NEC Update Vol.1, No.20, May 16, 2005

NEC triumphs at chamber music competitions

Reunion exclusives feature faculty, alumni

Danielpour, Graves make opera history

James McDonald joins NEC voice faculty

NEC singer wins BLO award

Laurence Lesser receives top cello honor

Trio of films on NEC alumni

Top donors give more

NEC triumphs at chamber music competitions

photo by Jonathan Cohler

NEC chamber musicians of all ages triumphed at two recent chamber music competitions: one of the oldest and most respected, and one being held for the first time.

The First International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition, hosted by NEC and St. Mark's School in Southborough, Mass., over four weekends in April, drew entrants of all ages and nationalities. The 11 first-prize winners included 5 NEC Prep and College ensembles; all 11 groups will perform in an awards concert in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall May 30, where a Grand Prize winner will be selected.

Among the ICMEC winners, the Alisier Piano Trio (in photo) also won first prize in the Junior Division of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, now in its 32nd year. NEC was the only school that had two groups advance to the semifinal round of competition, held in May at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Read more about these competition wins.

Reunion exclusives feature faculty, alumni

photo by Paul A. Cortese '92 M.M.

As RSVPs arrive for Reunion 2005, held the weekend of May 20, NEC alumni are signing up for a busy weekend of events that includes special presentations by faculty members Donald Weilerstein (in photo) and Charles Peltz, as well as by alumna photographer Emily Corbato '65 M.M. and Outstanding Alumni Award recipients Harold Farberman '55, '57 M.M., Raymond Jackson '55, Peter Sykes '78, '80 M.M., and Randall Hodgkinson '76, '80 M.M., '82 A.D.

It's not too late to register online and enjoy a weekend in Boston at a perfect time to renew friendships with classmates, reconnect with teachers, and celebrate the incredible community of people that is NEC!

Alumni: register online for Reunion 2005.

Danielpour, Graves make opera history

photo by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, courtesy G. Schirmer Inc.

A history-making opera premiere combines the talents of Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and two NEC alumni, both longtime collaborators: composer Richard Danielpour '80 and diva Denyce Graves '88 DP. Margaret Garner takes the innately operatic tragedy of a slave narrative and casts it into "a melting pot in tones," according to The New York Times. Says the Philadelphia Inquirer: "In the title role, Graves put her famous Carmen characterization to shame, finding sounds in her lower range that made your blood run cold."

Premiering last weekend at Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit, the opera will be presented in turn by three co-commissioning companies, with Cincinnati Opera following in July and Opera Company of Philadelphia in February 2006. All three companies cite local community connections to the Underground Railroad, which led the real Margaret Garner to short-lived freedom.

The Detroit premiere drew a celebrity audience that included Kathleen Battle, Cornel West, and Phylicia Rashad, as well as a sold-out house of Detroit citizens, some attending opera for the first time. Michigan Opera reports that 70% of their new subscribers are African-American. Speaking to the Associated Press, Danielpour said: "This was not just another gig. We started feeling like this was something we needed to do."

(In photo, clockwise from lower right: Richard Danielpour, Toni Morrison, cast members Denyce Graves, Gregg Baker, Angela Brown.)

Read more about Margaret Garner.

James McDonald joins NEC voice faculty

photo by Bob Handelman, courtesy Middlebury College

Tenor James McDonald will join NEC's full-time voice faculty beginning with the 2005/2006 academic year. McDonald is known for his work with German repertory, and directs the German for Singers and Vocal Coaches summer program at Middlebury College with his wife, pianist and coach Ruth Ann McDonald.

Explore NEC's faculty, starting with James McDonald.

NEC singer wins BLO award

photo by Richard Feldman, courtesy Boston Lyric Opera

Soprano Laura Choi Stuart '03 M.M., '04 M.M. received Boston Lyric Opera's Stephen Shrestinian Award for Excellence on April 25. In her three years of voice and opera studies at NEC, Stuart was a frequent concert soloist and had roles in productions of Albert Herring and La Calisto. She has gone on to a season with BLO where she appeared as Elvira in L'Italiana in Algeri, The Rose in The Little Prince (in photo), and in the ensemble of Eugene Onegin, as well as participating in outreach activities, including reprising her NEC role as Pamina in The Magic Flute.

Read more about voice and opera studies at NEC.

Laurence Lesser receives top cello honor

photo by Ulrike Welsch

Cellist and NEC President Emeritus Laurence Lesser (in photo) has been named a Chevalier du Violoncelle by the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center at Indiana University. He joins a group of honorees that includes Paul Katz of the NEC faculty and Gabor Retjo, who taught both Lesser and Katz.

On September 25, Lesser and this year's other honoree, Manhattan School of Music President Marta Casals Istomin, will be celebrated at Indiana University. Emilio Colon of the Janzer Center says of Lesser and Istomin: "As performers, teachers, and administrators, they wrote themselves into the history books."

Read more about this prestigious award.

Trio of films on NEC alumni

film still courtesy Richard Leacock

A trio of documentary filmmakers have current projects based on three distinctive NEC alumni.

Keyboardist Bernie Worrell '67 is the subject of Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth, the work of first-time filmmaker Phil Di Fiore. Awarded "Best Foreign Film" at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in Greece, it screened to a full house at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts last month, followed by a late-night live performance by Worrell himself.

On May 25, the MFA hosts a debut screening of Richard Leacock's A Musical Adventure in Siberia, which documents the premiere production of Prokofiev's suppressed Eugene Onegin opera by Sarah Caldwell '46, '79 hon. D.M. (in photo). Pioneer "cinema verite" director Leacock is a longtime collaborator with Caldwell, and the MFA evening includes innovative film-as-set work from the 1960s.

Photographer/filmmaker Christopher Felver "has made it his mission to document firebrand movements and personalities from contemporary art, poetry and music" (Wire magazine). Pianist Cecil Taylor '51 DP now joins the ranks of poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and composer John Cage in Felver's Cecil Taylor: All the Notes, which has its New York premiere May 25 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Find more on the MFA's Caldwell film screening.

Top donors give more

The $300,000 challenge made this year by an anonymous donor, matching new or increased contributions from President's Ensemble members (donors of $1,500 or more), is approaching a full match, with $264,514 raised from 97 supporters. Through the challenge, increased gifts will benefit students today, while the matching funds will establish an endowed scholarship to aid NEC students for years to come.

The President's Ensemble provides critical, unrestricted support to NEC's Annual Fund, increasing financial aid to students and helping the Conservatory sustain its diverse and exciting learning environment. Fully half of the $2 million in gifts and pledges raised so far this year for the Annual Fund came from President's Ensemble donors. With a little over a month still to go before the close of this fiscal year, support from these leadership donors is already the equivalent of 37 full-tuition scholarships!

Make your Annual Fund gift online.