Tryon launches Nina Simone and Samuel Waymon scholarship fund

A new scholarship fund in Tryon, North Carolina, is reviving local support for the Waymon family with a benefit recital by pianist Awadagin Pratt on Oct. 3. The fund aims to help young musicians from across the Southeast while linking the project to Nina Simone’s early musical roots in the town.

Why it matters: - The Nina Simone and Samuel Waymon Music Scholarship Fund is aimed at expanding access for young musicians of all backgrounds across the Southeastern United States. - The effort revives a Tryon tradition of community support that once helped Eunice Waymon, later known as Nina Simone, continue her musical education. - The fundraiser also connects music, visual art and local history in a town tied to Simone’s early life.

What happened: - The Nina Simone and Samuel Waymon Music Scholarship Fund has launched in Tryon with support from the AFRICAN CONNECTIONS Research and Education Fund, Inc. (ACREF). - Dr. Samuel Waymon, also known as “Magic Man,” started the fund. - Awadagin Pratt will give a benefit recital on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, at 6 p.m. on the Main Stage at the Tryon Fine Arts Center. - Tickets are available through the Tryon Fine Arts Center website. - More information about the fund is available at the scholarship fund page.

The details: - Tryon previously supported Eunice Waymon’s musical education through the Eunice Waymon Fund. - Muriel Mazzanovich, the piano teacher who taught Eunice and Samuel Waymon, helped establish that fund. - Community fundraising helped Eunice Waymon attend Allen High School for Girls in Asheville and later the Juilliard School in New York. - Samuel Waymon studied music at Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, and at Levitan Business College in Philadelphia. - Eunice Waymon became Nina Simone, known as “The High Priestess of Soul.” - Samuel Waymon later worked as an award-winning composer, performer, actor and lecturer. - His credits include Ganja & Hess, Just Crazy About Horses, Personal Problems, Weeds, Philadelphia and The Last Disintegrated School. - Awadagin Pratt is professor of piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and principal conductor of the Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra in Dayton, Ohio. - Pratt also leads the Nina Simone Piano Competition in collaboration with the Art of the Piano Festival, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. - Carri Bass, a Tryon photographer and visual artist, created a vivid photographic and digitally transformed artwork featuring Samuel Waymon at the piano. - Posters of the artwork will be given to Music Scholarship Fund donors. - The venue, Tryon Fine Arts Center, sits immediately west of the historic Lanier Library. - The Lanier Library is one of a small number of membership libraries still operating in the United States. - The Lanier Library was the site of a Eunice Waymon recital around 1944.

Between the lines: - The new fund is framed as a historical echo of the community backing that helped launch Nina Simone’s career. - The project also blends tribute and fundraising, using performance and visual art to connect the scholarship mission to the Waymon family story. - The recital adds a contemporary classical-music event to a local history shaped by race, access and opportunity.

What's next: - The Oct. 3 benefit recital will serve as the first major public event tied to the scholarship fund. - Fund supporters will receive posters of the Samuel Waymon artwork. - ACREF and the fund’s organizers are positioning the scholarship program to support future students from the Southeast.