New England Conservatory Magazine | Spring 2021

NEW ENGLAND C O N S E R VAT O R Y MAGAZINE

Music as Healthcare Music-Making Through Technology Cultural Equity and Belonging ...and more

SPRING 2021

REIMAGINED How NEC responded to an unprecedented year — and began a new era in the process

PLIMPTON SHATTUCK BLACK BOX THEATRE START FROM THE TOP Students from the NEC Jazz Orchestra rehearse with Maria Schneider in preparation for a concert of her music, which premiered on March 10, 2021 as the culminating event of this year’s Grow Your Art residency. (Read more on page 8.)

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 1

Message from the President

IN A YEAR OF REIMAGINING, we are delighted to introduce our newly conceived NEC Magazine.

Andrea Kalyn

“ We have seen affirmed the impact that artists and artistry can have on a challenged world.”

This past year at NEC has been one of transformational learning. Amidst the challenges of a global pandemic and systemic injustice, we have learned new lessons in humility, empathy, and resilience. Faced with social distancing, working across time zones, and internet latency, we have learned new modes of collaborating, teaching, and sharing our music. And as we have learned anew that creativity, connection, and communication are fundamental to our shared humanity, we have seen affirmed the impact that artists and artistry can have on a challenged world.

But impact can only follow action, and over the past year—with purpose and resolve—NEC students, faculty, and staff have been taking action.

In the pages to follow, we share just some of the inspiring work in which the NEC community has been engaged over the past several months. Throughout the College, Prep School, School of Continuing Ed, and our alumni community, NEC musicians are melding tradition with innovation and technology in their performance, composition, and teaching. They are collaborating in ever-expansive ways, and forging new professional and community partnerships. They are reimagining the ways in which their profound artistry can have compelling impact—at NEC, in Boston, and around the globe—and we are so excited to share their accomplishments with you.

Thank you for your support of our students, for your ongoing commitment to NEC, and for your belief that music prevails.

Sincerely,

Andrea Kalyn

2 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

GAINSBOROUGH STREET IN BLOOM With the arrival of spring on campus and the weather warming up, practice room windows are open and the sounds of students practicing creates that incomparable collage of music we all know and love.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 3

Contents

20 A Stradivarius

Sings in Lockdown Artist Diploma students and friends Maria Ioudenitch ’20 MM, ’22 AD and Geneva Lewis ’20, ’22 AD share NEC’s 1714 “Joachim-Ma” Stradivarius violin, and more.

By John Sherer

4 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

SPRING 2021

FRONTLINE NURSE Emma Yee Ying-Zee Chong, R.N. studied voice and ukulele remotely with teaching fellow Lizzy Stant ’21 MM last fall, through an NEC partnership with Massachusetts General Hospital.

|

VOLU M E 1

|

NUMBER 1

2 Message from the President 7 Highlights

Shining a light on this year at NEC—on campus and beyond

25 News & Notes

Stories and updates about the NEC community

34 NEC Flashback

Cover through Opposite Page Photos: Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory | Emma Yee Ying-Zee Chong: Courtesy of Boston Hope

Gunther Schuller: from the State House to The New York Times

Visit necmusic.edu/magazine for video, audio, photos, and more!

FRONT COVER Conductor Lina González-Granados ’14 MM returned to campus in October 2020 to lead the NEC Philharmonia in a performance streamed live from Jordan Hall, featuring works by Jessie Montgomery, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Gabriela Lena Frank.

12 22 Reimagining Collaboration NEC

Music as healthcare. Music technology as connection. And a conservatory culture where everyone can feel that they belong.

By Veronica Barron & Stephanie Janes

Challenge

A call for ideas that led to three innovative, studentcentered initiatives: Song Lab, Theory Reimagined, and First-Year Experience.

By John Sherer

Copyright © 2021 New England Conservatory of Music 290 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115 necmusic.edu NEC Magazine is published by the Office of Marketing and Communications for all members of the NEC community.

Write to us at news@necmusic.edu.

A newly-formed, inclusive community of vibrant young professionals dedicated to sharing NEC’s cultural and social impact throughout the city of Boston.

NEC NOW INVITES YOU TO: ATTEND NEC NOW EVENTS. Join the NEC NOW community at unique in-person and virtual events throughout the year.

NEC NOW events reinvent the usual narrative around music performances while giving audiences behind-the-scenes access to incredible musicians.

PARTICIPATE IN NEC NOW FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES. This year NEC NOW successfully funded four Entrepreneurial Musicianship grants—empowering NEC students to enact their innovative and impactful projects.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

Visit necmusic.edu/nec-now 6 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

BECOME A CULTURAL AMBASSADOR WITHIN THE BOSTON COMMUNITY. As a member of NEC NOW, you are connecting the city of Boston with NEC. Share NEC NOW events and news with your networks through social media channels.

CAMPUS

|

LOCAL

|

G LOBAL

Highlights STUDENT SPOTLIGHT:

ZOE CAGAN ’21 MM

Zoe, a master’s student in flute graduating this spring, told us about some of her favorite NEC experiences and what the past year has been like.

Zoe Cagan: Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

WHAT’S SURPRISED YOU THIS PAST YEAR? How much more we’re willing to reach out to each other just for a phone call or a face-to-face conversation through Zoom. When everything shut down, we had to be more conscious of when we reach out so that we stay connected. … I also feel like I’ve gotten the chance to make friendships and connect with people who I normally wouldn’t have, just because of the access that [Zoom, etc.] has opened up.

WHAT HAVE BEEN SOME OF THE BIGGER CHALLENGES? I am not tech savvy, but I definitely had to learn this year how to be. … I feel like as music students and people in conservatory in the 21st century, it’s something we should’ve been learning all along, so this situation has forced a lot of us to get with the program, which is a good thing.

YOU WERE BOARD CHAIR FOR THE BLACK STUDENT UNION THIS YEAR. WHAT’S IT BEEN LIKE BEING PART OF THE BSU? I’ve loved [it]. … It is another form of community on this campus that already has a strong community. We get to put together our own projects and performances

and all kinds of cultural programming here. It’s a lot of hard work, though, because we do want to make our community as great as it can be, and advocate for all Black students and all students of color, and any other marginalized group at NEC. ... In that sense we’re able to connect with a large amount of people and create even more of a community within NEC. WHAT ARE YOUR LESSONS LIKE AT NEC? I study flute with Paula Robison, and she is an absolutely amazing person. Our lessons are always so transformative, and every time I leave the room, I leave with a lot more confidence than I came in with.

WHAT’S ONE OF YOUR MOST MEMORABLE NEC EXPERIENCES? It might seem small, but one day I was [practicing], and there was a moment where I realized: oh my gosh, I can play that! I don’t know if I would have been able to play that this well when I first got here! We never really notice the small changes and how they build up; we [rarely] get the chance to pat ourselves on the back…so the moment I realized I was playing something really well, I was so excited.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 7

Highlights #NECMUSIC

VIRTUAL CONCERTS: ENDING THE YEAR ON A HIGH NOTE > IN A YEAR in which all concerts went online, NEC was able to bring its performances to a vastly larger audience, increasing viewership and followers on our digital platforms by leaps and bounds. We’ve shared the audience stats below! (For more on how our virtual concerts came together, see page 26.)

5M

STUDENTS GROW THEIR ART WITH

Iconic Jazz Composer and Bandleader Maria Schneider

concert views on YouTube and Facebook

Reaching music lovers

IN 71

countries (and six continents!)

+124% fan growth

39M

social media users reached

SEVEN-TIME GRAMMY Award-winning composer and bandleader Maria Schneider came to campus March 1–5 for Grow Your Art, a residency presented by NEC’s Jazz Department & Entrepreneurial Musicianship program. Featuring masterclasses, workshops, and panel discussions on music business and entrepreneurship, as well as a grant competition and concert, the events—many of which were streamed to the public—offered NEC students the opportunity to work directly with Schneider and learn from her vast experience.

Schneider served as a judge for the Pitch Night grant competition, in which NEC alumni Emily Eng ’18 MM, Darynn Dean ’19, Rafael Natan ’11 Prep, ’15, ’17 MM, and Linda Numagami ’15 were awarded $13,500 to support their ventures: a microgrant program for Black, Latinx, and Native American music students; a series of concerts and film screenings around women in jazz; an accessible School of Arts and Social Justice; and a clarinet festival, respectively.

The residency culminated in a concert featuring Schneider conducting the NEC Jazz Orchestra in a program of her compositions.

It received glowing media reviews; ArtsFuse’s Steve Feeney called the concert “a memorable performance by a student orchestra undoubtedly brought to new heights by the visit of a master musician at the peak of her powers.”

Video: necmusic.edu/magazine 8 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

Highlights #NECMUSICHUB

NEC MUSICIANS SHARE MUSIC & MESSAGES OF HOPE WHEN NEC’S CAMPUS closed for in-person learning in March 2020, we launched the #NECMusicHub series to share music and hopeful messages from NEC students, faculty, and alumni.

Over the last year, the 37 videos in this series reached nearly 4 million viewers, eliciting over 1,000 comments from listeners, from “I love to hear the performers show

FLORA SUN ’23

After traveling home to China in March 2020, Flora, a Composition student, spent 14 days quarantining in a Beijing hotel before rejoining her family.

