Scholarship Recipient Update – Ansel Norris

23-year-old trumpeter Ansel Norris appeared on From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley on Show 191, recorded in November 2008. On the show, he received From the Top’s Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award. Here is what he has been up to since then, along with some of his thoughts on how the award has impacted his life.

Meet Ansel

Ansel Norris studied at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music and graduated in May of 2016 with a degree in Trumpet Performance. At the age of 19, he won the Undergraduate Division of the National Trumpet Competition with This Live Performance.

He has enjoyed participating in many summer music festivals, and was named a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, not once, but two times! There he enjoyed developing a mentor relationship with Thomas Rolfs, principal trumpet of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was able to participate in a documentary made about the summer.

Ansel has been a substitute trumpet player for the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras and is proud to be a founding member of Lincoln Chamber Brass Ensemble. He has also performed as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and has completed outreach work as part of that ensemble. He will be joining the ranks of The New World Symphony, America’s Orchestra Academy (NWS), a cutting-edge organization that prepares young artists to be leaders in professional ensembles and ensembles.

What The Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award Meant To Ansel

“I used my Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist funds mostly on purchasing a trumpet and related equipment. Eventually I used the finances to cover flights to go to college auditions the following year. The impact of getting these funds was huge. It is largely not realized or discussed by everyone that playing music is a very difficult thing to do without money. Learning to cultivate the patience and skill if you don’t have the right teacher can be tough, and studying with the best teacher is often expensive! And the same is true for the formative activities of my musical life. Receiving money to be on From the Top, to attend Interlochen Summer Camp, and to assist me at Northwestern put me in a place where I could succeed. And these things are expensive so without their generosity it would not have happened for me. I would have had to do something else. At the time my mom had just enough money to put food on the table and that’s it. So it was a tremendous blessing.”

Learn more about Ansel and listen to his From the Top debut by clicking here.