Weston Sprott joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2005. He was a member of it for more than twenty years, playing trombone, which is rarely a job that makes anybody famous.
On 21 September 2026 he became Executive Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Almost nothing about that sentence is ordinary. In Cadenza's view, major arts institutions are more often run by people who came up through management, development or consulting. Sprott arrives as an orchestral section player and an educator, and he arrives at the precise moment that Jazz at Lincoln Center is rebuilding its leadership around a founder stepping back after nearly forty years.
What he actually built at Juilliard
By the time Jazz at Lincoln Center announced his appointment, Sprott had been Dean and Director of the Preparatory Division of the Juilliard School for more than seven years, overseeing its Pre-College programme and its Music Advancement Program.
Among the things Jazz at Lincoln Center's announcement of 10 September 2026 names from that time are three that, on Cadenza's reading, are the reason this appointment reads as it does.
According to the announcement, he played a central role in securing a permanent endowment that allows the Music Advancement Program to provide full-tuition scholarships for all of its students in perpetuity. Not a scholarship fund that pays out while a donor is alive, and not a bursary scheme reviewed every budget cycle. A permanent endowment, covering every student in that programme, indefinitely.
The same announcement says that during his tenure the Music Advancement Program expanded to serve more than four times as many students with tuition-free education.
And, it says, the division began commissioning programmes that have brought nearly one hundred new works into the repertoire for young musicians.
Both figures are Jazz at Lincoln Center's, and an earlier account gave smaller ones. Sprott's profile on the MET Orchestra Musicians' website, last updated on 12 May 2024, said the Music Advancement Program "now serves over 50% more students" and that the Preparatory Division had "commissioned over 50 new works and counting". Both accounts tie the growth in students to his time as dean, which the profile dates from 2019; neither gives a base figure. The two accounts are more than two years apart; Cadenza prints both, with their dates.
On Cadenza's reading, those three together describe a philosophy rather than a list of achievements: remove the cost of entry, widen the door, and then make sure there is new music for the people who come through it. Each is a structural change that outlives the people who made it, which in Cadenza's view is the hardest kind to get through an institution.
More than twenty years in a pit
The playing career is the part that will mean the most to Cadenza's readers, because it is, in Cadenza's view, the part least often found in an executive chair.
Sprott is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music. He previously held positions with the Zurich Opera and Philharmonia, Pennsylvania Ballet and the Delaware Symphony. He has taught at Juilliard, Bard College, the Music Academy of the West, Mannes, Rutgers and Purchase College.
More than twenty years in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra means, on Cadenza's reading of an orchestral job, playing repertoire he did not choose, under conductors he did not hire, as one member of a section. In Cadenza's view that is the working life of most orchestral musicians, and a life that many people who run arts institutions have never lived.
He is also a co-founder of the Black Orchestral Network, which amplifies the voices of Black orchestral musicians and advocates for equity in the profession, and in 2020 he received the Sphinx Medal of Excellence for advancing the standing of Black and Latinx communities.
The structure he is walking into was announced in January
This is the part of the story that Jazz at Lincoln Center's appointment announcement of 10 September 2026 does not spell out, and on Cadenza's reading it is why the job is bigger than the title.
On 29 January 2026, Jazz at Lincoln Center's board announced that Wynton Marsalis would transition out of his role as artistic and administrative leader over two and a half years, after nearly forty years. Marsalis continues as Artistic Director through the 2026-27 season. From July 2027 he serves as Founder in an advisory capacity until his contract ends in June 2028, and thereafter he sits on the board as Founder in perpetuity.
The board also set out a new structure. An Executive Director and an Artistic Director will serve as equal partners, both reporting to the board. The same release describes Marsalis's current role as the artistic and administrative leader at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and its closing paragraph about the institution lists him as Managing and Artistic Director alongside Executive Director Greg Scholl.
So Sprott is not simply inheriting a job. He is taking one half of a two-part structure being built as the founder withdraws, at an institution established in 1987 that reaches its fortieth anniversary in 2027. He succeeds Greg Scholl, whose appointment as Executive Director from 1 June 2012 Jazz at Lincoln Center announced in April 2012, and whose resignation the board said in January would take effect in June 2026.