Maria Schneider: Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

“Fortunately, I had my recording equipment with me,” said Flora, who passed the time writing, arranging, performing, and recording a tune using mostly her own voice and objects found in her hotel room. The result? An anthem of optimistic yearning for life “Outside of the Window.”

“ One of the things that makes us live through all the difficulties is a heart that always believes in a brighter future.

My positivity doesn’t come out of nowhere. I have it because of the people who have helped me.”

their talents during this time. So refreshing!” to “I didn’t realize the tears I’ve been holding in until you began to play.

Thank you.” For students especially, it was a way to bring everyone together, whether they were studying in Boston or remotely elsewhere in the United States and around the world.

Let’s look back at a few of the submissions that kept us smiling, and connected, throughout the year.

NOGA CABO ’23

Noga, a Contemporary Improvisation student originally from NYC, sent in her song, “Blue(s) Bossa,” recorded on a sunny afternoon with her cat making a guest appearance.

“ I am looking at Elis Regina's work in my voice lessons with Dominique Eade, hence the Bossa influence on this piece.

I also put together an online concert of all women singersongwriters, a couple of whom played blues tunes. Both of these things being on my radar resulted in the beginnings of this song!”

MOSHE ELMAKIAS ’21 MM

Moshe, a Jazz Studies master’s student originally from Israel, sent in a contemplative recording of “Unwritten Song” from his apartment in Boston.

“ I wrote this piece during the quarantine, while I was trying to find new places in my heart.

One night, I couldn’t sleep, so I just began playing. It was around 2 a.m., and the very first notes became the B part of this piece. You can really feel the silence, calm, and wonder in the music.”

View the entire NEC Music Hub series, and submit your video, at necmusic.edu/music-hub.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 9

Highlights HOW IT STARTED / HOW IT’S GOING

This year brought a renewed national commitment to anti-racism and cultural equity, calling on all of us to consider: whose monumental contributions have gone un-honored?

These 19th-century alumni were always exceptional, but now, a century later, they’re having a banner year—and finally receiving more of the widespread recognition they deserve.

FLORENCE BEATRICE PRICE 1906

ZITKALA-ŠA 1899

J. ROSAMOND JOHNSON 1893

Florence Beatrice Price earned two NEC diplomas with honors by the age of 19. Her 1906 diplomas were in piano instruction and organ performance, but she also studied composition with George Whitefield Chadwick.

Twenty-seven years later, she became the first Black woman to have her work performed by a major orchestra.

As Dr. Samantha Ege wrote for the New World Symphony, “Price was, in fact, of mixed racial heritage: African, European, and Native American. But with the dominant culture so fixated on viewing the world as black and white, Price would always be classified as a black woman.”

When Price’s Symphony No. 1 was first performed in 1933 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, it was met with significant acclaim, but the work was not published and fell into obscurity after her death in 1953. Now published, the symphony was performed just twice in 2018, but then 71 times in 2019 and 64 times in 2020, taking its rightful place in symphonic literature.

In 2020, the United States celebrated the 100-year anniversary of women’s suffrage. As part of the nationwide festivities, many Americans were introduced to Zitkala-Ša, who was recognized through murals, the naming of public parks, New York Times features, and a Google Doodle for her key role in securing citizenship and voting rights for Indigenous Americans.

She was co-founder and president of the National Council of American Indians, as well as a writer, musician, teacher, composer, suffragist, and member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe of South Dakota (Ihanktonwan Dakota Oyate or “People of the End Village”).

Zitkala-Ša studied violin at New England Conservatory from 1897 to 1899 and later branched out into composition.

While her activism and political work would be impressive enough in their own right, she also made significant cultural contributions as a writer for The Atlantic Monthly magazine and as co-composer of The Sun Dance, heralded as the first American Indian opera.

Trained at New England Conservatory in the 1890s, J. Rosamond Johnson was a well-known artist of the Harlem Renaissance, composing and directing music for vaudeville, ragtime, and Broadway.

He composed “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” setting music to a poem written by his brother, James Weldon Johnson, for a 1900 commemoration of Lincoln’s Birthday. The song was adopted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1919 and became widely loved and known informally as the “Black National Anthem.”

In fall 2020, the National Football League (NFL) played or performed the song live before the U.S. national anthem during the opening week of the 2020 regular season. In January 2021, House Majority Whip James Clyburn proposed that the song be designated as the U.S. National Hymn, and in February, Grammy winner Alicia Keys performed the song during the halftime show of Super Bowl LV.

10 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

Florence Price: G. Nelidoff, Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville | Zitkala-Ša: Gertrude Kasebier/Smithsonian Institution | J. Rosamond Johnson: Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection

A Century Later

Highlights COMMENCEMENT AT NEC

CONGRATULATING OUR 2020 & 2021 AWARD WINNERS NEC’S 150TH COMMENCEMENT took place on

Rosalind Elias: Courtesy of the Rosalind Elias Estate

Sunday, May 23rd in Jordan Hall, with 2021 graduates attending in person while an all-remote audience cheered them on via livestream. The annual Commencement Concert kicked off the weekend, and honorary degrees added to the celebration: Carl J. Atkins, Former NEC Chair of Afro-American Studies and Jazz Department; Emanuel Ax, pianist; Deborah Borda, President and CEO of the New York Philharmonic; Wu Man, pipa virtuoso; and Mavis Staples, gospel and soul singer, who offered stirring words as this year’s commencement speaker.

Also honored at this year’s commencement: the class of 2020, who finished their degrees amid the challenging initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

At that time, NEC observed a truncated virtual commencement in hopes of gathering for an in-person fall ceremony, which was ultimately not possible.

Our 2020 and 2021 Commencement awardees are inspiring examples of artistry, leadership, scholarship, innovation, and more. We are very proud of them, and of all our 2020 and 2021 graduates who have shown such creativity and resilience in the past year.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD CHADWICK MEDAL 2020: Alexander Garde 2021: Matthew Shifrin

DONALD MARTINO AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN COMPOSITION 2020: Webin Lyu 2021: Binna Kim

GUNTHER SCHULLER MEDAL 2020: Ester Wiesnerova PETER LYMAN 2021: Delfina Cheb-Terrab ROW GLOBAL MUSICIANSHIP TOURJÉE ALUMNI AWARD SCHOLARSHIP AWARD 2020: Franziska Seehausen 2020: Juliette Kaoudji 2021: Afarin Nazarijou 2021: Zoe Cagan LOUIS AND ADRIENNE EM SPARK AWARD KRASNER TEACHING 2020: Lysander Jaffe, EXCELLENCE AWARD Andrew Barnwell, and 2020: Sean Gallagher Alexander Fowler 2021: Brian Levy 2021: Naledi Masilo and

Stephanie Borgani

New England Conservatory (NEC) educates and nurtures artists into leaders. As an internationally acclaimed singer of her time, Rosalind Elias '51, '82 Hon. D.M. raised the standard of excellence among NEC students.

Before launching her illustrious career with the Metropolitan Opera at the age of 23, Ms. Elias was surrounded by vocal legends during her time at NEC. She developed her voice under the instructions of her teacher, Gladys Childs Miller, sang in the choir conducted by Lorna Cooke deVaron, and made her operatic

necmusic.edu/commencement2021

“ I feel we were all put on earth for a purpose, and mine was singing.”

debut with the New England Opera Company led by Boris Goldovsky.

“I feel we were all put on earth for a purpose and mine was singing,” shared Ms. Elias in her interview with The New York Times in 1985.

NEC students arrive on campus every year with a similar conviction.

With her bequest, Ms. Elias shows the younger generations that they can achieve their purpose in life as she did in her 687 performances and 54 roles.

The Met noted that Ms. Elias was “as charming offstage as onstage and was cherished as a generous and supportive colleague.” With her planned gift and collections of annotated scores and recordings, her legacy will continue to inspire NEC students as she leaves a lasting presence of her “warm and sensuous timbre” resonating through the halls.

You can inspire the future of music by including NEC in your estate plans. For information, please contact the Office of Planned Giving at 617-585-1728 or Jennifer.Dilzell@necmusic.edu.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 11

BY VERONICA BARRON & STEPHANIE JANES

REIMAGINING

NEC 2020 ushered in a new era of social distancing, lockdowns, and a raised commitment to social justice—and NEC began to usher in a new era of its own.

12 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

I Dr. Kathy May Tran: Courtesy of Boston Hope | Ian Howell: Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

N FEBRUARY 2020, NEC’s Asian Students Association (ASA) knew they had to do something. Fresh on the heels of organizing the popular student-led Lunar New Year celebration on campus, ASA leaders Ariel Mo ’20, Sunwei Li ’21, and Nan Ni ’21 scheduled a pair of benefit concerts—at first called “Wuhan Benefit Concerts,” then changed to “Coronavirus Relief Concerts” as the virus spread beyond the Hubei region.

By the time the second concert took place on March 13, it was clear that this would be the last in-person concert of the year. After the concert, President Andrea Kalyn and Provost Tom Novak donned their regalia and grabbed dozens of NEC penguin plushies to award to 2020 graduates in an impromptu graduation celebration.

“You know how to push through challenge and pain and difficulty to make something beautiful,” President Kalyn told the graduates. “Never doubt that you are prepared to take on the challenges that come your way.”

