Violinist, Mary Grace Johnson, from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is a Cornelius Vanderbilt scholarship recipient at Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music, where she studies with Cornelia Heard. Before beginning her collegiate studies at Vanderbilt, Mary Grace was involved in the pre-college program at Blair as a Myra Jackson Scholar. She has won numerous competitions and awards, including the Nashville Symphony Curb concerto competition, the Vanderbilt concerto competition, the Curb Youth Symphony concerto competition, the Thor Johnson scholarship competition and the Jean Keller Heard Prize for Excellence in String Performance.

Mary Grace has attended many summer festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, the Eastern Music Festival as concertmaster, and two consecutive summers as principle second and assistant concertmaster at Colorado College Summer Music Festival. She has also served as concertmaster of the Vanderbilt University Orchestra and the Curb Youth Symphony. She is an active freelance musician and regularly subs with the Nashville Symphony. Mary Grace has played in master classes for Glenn Dicterow, Augustin Hadelich, Ani Kavafian, Robert McDuffie, Almita and Roland Vamos, Elisabeth Adkins and many others. In addition to her violin studies, Mary Grace is pursuing minors in viola and baroque violin and is a resident advisor at Vanderbilt.