the CSO’s Nouveau Program and students from the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestras. Additional public performances will be announced at a later date.

"The MAC Music Innovator, in name and purpose, enacts a core mission of the CSO Multicultural Awareness Council,” stated Dr. Kori Hill Chair of MAC, “to showcase the diversity of performers within American classical music. This community-focused artist-in-residence program is an essential tool to connect with audiences and inspire the next generation of music lovers, supporters, and professional musicians in the Greater Cincinnati region. MAC is honored to showcase the immense talent of Randall Goosby as the 2025 MAC Music Innovator."

Goosby is the recipient of numerous honors including the inaugural Harmony for Change Award by Midori & Friends, which recognizes remarkable young musicians who have emerged as champions, leaders and advocates for the classical music community; the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant created to support exceptional instrumentalists in their careers; the inaugural Robey Artist by Young Classical Artists Trust in partnership with Music Masters in London in 2019; and in 2020, became an ambassador for Music Masters, mentoring and inspiring students in schools across the United Kingdom. In addition, Goosby was the first prize winner of the Sphinx Concerto Competition in 2010 and Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 2018.

Acclaimed for the sensitivity and intensity of his musicianship alongside his determination to make music more inclusive and accessible, Randall Goosby is a champion of music by under-represented composers. In spring 2023, Goosby released his debut concerto album with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra, performing violin concertos by Max Bruch and Florence Price. His first album, “Roots,” is a survey of music by Black composers that includes premiere recordings of music by Florence Price as well as works by composers William Grant Still, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, and fellow Sphinx and Young Concert Artists alumnus Xavier Foley.

Goosby made his debut with the CSO and Louis Langrée in 2023, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto to in-person and livestreamed audiences as part of the Orchestra’s Live from Music Hall digital concert series. He will return February 8 and 9, 2025 to perform Florence Price’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Ernest Chausson’s Poème with the Orchestra under the direction of CSO Music Director Designate Cristian Macelaru.

It is a special honor to receive the 2025 MAC Innovator Award from my friends at the Cincinnati Symphony,” said Goosby. “No matter where I go, or what I play, building community and sharing the transformative power of music with young people is at the center of what I do. I look forward to the exchange of ideas, perspectives, and experiences, which I hope will inspire and motivate students to embrace music for all its wonders!”

“Randall Goosby is one of the foremost violinists of this generation and leading advocate of Black composers, especially Florence Price. His immense talent and skill as well as his passion for community building and highlighting music by under-represented composers are exactly the attributes we seek in our MAC Music Innovator. We are thrilled that Randall Goosby will reunite with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for a subscription program with CSO Music Director Designate Cristian Macelaru in February, and we’re excited to see the impact he will have on the Cincinnati community as our 2025 MAC Music Innovator,” said President and CEO of the CSO Jonathan Martin.

Randall Goosby is the 8th MAC Music Innovator since its inception in 2018. Previous MAC Music Innovators include cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason (2024), bassist Endea Owens (2023), conductor Antoine Clark (2022), composer and pianist William Menefield (2021), composer and drummer Mark Lomax (2020), pianist Michelle Cann (2019), and violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins (2018).

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

With a legacy dating back 129 years, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is considered one of America’s finest and most versatile ensembles. In the 2025-26 season, Cristian M?celaru joins the Orchestra as its 14th Music Director, after serving as Music Director Designate in the 2024-25 season, adding to the CSO’s distinguished roster of past music directors that includes Leopold Stokowski, Eugène Ysaÿe, Fritz Reiner, Max Rudolf, Jesús López Cobos, Paavo Järvi and Louis Langrée. Matthias Pintscher is the Orchestra’s Creative Partner; previous artistic partners have included Lang Lang, Philip Glass, Branford Marsalis and Jennifer Higdon. The Orchestra also performs as the Cincinnati Pops, founded by Erich Kunzel in 1977 and currently led by John Morris Russell with Damon Gupton serving as Principal Guest Conductor. The CSO further elevates the city’s vibrant arts scene by serving as the official orchestra for the Cincinnati May Festival, Cincinnati Opera and Cincinnati Ballet.

The CSO has long championed the composers and music of its time and has given historic American premieres of works by Claude Debussy, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Maurice Ravel, Béla Bartók, William Grant Still and other prominent composers. It has also commissioned many works that ultimately became mainstays of the classical repertoire, including Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. The Orchestra continues to actively commission new work, amplifying new voices from a diverse array of backgrounds.

Deeply committed to enhancing and expanding opportunities for the children of Greater Cincinnati, the Orchestra works to bring music education, in its many different forms, to as broad a public as possible. These efforts include two youth orchestras, the Nouveau Program, Musicians in Schools, the CSO Brass Institute and one of the longest running Young People’s Concerts series in the United States, which was launched more than 100 years ago.

A leader in diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in the industry, the CSO was one of the first American orchestras to create a Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer position on its administrative team and the first to endow the role, ensuring the absorption of best DE&I practices into every facet of the organization in perpetuity. In 2007, the CSO created the Nouveau Program, which has supported increased participation in classical music and provided equitable opportunities for music study and performance for more than 80 African American and Latine student musicians. The CSO is also an incubator for and partner to Equity Arc, a consortium of American orchestras, professional musicians and educators established to address the lack of racial equity in the classical music field by aligning resources and collaborating to strengthen the trajectory of classical instrumentalists of color at all stages of their pre-careers.

Connect with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on Facebook,
Instagram, X, TikTok, YouTube and Latest News

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges support from:

CSO Season Sponsor

IDEA Series Sponsor

Annual Support

###