The next day, students began traveling home.

Social distancing, remote learning, and universal mask-wearing became the new normal. Weeks turned to months, and life transformed in the NEC community and beyond.

As the world changed, NEC changed and grew along with it. Being apart from each other reinforced how much the connections forged at NEC mean to everyone involved—students, alumni, faculty, staff, and the entire campus. NEC’s future has been reimagined, and in many ways, our story is just beginning.

TOP LEFT: President Andrea Kalyn handed out plush penguins to graduates in March 2020, realizing that the student-led benefit concert would be the last gathering of the year. TOP RIGHT: Massachusetts General Hospital’s Dr. Kathy May Tran got relief from the stress of caring for COVID patients through violin study with NEC teaching fellow Luther Warren ’18, ’20 MM. LOWER LEFT: Ian Howell ’16 DMA, NEC voice faculty and Director of the Vocal Pedagogy program and Voice & Sound Analysis Lab, took the lead in developing lagless tech solutions for musical study up to 500 miles apart. LOWER RIGHT: Carmen Johnson-Pájaro ’18 MM moderated one of five powerful NEC Perspectives Forums, part of NEC’s community-led work toward Cultural Equity and Belonging.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 13

MUSIC HEALS Graduate voice student and teaching fellow Theodora Nestorova ‘21 MM gives a voice lesson to Dr. Jeffrey Chen, an emergency medicine resident, as part of the Boston Hope Music Teaching Project. NEC and Massachusetts General Hospital partnered on this first-of-its-kind program in November 2020 as a way of providing a healing outlet to caregivers themselves.

14 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

REIMAGINING

Photo Courtesy of Boston Hope

Music as Healthcare

“WE WERE SEEING that patients needed more than straight medical care to heal.”

So said Dr. Lisa Wong, who co-directs the Arts and Humanities Initiative at Harvard Medical School.

That’s why in the spring of 2020, NEC’s Community Performances & Partnerships (CPP) Program worked with Dr. Wong and others to bring music to healthcare settings.

Under the leadership of Tanya Maggi, Dean of Community Engagement and Professional Studies, NEC partnered with Boston Hope Music to curate daily virtual bedside concerts for patients at Boston Hope Hospital, the pop-up COVID-19 care center.

Spearheaded by Dr. Wong and Dr. Ronald Hirschberg, CMO of Boston Hope Hospital, the Virtual Bedside Concerts were a balm.

Dr. Kathy May Tran, a frontline doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), says concerts like these provide a kind of therapy that medicine cannot, at a time when family members often cannot visit and doctors and nurses have their faces covered by layers of protective gear.

Working with Harvard Medical students, Dr. Tran organized another set of Virtual Bedside Concerts for her patients at MGH. “We are able to invite family members, so it’s a little private concert, a time of togetherness in which we can share the gifts that these amazing NEC teaching fellows have,” she says. “These gifts are hugely valuable, relevant gifts to patients.”

As Boston Hope Hospital saw its last patients, NEC and MGH launched another “music for healing” pilot program in November of 2020. This time, the focus was on caring for the caregivers themselves: NEC students training as teaching fellows were paired with front-line medical workers, including Dr. Tran, who revisited her love of playing the violin.

The healthcare providers met one on one with their NEC student teachers, with the weekly lessons offering an escape from the stressful conditions of hospital life.

“It’s a strange time to be a musician,” said violinist Luther Warren ’18, ’20 MM, who was Dr. Tran’s teacher as well as a Virtual Bedside Concert performer. “I was thrilled to be a part of [this collaboration], to use my profession to connect with people in a very timely, needed way.”

The Boston Hope Music Teaching Project is the only program of its kind in the country, and the response has proven so positive that the program was extended into 2021.

While some NEC students used music to support the patients and doctors, others used music to positively address the public health crises caused by isolation and loneliness during the pandemic. NEC’s CPP program and School of Continuing Education moved quickly to launch virtual music programs for seniors. “Lack of social contact can have such a negative effect on this population,” says Maggi.

“We recognized how “ This new crucial it would be to give program them this way to connect.” allows not The success of virtual only for active senior programming in the spring of 2020 learning, but led to visions for a new also for program in 2021—a desperately Virtual Choir for Seniors, needed for which NEC received joyful human a Catalyzing Creative connection.”

Aging seed grant from the National Guild for Community Arts Education and Lifetime Arts.

Through the Virtual Choir, older adults gain a singing community and work with professional teaching artists once weekly. NEC student fellows support the program, gaining teaching and facilitation experience.

“The timing of this new project couldn’t be better,” said Bob Linscott, Assistant Director of the LGBT Aging Project at The Fenway Institute. “Our community of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seniors are facing fears around COVID-19 and imposed social isolation. This Virtual Choir is providing something new to break up their day, creating an opportunity to meet new people, and giving them a chance to lift their voice and sing at a time when spirits have been so low.”

“This new program allows not only for active learning, but also for desperately needed joyful human connection,” adds Maggi. The program culminates in a sing-through performance, songwriting workshop, and virtual community sing-along with other area choirs.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 15

REIMAGINING

Music-Making Through Technology WHEN NEC WENT into virtual mode in March 2020, faculty and staff moved quickly to figure out how to bring world-class music education to students virtually—but one voice faculty member, Grammywinning countertenor Ian Howell ’16 DMA, may have had a head start.

“My wife is a clinical microbiologist who specializes in infectious diseases,” says Howell, who directs NEC’s Vocal Pedagogy program and Voice & Sound Analysis Lab. “I grieved in February, before things started shutting down—I asked my wife what was going to happen, and she told me. She’s been pretty spot-on. We grieved and then we got right to work.”

Howell, however, is also a technology lover and a problem solver. So with an enterprising mindset, he began testing technology solutions that would support music-making at the highest level by addressing problems like sound quality and latency.

If you’ve ever accidentally interrupted someone in a video meeting due to a slight lag—“oh, sorry, you go ahead!”—or wondered why you can’t sing happy birthday in a group Zoom call without the sound cutting in and out, you’ve encountered something called “latency,” one of the biggest challenges in online music-making.

Howell, with NEC colleague Kayla Gautereaux ’19 MM and faculty, staff, and students from the College, Preparatory School (Prep), and School of Continuing Education (SCE), came up with a solution—by combining a free software called SoundJack with an affordable at-home hardware setup, they made

Ian Howell’s low-latency work has generously been supported through a grant by the Mattina R. Proctor Foundation.

16 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

Nicholas Duffin: Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

it possible to rehearse and perform with virtually no latency up to approximately 500 miles apart.

Piloting their hard work, NEC’s David Zoffer ’96 MM and James Stewardson ’91 MM helped to bring the Prep and SCE Jazz programs online. They became the first in the country to launch virtual ensembles in the summer of 2020, running jazz combos for students spread out across New England.

Following the success of the summer “ Pandemic or no pilot, NEC adopted pandemic, wouldn’t this technology as part it be great to be of its hybrid remotecoached by a great and-in-person plan for all students and faculty musician virtually within several college, instead of always Prep, and SCE areas. having to travel?”

Student workers like Michaela Kelly ’21 MM learned the new technology and helped train students and faculty. “Now I have all of this knowledge and am on the forefront of this new aspect of music teaching and collaboration,” says Kelly.

Throughout the school year, this tool has allowed students to meet virtually for private lessons and weekly performance classes, sing pre-recital hearings unmasked for faculty to view remotely, collaborate with artists in other cities, and take master classes from internationally acclaimed artists like soprano Patricia Racette and bass-baritone John Relyea.

“The core of live performance is spontaneity and communication between performers and the connection with a live audience,” says Howell. “And pandemic or no pandemic, wouldn’t it be great to be able to do that virtually? To be coached by a great musician virtually instead of always having to travel?

I used to tour with Chanticleer, 37 weeks a year, multiple flights a week. My students are very climateconscious. Right now, the air over our cities has never been cleaner.”

By the time Relyea “visited” from his home in Rhode Island for a master class, “the most interesting ‘hook’ was just how straight-up normal it was,” says Howell.

“The technology did exactly what it was supposed to do: it faded into the background, so that when I asked people, ‘how was the master class?’ people just talked about the music.”

(LEFT PAGE) Collaborative pianist Kimly Wang ’21 GD readies her low-latency setup for a rehearsal.

(RIGHT PAGE) Nicholas Duffin ’21 MM, accompanied by remote pianist Damien Francoeur-Krzyzek (top right), performs a pre-recital hearing for a panel of NEC voice faculty. Low-latency tech solutions enabled artists to collaborate in real-time at distances of up to 500 miles.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 17

SHARING PERSPECTIVES The community took a multifaceted approach to Cultural Equity and Belonging this year, including the NEC Perspectives Forums—public livestream conversations aimed at understanding NEC’s past and envisioning NEC’s future. The Forums launched in July 2020 with a series titled “The Black Experience at NEC,” and continued with a series titled “Breaking the Mold in Model Minority,” addressing Asian and Asian-American experiences. Clockwise from top left: Dr. Darryl Harper ’08 DMA; Kiyoshi Hayashi ’16; John Alexander Garner ’06; Darynn Dean ’19; Lei Liang ’96, ’98 MM; Hyun Jee Chung ’16 GD.

