Roderick Cox Returns to Walker West as His Music Initiative Receives $250,000 Commitment
Internationally acclaimed conductor Roderick Cox, a former Minnesota Orchestra associate conductor now based in Berlin, returned Oct. 19 to Walker West Music Academy in St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood to meet the fellows in his music initiative face to face. Cox founded the program in 2019 with Dr. Yvonne Cheek, Anton Vincent and Maurice Holloman to support young musicians of color pursuing classical music. The fellows performed for him, including a solo of Florence Price’s Fantasie No. 1. The evening also celebrated Nancy Jacobs’ $250,000 commitment over 10 years. The initiative covers costs that can reach $10,000 to $15,000 a year, opening doors to programs like the Sphinx Performance Academy.
For the young string players in the Roderick Cox Music Initiative, the conductor whose name is on their fellowship had mostly been a face on a screen. That changed Oct. 19, when Cox returned to the Twin Cities for an evening with the fellows, their families and the community at Walker West Music Academy, 650 Marshall Ave. in St. Paul.
Cox, a Macon, Georgia, native, served as assistant and later associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra before building an international career. He now lives in Berlin and serves as music director of the Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier in France. He is also the subject of filmmaker Diane Moore’s documentary “Conducting Life.”
He founded the initiative in 2019 with Dr. Yvonne Cheek, Anton Vincent and Maurice Holloman, as he was leaving Minnesota for Europe. The program supports young orchestral musicians of color who want to pursue classical music. Since then, Cox has mentored the fellows through Zoom calls from overseas. The Oct. 19 visit was the first time he had seen them in person since 2020.
“He was really surprised to see how grown they were,” said Earl Ross, who chairs Walker West’s string department and leads the program. “When he saw them in 2020, and certainly on Zoom, they looked really young.”
During the visit, Cox gave a short talk, answered questions and met the academy’s youngest string students, some as young as 5. “It was a wonderful outpouring of support for this program,” said Cheek, a Walker West board member.
The fellows performed for Cox, including a solo performance of Florence Price’s Fantasie No. 1 in G minor, and talked about what the program has meant to them. “As a teacher, I was just overwhelmed,” Ross said.
The visit also celebrated a major new investment. Nancy Jacobs has committed $250,000 over the next 10 years to support the initiative, according to Walker West.
“This partnership represents something larger than music education alone,” Walker West Executive Director Charles Morgan said in a statement. “It is about access, excellence, and possibility, ensuring that talented young musicians can see a place for themselves on the world’s stages and have the preparation and opportunity to get there.”
Walker West, founded in 1988 in St. Paul’s historic Rondo neighborhood, has stewarded the initiative since the 2025-26 academic year. Students in fifth through 12th grade with at least three years of instruction can apply, and they must audition. The program supports five or six fellows at a time and has served 11 since its founding.
Most fellows began lessons at Walker West when they were 5 to 8 years old. The initiative pays for their private lessons and youth symphony tuition, helps provide better instruments as they advance and covers travel to national summer programs. Ross said that last piece is often what makes those opportunities possible, because scholarships rarely pay for travel.
Ross said private lessons, youth symphonies and summer study for a serious string student can cost $10,000 to $15,000 a year, before instrument costs.
“That cost of $10,000 to $15,000 is not something that our families and our parents can afford,” Ross said. “But that does not mean that our students who have this incredible talent shouldn’t be a part of those programs.”
With that support, fellows have earned spots in some of the country’s most competitive summer programs. Four have attended the Sphinx Performance Academy, which selects about 30 Black and Latino string students nationally each year for nearly two weeks of training at conservatories such as the Curtis Institute of Music. This past summer, four students spent two weeks at New Hampshire’s Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music.
At home, fellows play at the top levels of the Minnesota Youth Symphonies and the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies, where Ross said they are frequently the only Black students. Some have served as principal players.
Walker West also gives them a place to play together. Ross founded Kamoinge Strings, an ensemble of mostly Black and brown students whose name is a Kikuyu word for a community coming together.
“We’re not just playing Vivaldi, but we’re playing works by Black composers,” Ross said. “We’re playing spirituals. We’re playing African music. We’re playing gospel.”
Alumni have gone on to the University of St. Thomas on full scholarships, the University of Minnesota School of Music, Emory University and Vanderbilt University.
Cox called the initiative one of the proudest achievements of his career. “It means so much to return to a place I once called home, to spend time with our RCMI Fellows, and to support the next generation of young musicians as they pursue their ambitions,” he said in a statement.
Ross hopes the new gift is a beginning, not a ceiling. He wants the program to grow to 10 to 30 fellows a year.
“Can we get to a point where we’re able to support 10 to 30 students per year,” he said, “and to have many, many more students have these transformative opportunities?”
Learn more about the Roderick Cox Music Initiative or make a donation at walkerwest.org/roderick-cox-music-initiative/.
Jasmine McBride welcomes reader responses at jmcbride@spokesman-recorder.com.
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