Nashville Symphony Announces 2020 Curb Concerto Competition Winners

The Nashville Symphony has announced the winners of the 2020 Curb Concerto Competition, which annually distributes thousands of dollars in prize money to students between the ages of 14 and 18.

A total of 19 promising music students from the region participated in this year’s competition, with the winners being selected following adjudicated performances at Schermerhorn Symphony Center on February 22 and 23.

Violinist Caroline Smoak, a 16-year-old home-schooled student from Fort Mill, South Carolina., earned Grand Prize honors for her performance of the first movement from Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major.

Smoak, who studies at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music, is a two-time winner of both the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition and the Winston-Salem Symphony’s Peter Perret Youth Talent Search. Smoak’s other notable achievements also include solo performances at the 2016 Heifetz International Music Institute, as well as at the prestigious Perlman Music Program over the past three summers.

As the 2020 Curb Concerto Competition Grand Prize winner, Smoak will receive $2,500 and two full subscriptions to Nashville Symphony’s Classical Series, and she will perform her winning selection at the Nashville Symphony’s free Side-by-Side Concert with the Curb Youth Symphony this spring. 

First runner-up in the competition was awarded to 15-year-old flutist Matthew Kim of Cordova, Tennessee, who will receive $1,000 and two partial season ticket packages to the Nashville Symphony Classical Series.

Second runner-up prize was awarded to Xavion Patterson, a 16-year-old bassoonist from Smyrna, Tennessee, who earned $500 and a pair of tickets to a Nashville Symphony Classical Series concert. Marissa Liu, a 14-year-old pianist from Collierville, Tennessee, took home third runner-up honors.