18 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

REIMAGINING

Cultural Equity and Belonging at NEC “YOU KNOW THAT feeling of comfort that comes with the unconscious knowing that you can trust?” wrote jazz alumnus Michael Mayo ’14 in the days after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. “Trust in the world to hold you. An accountable world where what is wrong is seen and what is right is known. That exact trust, that exact freedom, is what I don’t have.”

“The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd have underscored yet again the stark reality that racism and injustice remain deeply embedded in our society,” wrote President Andrea Kalyn, as the country grieved and reckoned anew with the urgent need for racial justice. “We must examine ourselves, and systematically advance respect, equity, and “ Ultimately, justice—within NEC first, we want throughout our field more cultural broadly, and ultimately equity to live across society.” at the heart NEC’s first priority was to provide the support and of every resources requested for aspect of life Black students by the Black on campus.”

Student Union (BSU), with resounding support from the wider NEC community. Then, through more than 140 personal conversations with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and other community members, NEC began with the foundational work of meaningful listening, stewarded by Stanford Thompson ’20 Sistema Fellow, with colleague Emily Liao Master.

“The outcry from NEC’s students, faculty, staff, and alumni ... stemmed from feelings that their voices had not been heard,” wrote Thompson. “The good intentions and actions of the institution over the years had not been felt.”

NEC launched the Perspectives Forum series in July 2020 with a five-part series on the Black experience at NEC, offering public-facing livestream conversations with Black alumni and faculty emeriti spanning 50 years of NEC’s history across classical, jazz, opera, and contemporary music. These conversations covered NEC’s history, but also began a public visioning process for the NEC of the future. In the spring of 2021, NEC continued the Perspectives Forums in response to hate crimes against Asian-Americans, examining the “model minority” myth which has caused harm to many in our community.

Beyond the Perspectives Forums, dozens of NEC community members have been collaborating throughout this school year to review our curriculum, organizational structure, and programming, with the goal to build trust and deepen our shared understanding of our community’s needs and challenges. We spent the year learning from the work of our many active and visionary student groups on campus, as well as the work of alumni, faculty, and staff who are engaged in making positive change.

More changes are yet to come: this summer, Monique Van Willingh joins NEC in the newly created role of Director of Cultural Equity and Belonging (CEB). Van Willingh will help launch a new Center for Cultural Equity and Belonging, whose work will be supported by the CEB Advisory Council, which brings together a team of students, alumni, faculty, and staff to steward consistent, intentional progress over the years to come.

“It’s about our community as a whole, and everyone has a role to play; something to offer, and something to learn,” said President Kalyn. “Ultimately, we want cultural equity to live at the heart of every aspect of life on campus.”

As jazz vocalist Darynn Dean ’19 put it during a Perspectives Forum, “It’s easy to follow and it’s so much harder to lead, and I think NEC has a really unique opportunity to be leaders. And you have to have some fearlessness about that.”

Get Involved with Cultural Equity and Belonging at NEC Get the details on actions taken so far, and actions still to come. Learn about upcoming events.

Meet CEB Director Monique Van Willingh and the members of the CEB Advisory Council.

Visit necmusic.edu/belonging or email belonging@necmusic.edu.

WATCH

Michael Mayo’s poem, Conditioned Compassion: necmusic.edu/mayo NEC Perspectives Forums: necmusic.edu/perspectives

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 19

A Stradivarius Sings in Lockdown

20 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

BY JOHN SHERER PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW HURLBUT

The New England Conservatory’s Artist Diploma (AD) program is its highest-level performance designation. One of only a handful of similar programs in the country, it is NEC’s most selective, with usually one or two students admitted each year in each of three categories: instrumental performance, opera, and orchestral conducting. Students admitted to the program have unique musical voices and are on the cusp of high-profile careers, and spend two years refining their artistry and taking advantage of NEC’s robust performance opportunities.

F

OR AD STUDENTS who happen to play the violin, the program comes with a truly rare opportunity: the chance to play on the “JoachimMa” Stradivarius (c. 1714), so named because it was owned by the great violinists Joseph Joachim and, more recently, Si-Hon Ma ’50 MM, ’52 AD, whose estate donated it to NEC in 2015.

It was Joachim for whom Brahms wrote his Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77, and this extraordinary instrument is most likely the one on which the piece was premiered.

Two AD violinists—Geneva Lewis ’20, ’22 AD and Maria Ioudenitch ’20 MM, ’22 AD—have been sharing the Strad during a very unusual year. Normally, each of them would play it for a full year, but they decided instead to switch off by semester during their time in the program, in mutual acknowledgment that it would be unfair for one of them to have it in a year with few live performances taking place.

“It doesn’t have any shortcomings,” says Lewis, visibly excited to talk about the violin. “It can do anything gorgeously.” Ioudenitch describes it as having a “3-D sound” that fills the room and has both depth and brilliance. Both agree that it’s not a difficult instrument to get used to; as Ioudenitch puts it, “You’re just getting to know the instrument, just as you would a person.”

For both students the instrument’s history is inspiring as well as a little intimidating. They both describe having been almost afraid to touch it at first, lest the unthinkable should happen; it took each of them a little time to feel comfortable playing it with intensity.

Just as evident as their love for the

violin is their love for their teacher, Miriam Fried. “I could study with her forever and keep learning,” says Lewis.

Ioudenitch feels the same way, saying of her decision to study with Fried at NEC, “there is nothing better I could have done with my life at that moment.”

Although the two have had fewer chances than usual to perform during the pandemic, they have made the most of their time. They have been able to keep up their weekly lessons with Fried, mostly via Zoom. The reduction of their slate of performances has allowed both of them to focus more on technique and on learning new music for which they might not otherwise have had space.

Lewis says the extra time helped her to “recapture a connection to the violin”

hunger relief founded by viola faculty member Kim Kashkashian. Each gave a recital in May, streamed live from Jordan Hall.

Despite the curtailment of everyday, on-campus contact between students, these two have developed a close friendship over the last year. They have made sure to program pieces together and have discussed at length their shared experiences getting to know this rare violin. “She’s one of my favorite people to play with—ever,” Ioudenitch says of Lewis. “We have such a good time playing with each other because we respect each other’s music-making, and I just love how she plays the instrument, how she speaks to people with her music.” Lewis feels similarly about her friend and colleague: “Playing with Maria is both incredibly fun and inspiring. She’s a beautiful musician who’s always filled with creative and genuine ideas, and I feel I always learn so much from her.”

Of course, a two-year program goes by quickly, and the time that each student has with the Stradivarius must inevitably come to an end. The limited time makes every moment feel all the more valuable—and perhaps all the more beautiful, as finitude is the ground on which beauty stands. I

“ You’re just getting to know the instrument, just as you would a person.” and deepen her engagement with the repertoire in a way that might not have been possible otherwise, due to the hectic cycle of constantly preparing for concerts in ordinary times.

But the last few months have not been totally devoid of performances for these two. Recently they performed the Schnittke Concerto Grosso No. 1 together with the NEC Philharmonia, under the direction of Hugh Wolff. The concert was broadcast online, as it was still impossible to play before a live audience. They have been able to give some chamber performances, including one of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132, and they played Mozart in a concert for Music for Food, a musician-led initiative for local

couldn’t help but ask what each of these gifted students would like to play as her final piece on the instrument before returning it to NEC. Lewis demurred a bit at first, saying, “Honestly, it’s such a joy to play anything” on the Strad, but she didn’t hesitate much before naming the Brahms Violin Concerto, as it’s “one of [her] favorite pieces in the world, and has such a special connection” to this particular violin. For Ioudenitch, the choice was also Brahms: his Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60, a piece that she has performed once—though “one time is definitely not enough”—and that she felt that “might be the most touching way to say farewell to this golden instrument.”

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 21

COLLABORATION Challenge A Call for Ideas Leads to Innovations in the Student Experience

BY JOHN SHERER

In Fall 2019, NEC established the Collaboration Challenge—an invitation to the NEC community to unleash its collective spirit of creativity and collaboration. The charge was aspirational: to imagine anew the ways in which we teach, the experiences we offer our students, and the partnerships we might forge to propel us forward and advance NEC’s tradition of excellence and innovation.

From 170 ideas submitted, three highly collaborative projects were implemented this past year, supported in part by gifts to NEC’s Catalyst Fund: Song Lab, Theory Reimagined, and First-Year Experience, each positing a newly integrated, multidisciplinary, and relevant model for conservatory education.

SONG LAB is the brainchild of Cameron Stowe, Chair of Collaborative Piano. Infectious is his enthusiasm for the project, which he describes as a “mega-course” for graduate students in voice and collaborative piano that combines the many facets of song studies into a single, integrated method.

So often, Stowe says, students are taught language, diction, literary history, music history, theory, politics, performance practice, and other topics in a fractured way; they learn each subject in separate classes and are left to synthesize them on their own, which may not happen until after they have finished school. Singers and pianists who study vocal music have many additional areas of study beyond what is required of most conservatory students, and Song Lab presents art song as a single lens through which to view all of these elements.