Marsalis's own comment on the appointment was direct. He said he has known Sprott for many years, called him an extraordinary leader, educator and musician, and said Sprott unequivocally embraces the responsibility to champion the music, nurture the next generation of artists and continue building an institution that will endure.
A classical musician as a jazz institution's Executive Director
Wynton Marsalis at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter, New Orleans, April 2009. Larry Johnson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The obvious question is whether an opera trombonist should be Executive Director of what Jazz at Lincoln Center's January announcement calls the world's premier jazz institution, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a defensive one.
The Executive Director role is not the artistic one. Under the new structure an Artistic Director is an equal partner, and the board's stated goal in January was to identify that person by autumn 2026. Neither the January nor the September announcement divides the duties, but Cadenza expects programming, repertoire and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra to sit on that side of the partnership.
What the Executive Director side needs, in Cadenza's view, is what the record of his years at Juilliard shows: raising permanent money, widening access, growing education programmes, and commissioning new work. Jazz at Lincoln Center's January announcement describes work of the same kind of its own: more high school bands taking part in its annual Essentially Ellington competition, a Let Freedom Swing programme extended to more students, the annual Jazz Congress conference, and Blue Engine Records, which releases material from a fully digitised archive of thousands of performances.
In Cadenza's view there is also a reasonable case that the classical and jazz institutions of this city have more in common than either likes to admit. Each of the two in this story has its own orchestra with a named roster: the MET Orchestra Musicians list theirs online, and Jazz at Lincoln Center says its orchestra consists of 15 permanent members. A person who spent more than twenty years in one of those orchestras, and more than seven years leading the Juilliard division whose Music Advancement Program now gives all its students full-tuition scholarships, is not, on that reading, an outsider to either world.
Why this one matters to players
Arriving at Lincoln Center for the Metropolitan Opera's performance of Faust on 20 December 2011. Ralph Daily, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
In the week to 12 September 2026 Cadenza counted prize money, applicant ratios and instrument loans, and on Cadenza's reading the through-line was that the things which change a young musician's life are structural: a loaned cello, a recording contract, a funded fellowship, a seat that somebody endowed.
In Cadenza's view this appointment belongs to the same category, seen from the other end. A section player who went on to lead the Juilliard division where, according to Jazz at Lincoln Center, he played a central role in securing the endowment behind the Music Advancement Program's full-tuition scholarships, now holds one of the two posts that report to the board under its new structure.
For every working musician who has been told that the route to influence runs away from the instrument, here is the opposite. Jazz at Lincoln Center's announcement of 10 September 2026 described him as a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2005; when Cadenza checked on 24 September 2026, his own website called him a former trombonist in it.
The chair was filled by a search
Jazz at Lincoln Center says Sprott's appointment followed a comprehensive search led by the Search Committee of its Board of Directors. That committee was already at work when the board announced the leadership transition on 29 January 2026.
Cadenza carries current orchestral and institutional vacancies, free to musicians, on its jobs board, and competitions with open deadlines on its competitions board.
If you are watching this. The first date was 21 September 2026, when Sprott started. The next is autumn 2026, the board's stated target in January for identifying a new Artistic Director to sit alongside him, which, in Cadenza's view, will say more about the institution's direction than any appointment announcement can. And Jazz at Lincoln Center's fortieth anniversary falls in 2027, the same year Marsalis moves to an advisory role.
The question Jazz at Lincoln Center will be asked next is the one its own January announcement created. That announcement set out two equal partners reporting to the board, and the institution has now appointed its Executive Director. Marsalis continues as Artistic Director during the 2026-27 season while, the September announcement says, the institution works to identify his successor. Who will that be, and who decides when the two partners disagree?
Sources
- Jazz at Lincoln Center, press release of 29 January 2026 announcing the leadership transition: Marsalis's nearly forty years, the phased timetable through June 2028, his continuing role as Founder on the board, Greg Scholl's resignation effective June 2026, the two special committees, the target of identifying an Artistic Director by autumn 2026, the new structure of an Executive Director and Artistic Director as equal partners reporting to the board, the 1987 founding, its description of the institution as the world's premier jazz institution, and the institution's education and archive programmes.
