Scholarships

CMSA Student Scholarships

Each year CMSA offers scholarships for full time high school and college students to attend the annual convention. The scholarship covers convention registration giving you access to all workshop and activities.  It also includes admission to one (1) of the pre-convention workshop offerings, admission to all evening concerts, your Gala banquet meal, and a one-year membership in CMSA.  It does not cover air fare to travel to the convention, nor does it cover room & board at the hotel.  Scholarship recipients are responsible for booking their own travel and hotel arrangements.

Attendees under 18 years of age must be accompanied by an adult. (Your chaperone’s banquet meal and evening concert tickets are covered by the scholarship.)

Please note that our pre-convention workshop offerings begin on the Tuesday evening prior to the convention, and carry over to the following morning.  This would require that you adjust your travel plans to arrive by late afternoon on the Tuesday.

Scholarship recipients are expected to:

• Attend the entire convention Wednesday to Sunday
• Play in the En Masse Orchestra at daily rehearsals (4) and in the Saturday evening concert
• Attend morning sectional rehearsals Thursday to Saturday
• Attend the Gala Banquet on Friday

Lou Chouinard Scholarship for Second Mandolins

At the Austin Convention in 2015, CMSA announced the establishment of the Lou Chouinard Scholarship for Second Mandolins.

During his tenure as President of CMSA, Lou worked tirelessly for the betterment of the organization, leaving his imprint on every aspect of our activities. The financial stability we enjoy today is due in large part to Lou’s steady guidance. As Lou’s successors, Sue & I have benefitted greatly from his wisdom and experience, and his ready willingness to share.

To acknowledge Lou’s contribution to CMSA, we wanted to create something lasting, something that would nurture a cause that was close to his heart. As many of you know, Lou has long been a champion of the second mandolin section of the En Masse Orchestra at conventions. The decision was made to set up a scholarship to benefit other second mandolin players. In the weeks leading to the Austin Convention, we had quietly collected seed donations of close to $1200 for this purpose, and we were able to surprise Lou at the gala banquet with the official unveiling of this Scholarship in his name.

Beginning with the Philadelphia convention, first time convention attendees who register for the second mandolin section of the En Masse Orchestra may apply to access some of these funds in order to help offset the costs of attending the convention. Alternatively, CMSA members may wish to recommend someone for this scholarship.