Access/VSA International Young Musicians
Tips for 2025 Applications
Each year outstanding young musicians with disabilities from around the world receive the Access/VSA International Young Musicians Award, $2,000, and the opportunity to perform and participate in professional development and music coaching activities provided by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. This program is open to soloists and ensembles of any instrument or genre.
All genres of music are accepted, including but not limited to classical, jazz, hip-hop, rap, rock/alt rock, pop, indie, bluegrass, folk, country, R&B/blues, Latin, and world. All instruments, including voice, are accepted.
The application deadline is Wednesday, January 8, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.
The following webinar was recorded on October 15, 2024 and provides tips and advice on how to present your best application for the program! A written Q&A is also provided below.
Q & A
Below are questions asked by participants during the webinar as well as frequently asked questions about the program and the application process. If you have additional questions, you may email us anytime at [email protected].
I don't live in the United States. Can I still apply?
Yes! This is an international program. You may live in the USA or another country.
How do you define disability?
We use the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as our guide for the definition of disability. Disability is a broad umbrella that covers a variety of lived experiences. Eligible musicians may have apparent physical and or sensory conditions, as well as less apparent conditions, like anxiety, ADHD, depression, chronic illness or pain, PTSD, OCD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, neurodivergence and more. Learn more about the ADA's definition of disability at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/faqs/americans-with-disabilities-act-amendments#Q5.
I'm in a band. Can my band apply?
Yes! You may apply either as a soloist or part of an ensemble up to five people, as long as everyone in the group meets the age requirement and at least one member of the group has a disability.
I'm an exchange student in the United States, but I'm originally from Morocco and will be returning there soon. What address do I list on the form? Also, I'm under 18. Who signs for me?
Great question. Okay, so you can list either address. If you're going to be in the US through July, perhaps list the address where you're currently living with your host family. If you will be returning soon to Morocco, like before July. I think it's fine to list your home address in Morocco. And then as far as who signs, it's really, we need someone who has legal authority to sign on your behalf since you are a minor under the age of 18. So if your host family here in the United States has that legal authority to sign for you for like field trips, doctor's appointments, important forms at school, then they can sign for you in this case. If they don't for some reason have that ability, then you can share the application with your family in Morocco, and they can sign electronically for you.
Will you provide an accompanist?
For the awardees who are selected to perform at the Kennedy Center, we do provide accompaniment. That sometimes - or most often I guess I should say - is a pianist. Sometimes though it could be another type of accompaniment. We've had performances in the past that have used traditional instruments, and we've been able to find really talented musicians in the DC area who play some of the other traditional instruments that would accompany a solo performer. For your application itself, though, you are responsible for whatever is needed or necessary in the recording for your application. So if you need to play with an accompanist as part of your application video for your performance samples, you have to provide that accompanist for the application portion.
I'm applying as a soloist. Is it okay to have other people in my performance samples?
Yes, it's fine to have other people in your performance samples. A great example might be like the last question, maybe an accompanist. Perhaps you're a violinist, and you're performing a concerto, and you have a pianist that you work with often, and they appear in your application video as part of your performance sample. That's totally fine. There could be other reasons maybe that there are other folks in your performance sample. I know in the past we've had singer songwriters, and they've submitted a video from an open mic night, and there was kind of a stage band that was performing with each of the individual soloists.
Can I use a video my mom took of me playing a solo in marching band as one of my performance samples?
I would ask you to consider, what would a performance by you at the Kennedy Center would look like? Remember, that's what the adjudicators are looking for in these samples. They're looking for great musicianship. They're looking for how you behave and act as a performer, what your stage presence is, how you are conveying the musicality of performing. So, I would challenge you to think about is that solo in marching band what you would be performing at the Kennedy Center? I'm guessing probably not. There might be other ways that you can better capture your musicianship, but I could always be wrong. I know different marching bands do different types of performances each year. So maybe there's a jazz show, and this is very evocative of what you would do as a performer at the Kennedy Center if you're a jazz trumpeter.
When will I find out if I got in?
Everybody will get an email from us by the middle of March, whether they are selected or not. We reach out to everyone who applied so you will know one way or another.
Can you give advice on what to include in the narrative statement?
The narrative statement in some ways is kind of like your artist statement. There are a couple of prompts in the application itself, but, tell us a little bit about you as a performer. You can tell us about other awards that you've won, the types of things you would include in an artist biography. You could think about including what is it that you hope to do as a musician. How would this help amplify your career? What is it that you want to do in the future?
If my band has several members who meet the criteria, does it make any difference which person submit application?
The short answer is no. You're going to provide information about each of the applicants as part of an ensemble application. So if you have, let's say an ensemble that includes a violin, a cello, and a piano, then you would submit as an ensemble. You would give me all the information for the violinist, their address, their school, the years they've been studying their instrument, those sorts of things. You would give me all the information for the cellist. And you would also give me all the information for the pianist. So the way that the ensemble application works, you submit individual information for each of those ensemble members. Now, you can share the application with those ensemble members as collaborators, and then it's not all on you to fill everything out for them. In fact, if any of your ensemble members are under the age of 18 or under guardianship, they can't legally sign for themselves, and you would have to have it shared with their parent or guardian to sign on their behalf. But that collaboration button is gonna be your best friend. That way you don't have to try to fill in everything for everybody. But it would be good to have someone who sort of makes sure everybody's put in all the correct information and probably have one person in charge of doing the performance samples.
If my band applies, and one of the four members is replaced with someone new after we submit the application, would we still be eligible? The replaced member is not the primary person meeting the disability criteria.
The short answer here, again, is likely yes. We would need to work together and understand a bit more about who the musician is that's being replaced. You would probably be asked to submit some additional performance samples because we want to make sure that the musicianship and the performance of the ensemble as a whole is as was presented in the original application. So it's not exactly a straightforward answer, but I think we could work together to make sure that everybody felt okay about that. Again, all members of the ensemble have to meet the age requirement. So that individual would absolutely have to meet that, and we would need to get their permission to sign off on some forms. You'll see in the application there are some eligibility requirements, and you have to accept that you understand those eligibility requirements. Something from our legal team. So we would need to make sure that we got that from whoever the replacement would be if we ultimately decided that yes, it was able to move forward.
Is there any recommendation about how many covers versus how many original songs to submit?
I think it's a balance of who you are. So if you're a person that is a songwriter, and you're interested in showing that off, we certainly are interested in that and applaud that and would love to see what different types of songs that you write and share for yourself as a performer. If you're someone who also does performances that mix and covers. That's absolutely totally fine. So I think just again, give us a sense of who you are as a performer and try your best to balance it out amongst those three performance samples to give us an idea of what a performance by you at the Kennedy Center might look like. You can look at previous recordings of our millennium stage performance of other International Young Musician Program winners, and get a sense of what types of things they performed at the Kennedy Center as part of their set. You certainly will see some folks who do covers and you'll certainly see some folks who do original music and combinations in between.
Ready to apply? Applications are due January 8, 2025! Apply now.