NEC Update Vol. 2, No. 1, October 3, 2005

Billy Joel makes scholarship gift

Silverstein leads off orchestra season

NEC "opens doors" with trio, opera

Violinist Fried joins NEC full-time faculty

Robison meets LeWitt meets Mozart

New streaming audio: Borromeo Quartet

Billy Joel makes scholarship gift

photo by Patrick Demarchelier

Singer/songwriter/pianist Billy Joel has made a $300,000 gift to support NEC's Performance Outreach Fellowship Ensembles Program. Each year through this program, four or five dedicated student ensembles make a commitment to plan and perform eight outreach programs in the community.

Five-time Grammy-winning artist Billy Joel, who received classical training as a child, has emerged as an ardent supporter of music education and classical music organizations in recent years. Joel began holding masterclass sessions on college campuses more than 20 years ago. In 2001, his classical compositions for piano appeared on the CD Fantasies and Delusions.

Read more about Billy Joel's gift to NEC.

Silverstein leads off orchestra season

photo by Miro Vintoniv

Joseph Silverstein, known to Bostonians as the long-time concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is NEC's new Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of Orchestras. This year he will conduct NEC's student orchestras in four separate programs, beginning with the NEC Philharmonia's October 5 concert in NEC's Jordan Hall. Silverstein will apply his master's touch to repertoire old and new over the course of the year, including such orchestral staples as Dvorak's Symphony No. 7, Elgar's Enigma Variations, and music of Mozart during the Mozart 250th Birthday year of 2006.

Explore NEC concerts and programs day by day.

NEC "opens doors" with trio, opera

photo by Andrew Hurlbut

On Columbus Day, October 10, during "Opening Our Doors Day," NEC welcomes visitors to Jordan Hall for free performances by the Tel-Aviv Trio (noon) and by winners and finalists from the 2005 Metropolitan Opera New England Regional Auditions (2:30pm). Soprano Michelle B. Johnson '05 (in photo), winner of the John Moriarty Encouragement Award, will be among the singers and John Moriarty himself will be piano accompanist at the afternoon performance. "Opening Our Doors Day" is a festival of the arts organized by the Fenway Alliance, with participation from Fenway-area member institutions including NEC.

Read more about the Tel-Aviv Trio.

Violinist Fried joins NEC full-time faculty

When she first started teaching part-time at NEC in 2003, President Daniel Steiner said that "Miriam Fried's appointment makes our Dream Team strings faculty even dreamier." The dream continues when Fried becomes a full-time faculty member at NEC starting with the 2006/2007 school year. Fried will leave her long-time faculty position at Indiana University to take on the added teaching assignments at NEC.

The first woman to take first prize in the Queen Elisabeth International Competition, in 1971, Fried is widely respected both as a performing artist and teacher. Since 1993, she has been Artistic Director of the Steans Institute for Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival, and since 1999 has been first violinist of the Mendelssohn String Quartet.

Explore NEC's faculty, beginning with Miriam Fried.

Robison meets LeWitt meets Mozart

photo by Andrew Hurlbut

Artist Sol LeWitt and flutist Paula Robison first met in 1987 at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy, and have been friends ever since. And Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose 250th anniversary is approaching in 2006, is everybody's friend.

Returning to NEC this year as the new Donna Hieken Chair in Flute, Robison has found a way to bring these friends together and show that she is "back in town" with a vengeance. She is supervising daily performances of Mozart flute quartets in a room at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where LeWitt has created a wall drawing whose lines and tones are evocative of Mozart's "luminous balance," in Robison's words. On the opening day of this three-way collaboration, Robison led a performance of Mozart's Flute Quartet in D Major, K.285.

Find out more about this unique artist residency.

New streaming audio: Borromeo Quartet

photo by Susan Wilson, www.susanwilson.com

The Borromeo String Quartet, NEC's quartet-in-residence, lead "Early Evening" performances throughout the year that explore the string quartet literature. Their focus this year on Arnold Schoenberg's quartets is a perfect partner to the Boston Symphony Orchestra's exploration of Schoenberg's symphonic works in February 2006. The next "Early Evening" takes place October 11.

This month's "Live from NEC" streaming audio selection is taken from an April 2005 "Early Evening" performance of Schoenberg's Quartet No. 2, with soprano Elizabeth Keusch '98 M.M., '01 A.D. The audio stream includes a pre-concert lecture by Borromeo first violinist Nicholas Kitchen, a complete performance of the quartet, and a selection of audience response following the performance.

Listen to a Borromeo String Quartet "Early Evening."