June 13, 2018 - A pioneer of thought leadership in music and the arts, Music Academy of the West is thrilled to announce the winners of its inaugural Alumni Enterprise Awards. Open to all alumni of the Academy’s Summer Festival, the awards program was announced last year to fund original classical music projects with significant community impact. A total cash prize of $90,000 will be shared among the six winning alumni: tenor Benjamin Bliss, violist Molly Carr and pianist Anna Petrova, pianist Theresa Kim, mezzo-soprano Brenda Patterson, and pianist Evan Shinners. They and their projects were chosen from more than 50 applicants by the Academy’s senior management in collaboration with its National Advisory Council, comprising four key figures in arts and business management. Winners will be in attendance to speak about their initiatives at the Academy’s second Classical Evolution/Revolution Conference on June 22.