Cuban-American cellist and Bienen School of Music alumnus Tommy Mesa ’14 MMus has been awarded a $25,000 Avery Fisher Career Grant.
Avery Fisher Career Grants of the Avery Fisher Artist Program are designed to give professional assistance and recognition to talented instrumentalists and small chamber ensembles who have great potential for major careers in classical music. Recipients must be US citizens or permanent residents. The other 2025 awardees are violinist Joshua Brown and the Viano Quartet.
Grant recipients were honored at a March 18 ceremony and performance at WQXR’s Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. A recording is available online.
Several Bienen alumni have been among the recent recipients of Avery Fisher Career Grants, including cellist Russell Houston ’16 of Balourdet Quartet (2024), saxophonist Steven Banks ’17 MMus (2022), and violinist Austin Wulliman ’08 MMus of JACK Quartet (2019).
Tommy Mesa
Mesa has established himself as one of the most accomplished performers of his generation. The recipient of the Sphinx Organization’s 2023 Medal of Excellence, its highest honor, Mesa has appeared as a soloist at the Supreme Court of the United States on four occasions and with major orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Indianapolis and New Jersey Symphony Orchestras. He gave the world premiere of Jessie Montgomery’s cello concerto Divided in 2022 and has performed the work at the New World Center, Caramoor, Schermerhorn Center, and Carnegie Hall, among others. His recording debut of the work was released in July 2023 on Deutsche Grammophon.
Recent orchestral highlights include appearances with the Columbus, San Antonio, Madison, Ann Arbor, Calgary, and Knoxville Symphony Orchestras, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, where Mesa holds the position of 2024-2025 Artist-in-Residence.
An active recitalist, his season highlights include performances with Michelle Cann at the University of Vermont’s Lane Series, Chamber Music Pittsburgh, and The Schubert Club in Saint Paul. He recently celebrated the release of several critically acclaimed albums. Upcoming recording projects include collaborations with the iconic pianist Olga Kern and a return collaboration with the multiple GRAMMY-award winning vocal ensemble The Crossing Choir.
Mesa was awarded first prize in the 2016 Sphinx Competition and was a winner of the 2017 Astral Artists National Auditions. He received his BM from The Juilliard School, MM from Northwestern University as student of Hans Jørgen Jensen, and his DMA from the Manhattan School of Music, where he recently joined the cello faculty. He performs on a Nicolò Gagliano cello made in 1767 and a bow by André Richaume, both generously loaned to him by Canimex, Inc. in Drummondville, Canada.