Jason Posnock ’94 Is Educating Great Musicians at Brevard Center

Violinist Jason Posnock ’94 won two concerto competitions before he was 20.

The first, when he was 10, afforded him the opportunity to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra. But it was still too early for him to commit to music.

The next was held at Princeton when he was a sophomore. His reward was to accompany the Princeton Orchestra during a concert at Alexander Hall.

That cinched the deal. “I thought, maybe a life in music is something that would really matter,” says Posnock, who changed his major from politics to music.

For the decade after he graduated, Posnock played violin with the Princeton String Quartet and the Pittsburgh Symphony, among others, and served as concertmaster for regional symphonies. In 2006, Posnock and his wife, Dilshad, a flutist, switched gears and became faculty members at Brevard Music Center, a summer training ground for primarily classical musicians in western North Carolina.

He’s never left.

In 2008, Posnock was named to the new position of associate artistic administrator. His promotions continued. Posnock became vice president and chief artistic officer in August 2019 and president and CEO in October 2023.

Founded in 1936, Brevard, a bucolic campus spanning 180 acres in the Appalachian Mountains, enrolls 1,000 promising musicians from high school age to their late 20s. They are taught by and play side-by-side with 150 professionals during a summerlong concert series for the public.

Posnock sees “a real throughline” from Princeton to London’s Royal College of Music, where he later studied, to Brevard: “All of these places don’t focus on the competitiveness of the business. They focus on building students up, helping them find their voice and be the best versions of themselves they can be.”

He’s helped expand the center’s concert schedule, adding a recital series from October to May. And he’s broadened its musical reach, including instruction in bluegrass and jazz.

A major accomplishment since taking over as CEO was bringing in Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra for a week last summer. The members offered lessons and performed three concerts. “It succeeded in every way possible,” says Posnock. “I’m proud that this organization took the risk to go down that road.”

With his previous experience at Brevard in areas ranging from operations to marketing to fundraising, “I think I have a perspective of how things can work together,” he says. “Whether it’s programming concerts or enrolling students or raising money or getting out a press release, it’s all for the same purpose.”

Posnock says his undergraduate education also prepared him well. “Princeton doesn’t teach you what to think. It teaches you how to activate your brain. It also taught me how to write.”

When Posnock took on the role of CEO, he left his position as concertmaster of the Asheville Symphony Orchestra, which he’d held for 17 years. He still plays violin in Brevard’s concerts. “But what I really get joy from is more intimate musical experiences. There’s nothing more fun for me now than to do a small duo or trio in someone’s home for 30 people.”

The center, he says, is in a solid financial position, benefiting from a $36 million endowment and a lack of reliance on federal funds. Student applications are slightly up so far this year. “No matter what,” Posnock says, “people have a need to express their feelings through art. We take that really seriously.”

Looking ahead, he is helping craft a strategic plan for the center and looking to increase its visibility beyond the region. “I want people to know what’s going on down here in the mountains of western North Carolina,” he wrote in an email, “so that when they think about greats arts in the United States, Brevard is in that conversation.”