Each semester of Song Lab is organized around song in a particular language. Fall 2020 focused on Germanlanguage song, from Schubert and the

Biedermeier period to settings of Heine, followed by music suppressed by the Nazi regime. Spring 2021 was centered on English-language song, ranging from Spirituals and settings of Whitman and Dickinson to songs by Britten, and included collaborations with the Composition department as well as a guest appearance by Dominique Eade, from the departments of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation.

Because of the wide range of expertise required in this multidisciplinary approach, many of the sessions “ Song Lab is feature guest a brave, new, integrated and speakers; one interdisciplinary week students might hear from approach to a musicologist, teaching.”

– HELEN GREENWALD the next a literary historian. Guest lecturers have been scholars from around the country and from various NEC departments, and masterclasses have been led by performers from around the world.

The virtual nature of classes this year provided opportunities for guests to participate from afar; before the pandemic, they would have had to be flown in, lodged, and dined—a prohibitively expensive prospect, but one that’s moot with courses over Zoom.

The interdisciplinary nature of Song Lab allows for more kinds of

22 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

conversations in class than would normally be encountered: extended conversations on literary analysis, political and social history, and “repertoire responsibility,” including questions like whether a performer’s gender or race should influence the kinds of songs they choose to perform. “Those conversations were amazing,” Stowe reports, as students had to grapple with difficult but essential questions. For example, in studying spirituals earlier this semester, some students were asking themselves, “Are we allowed to do this repertoire? If so, who is going to give us permission?” Song Lab provides no easy answers, but instead creates a forum in which they can be discussed as part of an ongoing dialogue. As countertenor Darryl Taylor, founder of the African American Art Song Alliance, told the students during his work with them this semester, “Everyone who performs this music should be as respectful and as diligent as possible. It’s the same thing you would do for a Schubert song.” The equivalent attention to literary, historical, and performance detail is essential, and singers should have as much intention for why they are performing these songs as they would any other.

One major focus of Song Lab is how to use this wide-ranging knowledge practically in their performing lives after NEC. Students learn to speak to an audience, select programming, and write program notes—vital skills, as recitalists have to be able to program thoughtfully and explain why their choices are compelling, and also ways in which Song Lab prepares recitalists to explore their artistic and intellectual freedom.

Stowe believes that for the ten singers and six pianists enrolled in Song Lab,

“ Because all the theory faculty have performance and composition backgrounds, we’re able to show students how this analysis actually applies to different performance decisions.”

– ANDREW SCHARTMANN

Kristy Chen: Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

one of the greatest benefits is that “they are getting a sense of what it’s like to design their own careers and be their own agents.” This generation, he says, will feel the after-effects of the pandemic, and their ability to be resourceful and find their own directions for their recital careers will be invaluable.

Stowe sees Song Lab as a “pilot project” whose interdisciplinary methods could extend to diverse groups of music students; just as “song” is a broad term, so too might Song Lab’s approaches be valuable to a wide range of musicians. Stowe and many of his colleagues working on the project are excited to be blurring of some of the lines that traditionally separate departments within a conservatory, and are inspired to imagine more to come.

And it’s an experience that can only be found at NEC, says Helen Greenwald of the Music History and Musicology department. “Song Lab is a brave, new, integrated and interdisciplinary approach to teaching,” she says. Stowe agrees: “A few music schools in the country have opera schools within their umbrellas, but no school has a song school.”

A core component of the curricula of every conservatory, Music Theory is frequently taught in a way that silos it from performance practice, whether in studios or ensembles. NEC’s theory faculty—led by department chair Katarina Miljkovic, Roger Graybill, Efstratios Minakakis, and Andrew Schartmann—wanted to tackle that problem, to make theory at NEC more relevant to students, and to better meet the dynamic needs of musicians in today’s diverse world.

From their collaboration came THEORY REIMAGINED, a newly conceived foundational curriculum that integrates composition with performance analysis, is inclusive of a breadth of repertoire, and that amplifies creativity and learning through technology.

“Because all the theory faculty have performance and composition backgrounds, we’re able to show students how this analysis actually applies to different performance decisions,” says Schartmann. “[We] strongly believe in this idea of the complete musician.

We’ve pigeonholed ourselves by boxing students into, ‘you’re a performer, you’re a composer, you’re a musicologist, you’re a theorist,’ whereas, a more 18th-century approach would be, ‘you’re just a musician discovering all of these areas simultaneously, and each area is influencing and informing the others.’”

This past year, students in the first-year class engaged in creative work, putting themselves in the mindset of composers, grappling with the same issues that composers deal with, and learning core theoretical concepts through that creative process.

Students chose their own works for analysis—specific repertoire they would be playing in their studios,

varied across instruments and genres— such that they, individually, would discover concepts relevant to the class within their own studies. The course culminated in student-led presentations and discussions of their analyses, performances, and compositions—all in lieu of a more traditional final exam.

And by incorporating technology, faculty created a student experience that was even more integrated, immersive, and relevant. Each student had their own mini-production studio—Artusi (an online, interactive, theoryteaching tool), notation software, a midi keyboard, and a digital audio workstation—that empowered them to analyze and perform their selected works while also developing critical technology and production skills.

Students have responded enthusiastically to the new approach, reporting greater retention of concepts and skills as a result of the curriculum’s adaptability to their individual goals.

Miljkovic has found that students learn more in this project-based model: “They internalize the knowledge and actually retain it—and not only retain it, but they know how to use it.” Su Lillian Yim ‘24 CONTINUES ON PAGE 24 >

THEORY REIMAGINED invites students to compose as part of the curriculum. “I used to be incredibly overwhelmed at the thought of composing anything, says Kristy Chen ’24, “but it was surprisingly fun to improvise.”

SONG LAB has included visits from world-renowned artists like countertenor Darryl Taylor, shown here coaching Zabriel Rivers ’21 MM during a Song Lab master class on African American Art Songs and Spirituals.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 23

COLLABORATION CHALLENGE SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND EVALUATION CRITERIA COLLABORATIVE Involve more than one person, ideally reflecting expertise in different departments and disciplines.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 23 >

describes the difference: “We don’t merely memorize rules, we apply them in our own compositions.” Dominic Vance ’24 adds: “[This approach] has helped me realize how musical concepts can be applied to any style of music—classical, jazz, folk, and even video game music.”

“This curriculum forces us to think about more generalizable principles,” Schartmann explains. “Instead of ‘how does voice leading work in a Bach Chorale?’ it’s ‘what is voice leading?

How does it relate to human perception, and what principles can we extrapolate from that and apply creatively to multiple repertoires?’”

In the year ahead, the reimagined theory curriculum will follow the current first-year class into their second year, and planning is underway to apply the same, powerful principles of integrated, student-centered learning throughout the entire theory program.

and active learning. Whether it’s learning how to prevent performancerelated injuries, developing mindfulness techniques for stress management, or becoming a global citizen, FYE connects academic, performance, and wellness skills to nurture interdisciplinary thinkers and creators, preparing students to thrive as 21st-century musicians.

“One of the driving questions,” says Phillips, “was ‘how can we introduce students to this mindset of being professional, creative musicians earlier in their careers, so that it’s always part of their conservatory experience?’”

TRANSFORMATIVE Have the potential to advance NEC’s educational mission in transformative ways.

WITHIN SCOPE Be able to be implementable at NEC beginning Fall 2020.

Liberal Arts faculty member. “[FYE] has sparked enthusiastic discussions of the many personal interests and cultural contexts that shape musicians’ work in the world—from music and social justice to the role of musicians and other artists in addressing environmental sustainability. FYE presents students with opportunities and resources for discovering their interests, potential, and unique pathways as creative professionals and world citizens.”

Student feedback has been positive, especially for how FYE addresses personal and artistic development. “The

“ Having focused discussions with professional musicians has shown me that a successful musical career requires much –DAVIS YOU ’24 more than making progress in a practice room.”

Students participate in small-group discussions with faculty mentors on a breadth of topics, from time and money management to defining success.

They participate in sessions on injury prevention and coping strategies for stress, as well as discussions led by guest speakers on cultural equity and belonging—the first such required sessions for students at NEC. And they are connected to resources and mentorship after each meeting.

Developing a sense of community is a critical goal of the program, no simple task in such a year, with students studying across time zones, both in fully remote and hybrid modes. When the realities of the pandemic became evident during the planning phase, several faculty and administrators justifiably asked, “Is this the year to be making this change?” But they decided the benefits outweighed the challenges—a judgment proven right.

This new learning experience allowed first-year students to feel more connected to each other, says Jill Gatlin,

24 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

mentor sessions have been eye-opening for me,” said cellist Davis You ’24. “Being able to have focused discussions with professional musicians has shown me that a successful musical career requires much more than making progress in a practice room.” Phillips sums it up: “Arts organizations are changing quickly, and the skill sets required to work in arts organizations, other than as a performer, are also changing fast. You have to understand audiences well. You have to have technological skill. You have to understand communities and what communities need. So the skill set to work in the music world is changing.”

“Through this experience,” says Erica Washburn, Director of Choral Activities and co-coordinator of FYE, “we hope that students will learn communication and experiential tools that will help [them] to support and embrace one another, ultimately creating and firmly establishing an emotionally and physically well community.”

Photo by Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

In Summer 2020, mid-pandemic and over Zoom, 20 NEC faculty collaborated to reimagine the first-year student experience.

