Performace Opportunities
- NEC Orchestras
- Chamber Music
- Honors Ensemble
- NEC Contemporary Ensemble
- NEC Bach Ensemble
- The Callithumpian Consort
- Historical Performance Ensemble
NEC Orchestras
Orchestral training has been an integral part of New England Conservatory's education since the 1880s.
The program features three full orchestras: the Sinfonietta, primarily freshman and sophomore students; the Symphony, a mix of all years; the Philharmonia, NEC’s most advanced orchestra, available to juniors, seniors and graduate students; and an un-conducted Chamber Orchestra; all of which regularly perform a range of traditional and contemporary repertoire. Rehearsals focus on concert preparation, core-repertory readings, and sectionals with Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians and other NEC faculty members.
In 2003/2004 the Philharmonia and Symphony players will perform with distinguished guest conductors: Joseph Silverstein, Benjamin Zander, Gunther Schuller, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Federico Cortese, and Steven Lipsitt. Sergio Monterisi, our resident conductor, is Director of Sinfonietta, and Donald Palma will direct the Chamber Orchestra.
Chamber Music
NEC's Chamber Music program is at the core of NEC's artistic life, and knits the social fabric of the school. Students benefit from coachings, masterclasses, performances, and the opportunity to see NEC's world-renowned faculty working with each other.
Each semester, approximately 50 student chamber ensembles are formed, including string, piano, woodwind, brass, percussion and mixed groups, coached by distinguished and varied faculty. The chamber music year for string players begins the night before the first day of classes with a reading party, during which new and returning students meet and begin to form groups for the year. Students then apply for the Chamber Music course either as individuals or as complete ensembles. The entire list of groups is posted by the end of the first full week of classes, which gives the ensembles a month to work together before the performance classes begin. Each ensemble performs twice for their peers in a performance class, once in October and again in November. Then in December, recitals pull together all 50 groups. In addition, up to nine ensembles are chosen to perform in a Gala Showcase Evening in Jordan Hall at the end of each semester.
Other performance opportunities include:
- Seminars: One or two topical seminars are offered each semester. 2002-2003 seminars centered on Beethoven String Quartets (with Paul and Martha Katz), Bartok String Quartets (with the Borromeo Quartet), and Brahms Piano Chamber Music (with Vivian Hornik Weilerstein and Lucy Stoltzman). The Brahms Seminar also included masterclasses with Kim Kashkashian, Russell Sherman, Irma Vallecillo, and Donald Weilerstein.
- Borromeo Guest Artist Competition: Each year the Borromeo String Quartet hosts a competition to join the quartet as guest artist in a Jordan Hall concert. The audition process includes a rehearsal with the Quartet for each finalist. The winners of the 2002-2003 competition will perform with the Borromeos in the fall of 2003.
- Professional Chamber Music Training: In the fall of 2001, NEC introduced a new Professional String Quartet Training Program mentored by Paul Katz, founding cellist of the Cleveland Quartet. In fall 2002, Vivian Hornik Weilerstein introduced a Professional Piano Trio Training Program. Both programs offer intensive training and coaching for exceptional groups that show the talent and commitment necessary to pursue a concert career, and include frequent access to the master teacher responsible for each program, daily group rehearsals, performances and masterclasses in the community, and top-quality training in all aspects of musicianship and career development.
Honors Ensembles
Each October, NEC selects four to six exceptional ensembles through faculty-juried auditions to represent the NEC Honors Ensemble Program. Ensembles usually include an Honors String Quartet, Brass Quintet, Woodwind Quintet, and Jazz Quintet. Additional "Wildcard" groups may be selected. Each ensemble is coached by a faculty member and gives a recital in Jordan Hall.
NEC Contemporary Ensemble
NEC Contemporary Ensemble presents several concerts annually at NEC and in Boston. Repertoire includes works by Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ives, Berio, Carter, Ligeti, prominent local composers, NEC faculty, and students. Recent guest composers have included Boulez, Messiaen, Schuller, Maxwell-Davies, Tippett, Lutoslawski, and Ligeti. The ensemble has performed under the auspices of the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, the International Society for Contemporary Music, and WGBH-FM.
NEC Bach Ensemble
NEC Bach Ensemble is a select group that performs Baroque works on modern instruments. The ensemble performs twice a year.
The Callithumpian Consort
Dedicated to the proposition that music is an experience, the Consort has performed music by Cage, Feldman, Zorn, Stockhausen, Scelsi, Ivan Tcherepnin, Xenakis, Lee Hyla, Boulez, Paul Elwood, Christian Wolff, and others. Recordings on Tzadik and Mode Records.
Historical Performance Ensemble
Historical Performance Ensemble performs vocal and instrumental music through the Romantic period on historical instruments.
NEC Wind Ensemble
NEC Wind Ensemble offers students an opportunity to play literature from the Renaissance through the present day for wind, brass, and percussion. Each year a number of faculty and students appear as soloists in Wind Ensemble concerts.
