Phillip Rumlin-Bond left Gadsden County with a scholarship and a violin. On Aug. 13, he comes home to show what a county’s belief can build.
Gretna, Florida, is a small town. Small enough that when a child there picks up a violin, somebody notices. Small enough that when that same child earns a scholarship to one of the nation’s premier conservatories, the whole county feels it.
Phillip Rumlin-Bond was that child. He came to the Javacya Arts Conservatory as a third grader carrying his own violin — purchased by his family, who believed in him first — and he has been an intellectual individual from the very beginning: curious, disciplined, exacting.
What Javacya gave him was a teacher who matched that mind. Dr. Patrice Floyd, the conservatory’s founder, has taught him ever since — through the long Saturdays, through four years as Concertmaster of the Javacya Elite Chamber Orchestra, where he learned to lead a stage before he was old enough to vote. He graduated with honors from the Florida A&M University Developmental Research School.
And his training reached far beyond the county line. Phillip has taken master classes and additional coaching with internationally renowned violinists Rachel Barton Pine, Amadi Azikewe, Kinga Augustyn, and others, while studying at The Sphinx Music Academy, Interlochen Arts Academy, and the Apple Hill Summer Music Institute.
He learned the art of leading an orchestra under the mentorship of cellist Derek Menchan, Dr. Khari Joyner — Director of String Performance at Baldwin Wallace University — and Professor Patrice Jackson-Til of the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
Thomasville has Charlie Ward. Gretna and Quincy have Phillip — a Heisman Trophy winner of sorts in the classical music world.
Community comes together
And Gadsden County did what Gadsden County does: it got behind its own. The owners of the Montague Collection. The Society. The Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity. Alpha Teens. Gadsden County Men of Action. St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral.
Along the way he won several Omega Psi Phi Talent Hunt Competitions, each one another county fingerprint on his journey. Because when a student attends the Javacya Arts Conservatory, the sky is the limit — and a whole community stands under that sky, holding the ladder.
Last fall, Rumlin-Bond entered The Hartt School on scholarship, one of the most respected conservatories in the country. The results came quickly. Dean’s List his first semester with a 3.8 average. Dean’s List again his second — this time with a 4.0. He was named to the Van Boren Artist Society, and when he returns to campus this fall, he will be inducted into The Hartt School’s music honor society.
And in a distinction that says everything about how his teachers see him, he became the only undergraduate admitted to the graduate studio of renowned violinist Katie Lansdale, professor of violin at The Hartt School. He is on a five-year track that will end with a Master’s degree in Violin Performance and Education — performance, because he intends to stand on the world’s stages; education, because he intends to reach back.
Those who know him are not shy about what comes next. Floyd predicts he will win the 2028 Sphinx Competition, the nation’s premier showcase for Black and Latino classical musicians — and, not long after, the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Among those who encouraged him along the way was Archbishop Duncan, who spent time in Tallahassee and took a personal interest in the young violinist’s gift.
Rarely performed violin concerto
But before the world hears him, home gets him first.
On Thursday, Aug. 13 at 7 p.m., Rumlin-Bond headlines the Javacya Elite Chamber Orchestra’s Season Finale at St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral, 4784 Thomasville Road, Tallahassee — the cathedral now entering its ninth season as the orchestra’s host.
The centerpiece of the evening is Haydn’s rarely performed Violin Concerto in A Major, a work most concertgoers will be hearing live for the first time. The program also features two works by the trailblazing composer Florence Beatrice Price: her beloved “Adoration” and the Piano Quintet in A minor.
Before the downbeat, guests can view and purchase canvas prints of Price prepared by the Montague Collection, and bid in a silent auction of works by two celebrated artists. Admission is free; donations support the Javacya Scholarship Fund at JavacyaArts.com.
It would be easy to tell Rumlin-Bond’s story as one young man’s talent. It would also be incomplete. His story is a family that bought a violin and a tuxedo and never looked back. A church that opened its doors for nine years.
Fraternities, civic groups, and neighbors who showed up. A conservatory that has spent almost five decades teaching every child as if they might one day attend Juilliard. A county that made a bet on a boy from Gretna — and is about to watch it pay off, in full view, under cathedral acoustics.
Every morning brings another headline about young men with too much time and too few chances. On August 13, Tallahassee gets to read a different story — and then stand and applaud it.
If you go
What: An Evening of Chamber Music with Phillip Rumlin-Bond headlining the Javacya Elite Chamber Orchestra’s Season Finale
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 13
Where: St. Peter’s Anglican Cathedral, 4784 Thomasville Road
Cost: Admission is free; donations support the Javacya Scholarship Fund at JavacyaArts.com
Contact: Patrice Floyd at info@javacyamail.com
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Meet the boy from Gretna who wouldn’t put the violin down
Reporting by Special to the Tallahassee Democrat, USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Special to the Tallahassee Democrat, USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA | USA TODAY Network