“Often your first year of conservatory is very prescribed,” said Annie Phillips, Associate Dean of Entrepreneurial Musicianship and Co-Coordinator of the First-Year Experience program. “You don’t have a ton of cross-experiences or influence from other departments unless you happen to live on the same dorm floor with students in areas other than your own. Our goals, in a one-sentence version, were to provide a more cohesive experience for first-year students.”

Designed to connect learning across departments, NEC’s FIRST-YEAR EXPERIENCE (FYE) onboards undergraduates within the context of six integrated learning outcomes: critical thinking, mindfulness, community, self-discovery, resource management,

REPRESENTATIVE Be action-oriented, rather than research or policy development.

U P D AT E S

|

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

|

AWA R D S

News & Notes PORTRAIT OF A VISIONARY:

RAN BLAKE

WATCH THE RAN BLAKE CELEBRATION CONCERT AND EVENTS AT necmusic.edu/events/ran-blake-celebrating-85

RAN BLAKE’S IMPACT on the curriculum and culture of NEC has been transformative since he first stepped foot on campus in 1968 at the behest of then-president Gunther Schuller. The influence of Blake— NEC’s Contemporary Improvisation (CI) Department Chair Emeritus and visionary faculty member—is reflected in the work of generations of musicians who, under his guidance, have been given the tools and freedom to develop their individual artistry. Blake’s teaching style emphasizes “the primacy of the ear,” an approach that elevates the listening process to the same status as the written score and promotes innovation and individuality. He created NEC’s annual Film Noir concert series, which the Boston Globe has called “the most exciting filmgoing experience in Boston.”

Throughout his time at NEC, Blake, a MacArthur Fellow, has been a dedicated and generous teacher while leading the CI department and maintaining an international career as a composer, performer, and recording artist. His singular sound—which mixes spontaneous solos, modern classical tonalities, blues and gospel traditions, and film noir themes—has earned a dedicated global following and is heard on dozens of recordings including The Newest Sound Around, his 1962 RCA debut with vocalist Jeanne Lee, as well as albums with numerous NEC alums including faculty member Dominique Eade.

On March 24, NEC honored Blake’s 85th birthday with a tribute concert, “Portrait of Ran Blake: Celebrating CONTINUES ON PAGE 26 >

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 25

News & Notes CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25 >

26 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

C

ENTRAL TO LIFE at NEC is live music.

In a “normal” semester, concerts both large and small would take place on campus nearly every day. But when the pandemic first hit last March, on-campus concerts and performances — and the in-person audiences that went along with them — were put on pause.

Just a few weeks into NEC’s “new normal,” its audio/visual and video production teams quickly rose to the challenge, bringing high-quality live and pre-recorded concert and event streams to audiences both in Boston and worldwide. They put together virtual commencement and convocation celebrations in the spring and fall, and scores of student and faculty concert streams since the start of the fall semester.

Thanks to their ingenuity, NEC’s video and audio practices were overhauled to meet the demands of digital audiences who needed music more than ever.

Concerts are now back to happening almost daily at NEC, via broadcasts on the NEC website and YouTube channel—meaning that these staff members haven’t seen a slow day in a quite a while. We caught up with some of them to hear about how their work has changed in the past year.

Lisa Nigris, Director of Recording and Performance Technology Services (RPTS), says she and her team of A/V engineers (Eric Engler, Josalyn Hruska, Alex Lisowski, Johnathan Smith, and Jacob Steingart)

Image by Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

85 Years,” which included a solo set by Blake and performances by faculty and students. Alongside the concert were other events held to celebrate Blake—“Looking Back at 85,” an interview with music historian Robin D.G. Kelley on March 22, and “Adding Spice,” an interview between Blake and CI co-chair Hankus Netsky ’76, ’78 MM on March 23.

In “Looking Back at 85,” Kelley talked to Blake about his life and musical legacy, including his role in founding the Third Stream (now CI) Department with Gunther Schuller. “It was incredible working with Gunther,” says Blake. “It was a very fertile period.” After a 1959 chance meeting at Atlantic Records, Schuller recognized Blake’s unusual talent and became both a mentor and supporter, inviting him to be part of the remarkable “What Ran NEC faculty lineup he brought to NEC assembled, which also included was nothing less Jimmy Giuffre, Jaki Byard, than a complete George Russell, and Carl Atkins. reimagining of In “Adding Spice,” Netsky music education and Blake discussed his and the musical innovative approach to canon itself.” listening, teaching, and performing. “What Ran brought to NEC was nothing less than a complete reimagining of music education and the musical canon itself,” says Netsky. “There was no study of genre, only epochs; it made no sense to talk about the music of the 1940s without referencing Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Thelonious Monk, or the music of the 1950s without including Charles Mingus, Sarah Vaughan, Abbey Lincoln, Mahalia Jackson, Chris Connor, and George Russell—period.” Netsky added, “From the point of view of the major creative artists of the time, music had, by and large, reverted back to being an oral tradition. The only way to learn and master it was to train your ear to hear it and learn it in all of its glorious diversity and complexity. In [Ran’s] teaching, he demanded no less.”

At 85, Blake continues to evolve his noir language on the piano and remains active in teaching, recording, touring, and writing—while continuing to reimagine music education at NEC for the better. Having among us this imaginative, sensitive, and fearless artist so ahead of his time is something for which the NEC community will feel endlessly grateful.

NEC BEHIND THE SCENES:

BRINGING DIGITAL CONCERTS TO THE WORLD are busier than ever, capturing content and mixing and editing video files.

“For the first video layering project done exclusively

by RPTS, we edited and mixed roughly 85 files,” she says. “It was really a crash course in video editing.

Before, we were audio professionals with some video experience. Now, we’re able to produce everything from live concert captures to a mix of in-person performances edited and mixed with submitted files.”

Andrew Hurlbut 84 ’MM Jazz, ’85 MM Composition and Assistant Director of Photography and Visual Assets in the Marketing & Communications office, has been most excited about the ability to capture high-definition video remotely.

He says, “One aspect of our process we’re most proud of is how we can leverage the capture of video in 4K without videographers in the room. Since the files are so high-resolution, we can effectively zoom and pan across the stage in the editing process. This allows for fewer people in the halls during the recording sessions, while still producing a sense of motion and energy in the final product.”

Marketing & Communications Video Producer David Apostolides, who was already working in video projects daily before the pandemic, adds that most of the changes in his work have come from workflow and logistics of producing videos remotely and stitching together final products for public release.

“Pomp and Circumstance, the video we compiled for Spring 2020 graduation, has probably been my favorite to work on,” he says. “I’ll always remember it as the first of its kind that we produced.” The video featured alumni and was created in partnership with Lisa Bauer ’15 and Jackie Martocchio in Alumni Engagement, who originated the video concept.

For Lisa Nigris and her team, she says, “One of our most interesting projects this year was an opera recording session. It required the use of standard studio techniques with vocalists on campus collaborating with off-site pianists via Zoom and [lowlatency audio software] SoundJack.” (Read more about NEC and low-latency technology on page 16.)

RPTS also designed and outfitted all concert spaces with A/V self-record and stream capabilities that students can use independently. This kind of change to on-campus technology and video capture offers longterm added value for NEC. All in all, the innovative new methods these teams have developed for producing virtual concerts will benefit and connect students and audiences, near and far, long after the pandemic is over.

“ One aspect of our process we’re most proud of is how we can leverage the capture of video in 4K without videographers in the room.”

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 27

News & Notes LAURA CHOI STUART ’03 MM, ’04 MM performs in the Decem-

ber 2020 First Monday concert, accompanied by collaborative pianist Tanya Blaich ’02 MM, ’06 DMA.

#NECMUSIC

First Monday Reimagined

700

time, and aerosol versus non-aerosol performances that needed to be strictly audience accounted for members per during recordings, concert Larry crafted programs that met the series’ high audience standards. He also incorporated a mainstay element of these concerts—his introductory remarks—in a reimagined way, providing recorded commentary between pieces to provide insightful details about repertoire.

Larry was determined to keep the April and May 2020 programs as intact as possible for their rescheduled broadcasts in October and December.

With some personnel changes and revised programs, he successfully did so. First Monday celebrated Beethoven’s 250th birthday very close to the actual

28 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

Image by Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

IN KEEPING WITH the entire year at New England Conservatory, the 36th season of NEC’s beloved First Monday series presented unique challenges and opportunities. But the resourcefulness and creativity of the series’ curator, Larry Lesser, led to a rich and varied set of concerts enjoyed by thousands, with an average of 700 audience members per concert.

The onset of the pandemic in spring 2020 resulted in the cancellation of the final two First Monday concerts of the season, as well as uncertainty about the next academic year. That summer, it was decided that because of the challenges inherent in live-streamed concerts, all First Monday performances would be unedited video recordings, made several weeks prior to the broadcast—preserving the integrity of live engagements.

Undeterred by the complicated variables of distancing, air exchange

December date by featuring two quartets, both comprised of Professional String Quartet program alumni. The fall First Monday lineup was rounded out with an American program in November, which featured Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation faculty and students and a performance from a 2018 First Monday concert.