- Jazz at Lincoln Center, press release of 10 September 2026 naming Sprott: his start date of 21 September, the board's search, his more than seven years as Dean and Director of Juilliard's Preparatory Division, the permanent endowment that funds full-tuition scholarships for all Music Advancement Program students in perpetuity, the growth of that programme to more than four times as many students, the commissioning programmes and their nearly one hundred new works, his Curtis Institute degree, his faculty posts, his membership of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2005, his previous positions at Zurich Opera and Philharmonia, Pennsylvania Ballet and the Delaware Symphony, his 2020 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and Marsalis's remarks.
- The Violin Channel, report of 11 September 2026 on the appointment, for its descriptions of the Black Orchestral Network and of the Sphinx Medal.
- Jazz at Lincoln Center, announcement of Scholl's appointment, as posted on Marsalis's website on 26 April 2012, for Scholl's announced start date of 1 June 2012.
- Weston Sprott's own website, read on 24 September 2026.
- The MET Orchestra Musicians, profile of Weston Sprott, last updated on 12 May 2024, for its earlier figures for the Music Advancement Program and the Preparatory Division's commissions, and the musicians' roster.
- Jazz at Lincoln Center's leadership page, which listed Sprott as Executive Director on 24 September 2026, and its orchestra page, which on 24 September 2026 listed three trombonists, none of them Sprott; this is an executive appointment, not a playing one.
The length of his Met membership and the anniversary year are Cadenza's arithmetic.
Photographs: cover, the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, 30 January 2025, D. Benjamin Miller, CC0; in the body, Wynton Marsalis at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in the French Quarter, New Orleans, April 2009, Larry Johnson, CC BY 2.0; and arriving at Lincoln Center for the Metropolitan Opera's performance of Faust on 20 December 2011, Ralph Daily, CC BY 2.0. All via Wikimedia Commons.
Correction, 24 September 2026. An earlier version of this article said the permanent endowment Sprott helped to secure funds full scholarships for all Pre-College students; Jazz at Lincoln Center's announcement of 10 September 2026 says it funds full-tuition scholarships for all students of the Music Advancement Program. It said he was still a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in September 2026; on 24 September 2026 his own website described him as a former trombonist in it. It counted twenty-one seasons in the Met pit, of several hundred performances a year in a section of three or four players; Cadenza could not support those figures, and the article now gives his membership of the orchestra since 2005. It gave Greg Scholl more than fourteen years as Executive Director; his appointment from 1 June 2012 was announced in April 2012 and his resignation was due to take effect in June 2026. It said the search committee began work in January 2026; the board said on 29 January 2026 that the committee's work had already begun. It said Sprott personally secured the endowment and started the commissioning programme; Jazz at Lincoln Center says he played a central role in securing the endowment and that the division began the commissioning programmes. A section heading read "The chair he is walking into did not exist a year ago"; the post of Executive Director existed, and Greg Scholl was appointed to it from 1 June 2012. What is new is the structure of two equal partners announced on 29 January 2026. It stated as fact that programming, repertoire and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra sit with the Artistic Director; neither the January nor the September announcement divides the duties, and that is now given as Cadenza's expectation. It said his Met seat began as an audition, his Curtis place as an application, and the Juilliard deanship and this executive role as posted searches; no source Cadenza found says so, and that passage has been removed. The headline said he started running Jazz at Lincoln Center; he became its Executive Director, one of two equal partners reporting to the board. Its closing paragraph said Jazz at Lincoln Center had already replaced a single artistic and administrative leader with two equal partners and had filled one of the two posts, and asked who sits in the other; the board set out that structure on 29 January 2026 as a plan, and Wynton Marsalis continues as Artistic Director during the 2026-27 season while, Jazz at Lincoln Center said on 10 September 2026, it works to identify his successor. It said he expanded the Music Advancement Program to four times as many students; Jazz at Lincoln Center says that during his tenure the programme expanded to serve more than four times as many students. It said artistic and administrative leadership had sat with Marsalis alone; the January release lists him as Managing and Artistic Director alongside Executive Director Greg Scholl. Three charts carrying the earlier figures have been removed.
Cover photograph: The Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, photographed on 30 January 2025. D. Benjamin Miller, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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