Violinist Njioma Chinyere Grevious started playing violin when she was 4 years old, training with Project STEP, a nationally acclaimed program in Boston that supports young musicians from groups that are historically underrepresented in the classical world.
A solo, chamber, and orchestral musician, Grevious attended The Juilliard School and there won the John Erskine Prize for scholastic and artistic achievement. Last year, she took home both first prize and the audience choice award in the senior division of the prestigious Sphinx Competition. This year, she was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant.
This fall, Grevious will debut as a soloist with the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Sphinx Organization’s flagship ensemble, at Carnegie Hall. She has performed with the Boston Pops, West Michigan Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Salisbury Symphony, and at the White House for the Obamas.
She makes her Cal Performances debut with pianist Andrew Goodridge on Sept. 29, performing music by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Beethoven, and Mozart. She spoke with SF Classical Voice ahead of her Hertz Hall recital.
How did you start playing violin?
I was 4, and my mom really encouraged us — I have one older brother and one older sister — to have formal musical training as part of our education. I started with her encouragement and undivided attention and care for us. She found a string training program in the Boston area, which is where I grew up, called Project STEP. It’s tailored to Black and Latino musicians. It was really perfect for us, at least back then, and that wasn’t that long ago. I’m 25, so that was, let’s say, 2004.
There were definitely way fewer classical musicians of color [then], even than the few that you see these days. Project STEP was a godsend for that and seeing ourselves represented but also because they provided financial support and such toward instruments. They also had a relationship with the New England Conservatory’s prep school. I took some theory classes there — ear training and stuff. It was pretty great. I graduated from the program in 2017, the same year I went to Juilliard.
It seems like you had a lot of mentors growing up.
I’ve always looked up to the amazing musicians that I’ve been lucky enough to study with. James Buswell was a formative teacher for me. I guess I really only studied with him through my high school years, but he was an incredible violinist, and he sadly passed away during the pandemic from cancer. It was really sad. He was such an amazing pedagogue. He could teach anybody how to play the violin or just how to think differently. He was so intellectual.
At Project STEP, one of my first teachers there was [violinist] Mariana Green-Hill. She was amazing. I mean, she still is amazing. She’s still teaching there and giving these kids so much to look forward to and be inspired by about classical music. And of course, my mom is a huge inspiration and mentor to me as well. She’s not classically trained, but she’s just the best, so supportive of me and my career.
Why did you choose the violin?
We all technically started on piano with a Russian teacher. My sister was the first one to transition to playing violin, and then my brother played bass and something else. Then the story goes that I got really jealous of my sister and begged to play the violin.
Why do you think it’s important to have classical music in your life?
One of the things I personally love about classical music — although really, I’m biased, right? — but in all music, there’s collaborative aspects that go into it. If you’re recording, like, a Beatles song, even the recording engineers are involved in the collaborative process. The Beatles themselves are involved in this collaborative process. It’s a beautiful, intimate process. I think that’s part of what I fell in love with about classical music, especially when I was growing up. I would always look forward to Saturday preparatory school class and orchestra because that’s where all my friends were and we all just bonded.
You’ve won so many awards, including first prize in the 2023 Sphinx Competition. What did that mean to you?
The Sphinx Competition was life-changing, to say the least. … That was such an amazing day. And I always tell people the truth, which is that I didn’t go into that competition wanting to win first prize. I went into the competition hoping, “OK, I’m going to play as well as I possibly can so that I can at least get to the finals.” Because that’s huge. If you’re in the finals, that means you get to play with the Sphinx [Symphony] Orchestra.
And for me, that was the ultimate goal, to play with that orchestra, because it’s made up of Black and brown people, musicians just like me, who have gone through and are going through and will always go through struggles of being themselves in classical music and in the world. Just to be surrounded by them onstage was something I was really, really looking forward to, and then winning first prize and audience choice. I mean, the best thing to have to come out of that — I mentioned Mariana Green-Hill earlier — she was actually playing in the back of that orchestra section. I knew she would be playing. And it was just like a full-circle moment.
Tell me about what you’re playing at Cal Performances and how you chose the pieces.
I’ll be playing the Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson solo piece for violin called Blue/s Forms. Then I’ll also be playing Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 21 in E Minor and Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata. Those are all pieces I really love playing.
What’s so interesting to me about the Beethoven is just understanding and learning about the historical context of it, which is that Beethoven originally wrote it for a mixed-race violinist in 1803, George Bridgetower. Beethoven really enjoyed his playing, and they became good friends, and Beethoven wanted to write a piece for him. Unfortunately, they got into a little quarrel, and Beethoven removed the dedication to Bridgetower over that one thing that happened. I don’t know exactly what he said, but [it was] some misstep that really got on Beethoven’s nerves, and so [Beethoven] instead dedicated it to [Rodolphe] Kreutzer, [who was] also a violinist but [who] never actually played the piece. Bridgetower premiered the piece and was an incredible violinist. I was inspired by that story and inspired by this amazing poet and author, Rita Dove. She wrote a book called Sonata Mulattica that discusses the whole situation with Beethoven and Bridgetower.
Perkins’s Blue/s Forms is just a wonderful piece, a little under 10 minutes, three movements. I had always wanted to play a solo piece by him. I love that he was named after Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who was a Afro-British composer. [It’s] a wonderful piece that explores blues, jazz, and that sort of energy but fused with the virtuosity of Bach.
Then the Mozart: I’m playing with pianist Andrew Goodridge, who’s amazing. I’ve known him since I was probably 8 years old. He was my theory teacher at one point, probably my ear-training teacher, too, and now we play together occasionally, which is awesome. He and I played this piece a couple years ago, and it’s just a beautiful kind of homage to Mozart’s mom, who had passed away.
How much time a day do you spend on music?
All day, really. I kind of have to. It’s like you have to but also you want to. Once I turned 25, I was like, “OK, I probably should find maybe one or two other things that I enjoy doing to kind of break up my day.” Sometimes it’s not possible. Sometimes I have to be practicing, rehearsing, et cetera, all day. I’m not a stranger to that, and I love doing it. But I play a little bit of ping-pong here and there. I’m not very good. It’s music pretty much all day, every day.