In the spring, First Monday brought three programs with the objective of demonstrating the breadth and variety of the Conservatory. “March (not April) in Paris” included Debussy’s beloved quartet by the current quartet in the Professional program, as well as tunes performed by students in our Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation Departments and NEC Preparatory School. The program began with a series of viola and piano arrangements of beloved works of the French repertoire.

The April concert celebrated one of NEC’s notable alumni, Florence Price, with her first string quartet; it also included an NEC student percussion trio performing Takemitsu and the mammoth Schubert Piano Trio.

The season concluded with a tribute to the home of First Monday, Jordan Hall, with repertoire that offered a glimpse of the vast array of composers and genres heard in this magnificent venue over the last 118 years. Viewers were also treated to an excerpt from “This Old Hall,” a WGBH documentary of the Jordan Hall renovation project in 1995, supervised by none other than then-President Larry Lesser.

As we take stock of the many successes and achievements at NEC during such an extraordinary year, First Monday is undoubtedly among them. The series has not only survived, but thrived this year. It serves as a tribute to the collaborative spirit of our community, and proof that creative programming is alive and well.

News & Notes WHAT’S NEW: STUDENT, ALUMNI, & FACULTY UPDATES

#NECMUSIC

Recent Faculty Albums Here’s a small sampling of albums that NEC faculty artists have released over the past several months. lassforms Versions, a new G “version” of Bruce Brubaker (Piano chair/faculty)’s 2020 album Glassforms with scientist-artist Max Cooper, was released earlier this year. ason Moran (Jazz faculty) released J his latest album, The Sound Will Tell You, earlier this year on Bandcamp. anya Blaich ’02 MM, ’06 DMA T (Voice/Collaborative Piano faculty) released I Will Walk With My Love with mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy ’03 MM, ’05 GD in the fall. elltale Crossing, a trio that includes T Cristi Catt (CI faculty) as well as former student Taki Masuko, released their debut album, Door Ajar, in the fall. (Alumnus Corey DiMario ’01 also contributed.)

ALUMNI & STUDENTS: Esteemed percussion alumnus MARVIN GILMORE ’51 has opened his latest venture at age 96—the Western Front dispensary in Chelsea—to create more opportunities for communities of color. Gilmore’s lengthy communityminded career includes serving as President and CEO of the Community Development Corporation of Boston, co-founder of the Unity Bank and Trust Company in Roxbury, and owner of the Western Front reggae club in Cambridge until it closed in 2013.

Jazz faculty member DOMINIQUE EADE ’82, ’89 AD published an article

in DownBeat magazine titled “Integrating Singing Into Jazz Ensembles,” covering common challenges and suggested approaches to working with vocal range, language and lyrics, arranging and composing, improvisation, and more.

Contemporary Improvisation co-chairs HANKUS NETSKY ’76, ’78 MM and EDEN MACADAM-SOMER ’13 DMA performed Yiddish and Hasidic songs and Klezmer dance tunes for the School of Music at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in March. Hankus was also featured in the Yiddish Book Center’s 40 Years in Yiddishland, a video special celebrating the 40th anniversary of the

Yiddish Book Center and the Klezmer Conservatory Band, which he founded.

Bassoonist RONALD HAROUTUNIAN ’78 recently performed with the Boston Lyric Opera in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” produced for the Opera’s streaming service, Operabox.tv.

Flutist and practicing Buddhist NESTOR TORRES ’80 gave a recent socially distanced performance in an unusual venue—a 12th-century Spanish monastery, relocated to South Florida.

BRUCE WOLOSOFF ’80 MM has been named Artistic Director of Reflections in Music.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 29

News & Notes WHAT’S NEW: STUDENT, ALUMNI, & FACULTY UPDATES

Jazz alumna REGINA CARTER ’82 was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award for Best Improvised Jazz Solo.

Alumnus and former Prep faculty DONNELL L. PATTERSON ’82 was part of a Boston Spirit magazine feature

by Rev. Irene Monroe on queerness, gospel music, and the Black church.

DR. CARLEEN GRAHAM ’90 MM, ’91 GD has recently been appointed Associate Dean and Director of Vocal Arts at Manhattan School of Music.

Jazz alumna SATOKO FUJII ’96 GD was featured in a New York Times profile.

Alumni TAHIRAH WHITTINGTON ’98, TONY RYMER ’11, ’13 MM, CHRISTINE LAMPREA ’13 MM, and master’s student GABRIEL MARTINS ’21 MM performed in a special joint concert presentation by the Sphinx Organization and NEC in February.

The band Lake Street Dive—which includes NEC alumni RACHAEL PRICE ‘07, MIKE OLSON ‘05, BRIDGET KEARNEY ‘08 Tufts/ NEC, and MIKE CALABRESE ‘07, along with Akie Bermiss—released a new album, Obviously, and was profiled in a DownBeat Magazine article, “Lake Street Dive Finds Beauty in Pop.” STEFAN JACKIW ’06 AD (with Junction Trio) and JORDAN BAK ’16 have been honored in the first cohort of WQXR’s Artist Propulsion Lab.

FOR A DIGITAL VERSION of the student, alumni, and faculty updates on these pages, as well as links to additional content and updates from earlier months, visit necmusic.edu/whats-new

30 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

#NECMUSIC

Accolades & Awards THIS ACADEMIC YEAR may have brought its share of challenges, but our students, alumni, and faculty continued to shine as brightly as ever. Below are some of the members of our NEC community who were recognized with top honors for their achievements and artistry in 2020–2021.

2021 AVERY FISHER CAREER GRANT Geneva Lewis ’20, ’22 AD Eric Lu ’13 Prep

2021 FORBES 30 UNDER 30 LIST Amir Siraj ’17 Prep, ‘22 Harvard/NEC

2021 GRAMMY AWARD FOR BEST AMERICANA ALBUM Sarah Jarosz ’13

2021 SPHINX MEDAL OF EXCELLENCE Lina González-Granados ’14 MM

2020 BOSTON BUSINESS JOURNAL CFO OF THE YEAR Margaret Deutsch ’67

2020 CLEFWORKS COMPOSITION COMPETITION WINNER Nan Yi ’22 MM

2020 CONCERT ARTISTS GUILD VICTOR ELMALEH GRAND PRIZE Gabriel Martins ’21 MM Geneva Lewis ’20, ’22 AD

2020 JÁNOS STARKER CELLO PRIZE Brannon Cho ’19 AD

2020 NPR JAZZ CRITICS POLL #1 IN VOCAL CATEGORY Sara Serpa ’08 MM

2020 ST. BOTOLPH CLUB FOUNDATION DISTINGUISHED ARTIST AWARD Michael Gandolfi, Composition chair

News & Notes and financial support that allowed her to pursue opera, her LGBTQ identity, and the inspiration of being around artists of other genres.

Jazz alum MICHAEL MAYO ’14 has released a new album, Bones.

Conducting alumni NATHAN ASPINALL ’15 MM and HOLLY HYUN CHOE ’17 MM have been selected for the 2021 Malko Competition.

The Ladles, comprised of fiddler/singer LUCIA PURPURA-PONTONIERE, guitarist/singer KATIE MARTUCCI ’16, and banjoist/singer CAROLINE KUHN ’18, met in NEC’s Contemporary Improvisation program and have released a new album, Springville Sessions.

RESPONDING

TO THE TIMES

CLAIRE BOURG ’17 won second prize in the second annual Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition for strings.

Emily Mariko Eng: Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

Conductor EMILY MARIKO ENG ’18 MM launched Lift Music Fund, which awards microgrants to BIPOC students in order to address racial inequity in music. “In early June, after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, I had a feeling of paralysis,” says Emily. “I mean, I’m a musician. What can I do?” Recognizing how barriers to musical success intersect with the racial wealth gap in the United States, Emily designed Lift Music Fund to fill a need by offering an easy application and quick turnaround for the regular incidental expenses associated with musical study—strings, reeds, lessons, and the like. “If you need to get your instrument fixed, you need it, like, yesterday. We wanted to be able to have students apply and then not wait months to hear back, so that the money can go to use quickly.” Since its launch in August 2020 through April 2021, Lift has awarded $18,321 to 135 students.

Violist ASHLEIGH GORDON ’08 MM was one of eight artists to share visions for a better field in Chamber Music America’s “The Future Issue,” with her essay, “We Want To Be Human, Too.” Alongside jazz faculty NEDELKA PRESCOD ’12 MM, Ashleigh also offered recommendations in the Boston Globe for the piece “Black Composers to Hear Now.” Chamber music faculty GUY FISHMAN ’10 DMA performed with the Handel & Haydn Society for a special televised and streaming performance of Handel’s Messiah.

Prep faculty member ANGELO XIANG YU ‘12, ‘14 AD, ‘17 MM has joined the Shanghai Quartet. He will also be a judge in this year’s Menuhin Competition, and will be premiering a concerto during the competition as well.

Conducting alumnus LIO KUOKMAN ’13 GD was featured as an Artist of the Month in Musical America. He was also recently appointed Resident Conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

ASHLEY MARIE ROBILLARD ’13 Prep was profiled by Philadelphia Gay News, speaking about the community

WANT TO SHARE YOUR NEWS WITH NEC? Email us at news@necmusic.edu

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 31

News & Notes WHAT’S NEW: STUDENT, ALUMNI, & FACULTY UPDATES

THE MERZ TRIO (violinist BRIGID COLERIDGE ’20 GD, pianist LEE DIONNE ’20 GD, and cellist JULIA YANG ’14 MM, ’20 GD), currently in residence in NEC’s Professional Piano Trio Program, has released a short film conceived together with esteemed Vermont puppetry center Sandglass Theater. The piece “speaks directly to these ‘dull hours’ that have crept over so many of us during this frozen time, but also offers hope for a ‘ray of sun’ and the enduring power of life and art.”

