Three women have been awarded the Randolph A. Frank Prize for the Performing Arts for their contributions to the cultural life of Palm Beach County.

The awards, presented by the Palm Beach Symphony since 2019, are given to up to three performing artists and educators, who split a $10,000 prize. This year’s awards are going for the first time solely to women.

In the category of Performing Artist, the Frank Prize winner is the Russian-born violinist Evgeniya Antonyan, who teaches orchestra at Berkshire Elementary School and The King’s Academy. She operates a violin/viola studio and performs with the Palm Beach Symphony, Palm Beach Opera and the Atlantic Classical Orchestra.

Nancy Beebe, who retired this year from 37 years of teaching at the Bak Middle School of the Arts, received the Frank Prize in the Performing Arts Educator award. Beebe was the string orchestra director at Bak Middle for 27 years, and has taken its Advanced String Orchestra to Carnegie Hall, Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Symphony Hall in Boston, and the Royal Academy of Music in London.  

The winner of the Frank Prize in the Emerging Artist category is Amrutha Murthy, band director at Park Vista Community High School in Lake Worth Beach since 2022. Under Murthy’s direction, the school’s bands have received consistent Superior ratings from the Florida Bandmasters Association, and the Striking Cobra Marching Band was named a finalist in the 2024 Bands of America Orlando competition. She holds degrees in music education and flute performance from the University of North Texas.

The Randolph A. Frank Prize was established in 2009 by Nancy and Jay Parker, who founded it memory of Frank, a physician and avid arts patron who died in 2007. Nominations for the 2026 awards will open in November. Nominees are judged by a panel of industry professionals. For more information, visit palmbeachsymphony.org.