The ensemble has performed at Boston-area museums and schools, as well as numerous national music conferences.
During the past two decades, the Wind Ensemble has commissioned and premiered new works by Pulitzer Prize composers Michael Colgrass, John Harbison, and Gunther Schuller, plus other distinguished composers such as Sir Michael Tippett, Daniel Pinkham, and William Thomas McKinley. Through performances and recordings, the Wind Ensemble has established a reputation as one of the country’s premier wind ensembles.
NEC Jordan Winds
NEC Jordan Winds performs woodwind, brass, and percussion repertoire from the Renaissance through the present day for octet to full wind ensemble. Important works that are sometimes neglected because of unusual instrumentation form an integral part of four annual Jordan Hall concerts. Jordan Winds also reads standard orchestral repertoire that serves to improve members’ ensemble skills.
NEC Concert Choir
NEC Concert Choir offers students the opportunity to perform music from all periods of choral literature, extending beyond traditional Western masterpieces to the music of non-European cultures, from Native American chant to works from Asia and the Middle East.
Each year the Concert Choir gives several concerts, performing a cappella as well as with orchestra. It has worked closely with such composers as Ligeti, Golijov, Cage, Colgrass, and Lutoslawski. Recently, chorus members have appeared in two televised specials and Rounder Records CDs with Hankus Netsky and Theodore Bikel. Other recordings are available on the Neuma and Centaur labels.
NEC Chamber Singers
NEC Chamber Singers is a select ensemble that performs challenging works from all periods, both a cappella and with instruments. In the last seven years it has performed the works of many NEC faculty and student composers, including Malcolm Peyton, Pozzi Escot, John Heiss, Robert Cogan, Lior Navok, and Lei Liang. It has also worked with Earl Kim, Toru Takemitsu, and Sir Michael Tippett. NEC Chamber Singers has given a concert tour of Taiwan and Japan, and members were participants in the 900th birthday celebrations for Hildegard von Bingen in Germany.
NEC Opera
During Orientation Week, you meet individually with Opera Studies faculty to determine a specific course of study based on previous course work and ability. You are placed in one of three sections:
- Opera Workshop
Opera Workshop deals with the basics of stage work and with the coordination of acting and singing. Students in Opera Workshop have performance opportunities in scenes presentations and may serve as chorus in major productions.
- Opera Studio
Intensive work in the fundamentals of acting/singing. Members of the Opera Studio often perform secondary roles and chorus in major productions presented by the Department.
- Opera Theater
A continuation of Opera Studio with greater emphasis on performance. Members of the Opera Theater perform major roles in presentations by Opera Studies.
Although the focus is training, with an eye to the future, public performance is considered an important component of the training plan. The Opera Workshop usually presents two scenes programs each semester. The Studio and Theater concentrate on scene study in the fall, culminating in four scenes presentations in October and November through the Perkin Opera Scenes, an endowed program. Two full-length, fully staged productions with orchestra occur during the academic year. Outreach programs are also performed from time to time.
Opera Repertoire
NEC Opera Theater produces two full-scale operas and a series of opera-scenes performances each year. In the past decade, the Opera Theater has produced Bernstein Candide, Bizet Doctor Miracle, Britten Albert Herring, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Rape of Lucretia, Chadwick The Padrone, Copland The Tender Land, Donizetti Don Pasquale, Viva la mamma!, Rita Hoiby The Scarf, Humperdinck Hansel and Gretel, Ibert Angélique, Menotti The Medium, Mozart Così fan tutte, The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, Nicolai The Merry Wives of Windsor, Offenbach La Périchole, Poulenc The Bosom of Tiresias, Puccini Gianni Schicchi, Suor Angelica, Rota The Italian Straw Hat, Weill The Threepenny Opera, as well as occasional special premieres of works by NEC composers.
Small Jazz Ensembles
Small ensembles, coached by Improvisation/Jazz Studies department faculty, perform traditional and contemporary instrumental and vocal jazz repertoire.
Ensembles are coached by faculty members George Russell, John McNeil, George Garzone, Cecil McBee, Jerry Bergonzi, Danilo Perez, Dominique Eade, and others. The ensembles perform two or more times a year.
NEC Jazz Orchestra
NEC Jazz Orchestra performs classic and contemporary big band music. The band performs under the direction of jazz department chair Ken Schaphorst and such prominent guest conductors as George Russell, Bob Brookmeyer, Gunther Schuller, Jimmy Heath, Teo Macero, Michael Abene, Arturo O'Farrill, Maria Schneider, Marty Ehrlich, and Sam Rivers. The ensemble has won critical acclaim for its recordings and for its performances throughout the country. The Jazz Orchestra is open by audition to all NEC students.
NEC Jazz Composers' Workshop Orchestra
A large orchestra led by Bob Brookmeyer that performs student compositions and arrangements.