RESPONDING

TO THE TIMES

Prep student UMI SHIRAI DA COSTA won the Age 8 and Under category for the NY Flute Club’s 2021 Young Musicians Contest.

WBZ-4 CBS Boston profiled the NEC STUDENT TEACHING FELLOWS who have been teaching music lessons to front line medical workers as part of the Boston Hope Music Project, in association with NEC’s Community Performances & Partnerships program.

(Read more on page 15.)

Seeking a way to honor Black artistry in a digital landscape, ZOE CAGAN ’21 MM and NNAMDI ODITA-HONNAH ’22 MM created a six-episode Instagram series titled “Black is Canon,” celebrating music by Black composers and framed as a countdown to the Black Student Union’s annual Coretta Scott King tribute concert. They used short-form “visual podcast”-like episodes to introduce viewers to the artistry of Julius Eastman, William Grant Still, Florence Price, Omar Thomas, Valerie Coleman, and Duke Ellington.

The series garnered enthusiastic engagement from more than 6,500 viewers.

LUTHER WARREN ’18, ’20 MM spoke to Boston 25 News about his recent experiences as one of the NEC student volunteers performing Virtual Bedside Concerts for patients at Massachusetts General Hospital. (Read more on page 15.)

Contemporary Improvisation alum EMMA GIES ’19 MM recently launched Blood on Gold Mountain, a seven-episode storytelling podcast describing the little-known, horrific 1871 Los Angeles Chinatown Massacre. Emma won an EM Alumni Award in support of the project.

ABI FAYETTE ’19 MM has joined the Catalyst Quartet.

AUDREY CHEN ’19 Harvard/NEC, ’21 GD has joined the Argus Quartet.

JOEL LINSCHEID ’20 DMA won a position as the Director of Jazz/ Assistant Professor at Augustana University in Illinois.

DMA student CHI WEI LO ’20 DMA was featured in the Boston Musical Intelligencer for a recent Harvard Musical Association performance.

EDWARD FERRAN ’23 took second prize at 4th Annual NextGen National: Finding the Voices of Tomorrow competition with The American Pops Orchestra.

32 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

The NEC NOVA FELLOWS, funded by the estate of Amy Morrill, promote diversity and inclusion by providing a virtual platform for the cultural and artistic community at NEC. The Fellows recently made their first media releases: a podcast, featuring SARAH BERNADETTE ’21 MM and interviewed by AIMEE TONER ’22 MM, and a mixtape, themed around Women in Jazz and featuring the work of TALIA RUBENSTEIN ’22 MM, MIRANDA AGNEW ’21, ANNA ABONDOLO ’22, and KYRA TEBOE ’23.

Prep student KEILA WAKAO (daughter of NEC faculty and BSO oboist KEISUKE WAKAO) won first place in the junior division of the Menuhin Competition, where she was also awarded the Junior Composer Prize for her performance of Mason Bates’ “Bound Away” in the finals.

Keila also recently won the gold medal at the Stulberg International String Competition.

News & Notes FACULTY: Guitarist JULIAN LAGE and trombonist MARSHALL GILKES will join the jazz faculty beginning in Fall 2021, as well as saxophonist MELISSA ALDANA, who will be a visiting faculty member during the 2021–2022 school year.

CI faculty member LINDA CHASE’S new work—Our Common Home: an oratorio for Earth Justice—is based on Laudato Si’, an ecological encyclical issued by Pope Francis.

Faculty member NICHOLAS CORDS’ quartet Brooklyn Rider was nominated for a 2021 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.

The New York Flute Club recently published a feature on NEC faculty JOHN HEISS, profiling the beloved faculty member’s long career.

Accordionist & CI faculty member GUY KLUCEVSEK was featured in an interview with Nico Bogaerts on Radio Panik in Brussels.

NPR’s 2020 Jazz Critics Poll included faculty members DAVE HOLLAND, MIGUEL ZENÓN, and RAN BLAKE, as well as NEC alum MATTHEW SHIPP.

NBC profiled NEC jazz faculty member JASON MORAN, highlighting his latest album release (see page 29), the role of a musician in society, and the need for conservatories to talk about Black people and issues while teaching jazz and blues music.

Jazz faculty ETHAN IVERSON continues his tradition of writing about jazz in cinema for The Nation with a recent piece on The United States vs.

Billie Holiday.

Faculty member DR. ELLEN EXNER was a session moderator for the recent Bach Scholarly Symposium 2021, “Late Style and the Idea of the Summative Work in Bach and Beethoven,” held at UMass Amherst in April.

RESPONDING

TO THE TIMES

WANT TO SHARE YOUR NEWS WITH NEC? Email us at news@necmusic.edu

CELESTE PELLEGRINO ’20 MM and LARISA BAINTON ’20 MM are the founders of Due Donne Productions, a Boston-based opera company with the twin goals of bringing opera to new audiences while providing post-graduate career opportunities for early career singers. Forced by the pandemic to cancel their in-person performances, the NEC alumnae turned to a creative and unexpected medium, staging the first-ever opera via Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons—a 30-minute version of the classic Engelbert Humperdinck opera Hansel and Gretel. Due Donne Productions has earned mentorship and support through NEC’s Entrepreneurial Musicianship grant programs.

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 33

NEC flashback

34 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

1972 In this photograph from the NEC Archives, legendary composer, conductor, jazz musician, educator, and former NEC President GUNTHER SCHULLER conducts the NEC Symphony Orchestra at the Massachusetts State House nearly 50 years ago. In April, The New York Times published an article, “When Boston Ruled the Music World,” featuring this photograph. Written by Times chief classical music critic Anthony Tommasini, the article spoke of Boston composers in the 1970s, and discussed Schuller’s musical legacy, his opera The Fisherman and His Wife, and his influence on NEC. Wrote Tommasini: “For all his formidable skills and vision as a composer, Schuller may have been more consequential as a teacher, mentor, conductor and a tireless (sometimes shrill) agitator on behalf of contemporary music and living composers than as a writer of music himself.”

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 35

With Appreciation: TOM NOVAK

NEC’S BELOVED PROVOST and Vice President, Tom Novak, is bidding farewell to the Conservatory in June.

Tom has been with us since 2001, serving in many roles, including Interim President of NEC from July 2015 to December 2018. An accomplished bassoonist, he has also continued to coach chamber music at the college level and bassoon in the NEC Prep program.

Tom has left an indelible mark on NEC and will be greatly missed by all of us. As we send him off and wish him the very best, we wanted to share some fond memories and words of appreciation submitted by a few members of the NEC community.

Tom, we thank you for all that you have given to NEC over the past 20 years!

We’ve had fun, we’ve had hard work and issues to confront.

And through it all, you’ve been a bulwark of caring and loyalty.

I know you will continue to be linked to NEC through those of us remaining, but without the pressure and hard work.

I hope that all you do will be joyful and rewarding!

–LAURENCE LESSER

It’s hard to imagine life at NEC without Tom. He has fostered the unique aspects that we cherish about our school—collegiality, a warm and supportive atmosphere, friendly interactions among students and faculty, all in celebration of our collective passion for music. His sincere love and concern for all of our students, as well as his attentiveness to faculty members, have been a constant inspiration. I know I’m not alone when I say I will miss him.

–VIVIAN WEILERSTEIN

–MARGIE APFELBAUM

36 New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021

To Tom, guide, inspirer, and friend: As we all move on in your shadow, Your passion and love of music, Your work ethic and selfless devotion, Your energetic and unending positivity, Will continue to inspire us in the days and years ahead.

May your life continue to be filled with love, music, and adventure.

–JOSHUA MAJOR

Photos by Andrew Hurlbut/New England Conservatory

Everyone knows that Tom spent 20 years as an extraordinarily dedicated member of the NEC community with a thorough knowledge of who everyone is and what they do or what instrument they play. What might not be so evident is his ability to put together an NCAA basketball bracket and dominate our staff league for many years. In addition, if you’re ever in need of a recommendation for an excellent restaurant or bottle of wine, Tom is your guy. Best of times and health moving forward, TN!

NEC Prep programs offer students a transformative musical journey full of discovery and inspiration.

Our world-class faculty help them discover their passion, find their path, and grow to become student leaders.

From the absolute beginner to the Conservatory-bound player, NEC Prep has a place for every student.

Join us today! necmusic.edu/prep

New England Conservatory Magazine / Spring 2021 3

290 Huntington Avenue Boston, Massachusetts 02115

Nonprofit Organization US Postage PAID Burlington, VT 05401 Permit No. 19

DRUMMER AND CONTEMPORARY IMPROVISATION student Joey van Leeuwen ‘21 MM performed as part of the CI Chamber Ensemble for Ran Blake’s 85th birthday celebration concert in March. (For more on Ran Blake and his birthday events, see page 25.)