Maxwell (Max) van Hoeij, a student of Professor Cornelia Heard, is a merit scholarship recipient at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. He’s attending the Aspen Music Festival (AMF) in 2023 with merit scholarships from the Blair School of Music and AMF. Max was also accepted into AMF in 2019, 2020, and 2022. In 2023, Max was admitted into the preselection round of the 57th International Violin Competition Premio Paganini. Max also was awarded in the Tennessee MTNA Young Artist Competition in 2023.
Max started this exciting journey to become a violinist when he was four. His love of music took him to the National America String Teachers Association conference in Atlanta when he was eight. He was awarded the National Junior Eclectic String Festival, first place winner, at the national conference.
In 2013 when Max was 10 years old, he became the Jacksonville Repertory Youth Orchestra concertmaster, leading middle and high school students and performing complete symphonies. He continued as concertmaster (2017 – 2020) in Jacksonville. Max was also concertmaster for the First Coast Youth Orchestra (2018-2019) and concertmaster at North Florida All Districts (2017).
In 2015, he won first place at the Interlochen Center for the Arts Junior Advance Recital Competition. In 2016, Max debuted as a soloist at Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall in their Honors Performance Series. In May 2017, Max was awarded first place at the American Protégé International Piano and String Competition and performed his solo at Weill Auditorium, Carnegie Hall.
Under the baton of Itzhak Perlman, Max is the only Perlman Music Program Super Strings performer that has played with them consecutively for seven years, from 2013 to 2020. In August 2017 and 2018, Max received daily guidance from Mr. Aaron Rosand and graduated from his Violin Intensive Summer Program at the Summit Music Festival.
Max attended numerous other summer festivals and music programs. In June 2018, Maxwell received a merit scholarship to attend Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s Violin Intensive Program. Maxwell also performed as co-concertmaster in the same month at the Los Angeles International Music Festival when they won gold. Max also attended Credo at Oberlin Conservatory (2016, 2017, & 2018), Luby Symposium (2020), and Madeline Island Chamber Music Program (2021, fellowship).
Max has won numerous other awards. In 2018, he won the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition. In 2019, Max received awards at Kennesaw State Young Artist Competition and the Big Bend Young Artist Competition. Max was also a finalist in the Hilton Head Young Artist Competition 2020.
Max deeply understands music and its imprint and reflection in dance. Maxwell won the Moscow Ballets Wunderkind competition in 2019 and was selected to perform Saint-Saëns The Dying Swan (Le Cygne) with Moscow Ballet’s principal ballerina at a sold-out audience of 2000 at the historic Florida Theatre in Jacksonville, FL. His love of music and dance also was noticed by the Artistic Director of the Tallahassee Ballet. Max was featured in their film, Pulling Back the Curtain in 2021, performing both violin and trumpet. In 2022 he was invited by the Nashville Ballet and the Nashville Opera to perform in their annual performance of The Nutcracker at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.
You can find Maxwell’s 2023 18th Century Music Competition violin performance here.