2025 AFSF Opportunity Award recipient
Lillian Arnold Mages, 16, lives in Waltham, Massachusetts, and is a tenth grader. She began playing Texas-style old-time fiddling at the age of five, and soon developed a love for classical music. Lillian started her classical violin studies at age six at the City Music Center in Pittsburgh, PA.
After relocating to Boston in 2018, she joined Anait Arutunian’s studio at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School (NEC Prep). Currently, Lillian studies with both Anait Arutunian and Soovin Kim. She is a member of NEC’s Chamber Music Intensive Performance Seminar (CHIPS) trio program and is in her second year with NEC’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra. Lillian performed on NPR’s From the Top “Giving Thanks”, Show 455, and is a From the Top Learning and Media Fellow.
In November of 2022, Lillian won First Prize in the MTNA Massachusetts State Junior String Performance Competition. Her other accolades include second place in the 2020 New England Conservatory Prep Virtual Solo Competition and the 2024 NEC Prep Concerto Competition.
Lillian was a finalist in the 2023 MTNA Eastern Division Junior String Performance Competition and the Beethoven Concours Nederland Junior Violin Competition, and the United Stars Music Competition.
During the summers, Lillian has attended Greenwood Music Camp, Berkshire Summer Music, the Heifetz International Institute, and Luzerne Music Center. Last summer, she was accepted into the Senior division at Greenwood Music Camp, where she had the opportunity to work with and perform the music of renowned composer Kareem Roustom.
Some of her most memorable performances include solo appearances with the Waltham
Philharmonic Orchestra in 2023 performing Vivaldi’s Winter, and the Wellesley Symphony Orchestra in 2024 performing the first movement of Barber’s Violin Concerto op. 14. She is scheduled to perform again with the Waltham Philharmonic Orchestra in 2025 playing Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1.
In addition to violin, Lillian studies voice at NEC with Deborah Williams. She has enjoyed singing with the Boston Symphony Children’s Choir and as a member of BSCC she performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops Orchestra. Notably, Lillian has won 1st Prize for four consecutive years in the South Shore Music Club Traditional Irish Ballad Singing Contest.
Beyond the stage, Lillian is passionate about environmental advocacy. As part of the From the Top Environmental Initiative, she collaborated with members of Yo-Yo Ma’s Our Common Nature project and led a workshop in 2024 titled Musicians and the Environment. The workshop guided her peers in exploring how their classical music skills could serve as powerful tools for advocacy and raising awareness about climate change.
Lillian still loves fiddling and has won numerous regional, state, and national titles, including the 2017 National Fiddle Championship (SF Division). When not playing music, she enjoys thrifting with her three sisters, sight-reading chamber music with friends, reading about history, and watching Freaks and Geeks and Stranger Things with her family.
Lillian plays a violin made by Christian Schabbon, modeled after the Venus Stradivarius.