NEC Update Vol. 2, No. 9, January 16, 2006

photo by John Grigaitis, Michigan Opera Theatre

As it heads to its third and final premiere production, at Opera Company of Philadelphia, Margaret Garner is remembered as a top event of 2005 in the two cities where it has already played.

Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press pairs it with Neeme Jarvi's farewell Detroit Symphony season as one of two events that "dominated" the city's classical music scene. "Most important, the opera ... has a shot at entering the repertory." In Cincinnati, the opera was one of The Enquirer's 10 top arts stories of the year, among such items as the expansion of the Cincinnati Art Museum.

On February 18, NEC offers a last chance to catch Margaret Garner in Philadelphia, at an event that includes behind-the-scenes access to the NEC alumni who originated the work: composer Richard Danielpour '80, star Denyce Graves '88 DP, and OCP Artistic Coordinator Laurie Rogers '87 M.M.

Get tickets for NEC's Margaret Garner evening.

New England Conservatory's School of Continuing Education is now available for spring semester enrollment.

NEC continuing education offers a wide array of high-quality courses. Most are stand-alone topics that are one semester long, so you don't have to wait till fall to jump right in. Classes meet at times that are convenient for working people.

An updated version of the course catalog is now posted online and can be downloaded, along with the registration form. Registration will remain open through the first meeting of your course--in most cases, the last week in January.

Download course catalog and registration form.

photo by Susan Wilson, www.susanwilsonphoto.com

Chamber music has deep roots in NEC's curriculum and musical culture, and is part of our concert offerings year-round. During the second half of January, a wealth of chamber music dates includes an appearance by NEC's piano trio-in-residence, the Weilerstein Trio (in photo), as well as a visit by the Kuss Quartet, graduates of NEC's Professional String Quartet Training Program.

January 15: recital by BSO players Keisuke Wakao, oboe, and Richard Ranti, bassoon, with pianist Edmund Arkus
January 17: recital by the Kuss Quartet
January 22: Preparatory and Continuing Education chamber music
January 24: NEC's Week of Chamber Music: Gala
January 25: recital by NEC's Weilerstein Trio (program includes premiere of Michael Gandolfi's Trivia)
January 26: recital by Artist Diploma violinist Karen Gomyo
January 29: Preparatory School students perform chamber music of Michael Gandolfi and Lee Hyla; recital by faculty cellist Carol Ou

Explore NEC concerts and programs day by day.

For the 16th year, NEC Preparatory School students spend a weekend at the end of January working with a living composer. The result, "Today's Youth Perform Today's Music." This year, NEC College composition chair Lee Hyla (in photo) and fellow faculty member Michael Gandolfi are the resident composers.

It's a good time to get to know these two composers. Hyla's Lives of the Saints is performed January 21 by Boston Modern Orchestra Project, NEC's affiliate orchestra for new music. And a Gandolfi premiere appears on the Weilerstein Trio's January 25 concert.

Explore NEC concerts and programs day by day.

While NEC musicians are taking advantage of the Shostakovich centennial to program his music throughout 2006, pianist Tatyana Dudochkin of the NEC Preparatory School faculty sets things off with an all-Shostakovich concert on February 12. Some of NEC's top talent appears on the program, along with the composer's son, Maxim. Tickets will be available starting January 23.

Find out how to get tickets.

Last year one of the smash hits of NEC's concert season was a revue of Noel Coward's songs. NEC opera chair John Greer once again assembles student singers and a small instrumental ensemble for a journey through songs of hope, progress, and disillusionment sung by the characters in Kurt Weill's theatre music. "There Once Was a Girl Named Jenny" runs for two nights, January 30 and 31.

Read more about NEC's Kurt Weill concerts.

photo by Andrew Hurlbut

An article in the December 15, 2005, edition of The Harvard Crimson poses the question: "Could NEC Save Music Training at Harvard?" The article describes the NEC/Harvard joint degree program, which began this year with six students, as "an answer to the prayers of Harvard musicians who have struggled to obtain institutional support for their performance training."

A Harvard alumnus who is now pursuing graduate study at Juilliard is quoted in the article: "I think the joint program is a great idea and will increase the number of professional-class musicians who apply and attend [Harvard] University."

In photo: violinist Sandra Cameron, one of the entering class of NEC/Harvard students, performs in NEC's President's Library for supporters of the joint program.

East Coast Cool is the new CD by trumpeter John McNeil, who has taught on NEC's jazz and improvisation faculty since 1980. Ben Ratliff of The New York Times made the CD a "Critic's Choice" on January 9. Citing McNeil's point of departure in the Chet Baker/Gerry Mulligan quartet format, he notes the music's "breezy transparency. ... It's a record that borrows its starting point, but comes to its own conclusions."

McNeil has direct access to this idiom: he worked with Mulligan, and wrote arrangements for a tribute band after the baritone saxophonist's death. The "Mulligan" sax role on McNeil's CD is filled by NEC Dean of Faculty Allan Chase. And because it's an NEC project, one of the tracks is entitled "Schoenberg's Piano Concerto." (Note: this is a pianoless quartet, in the Mulligan tradition.)

In the words of Opera Boston General Director Carole Charnow, news of the recent death of soprano Elizabeth Parcells '74, '77 M.M. "has hit the opera and vocal music community like a freight train. We are all totally devastated."

Parcells, much of whose career unfolded in Europe, died of colorectal cancer on December 29, the day after her 54th birthday. The "in memoriam" section of her Web site has brought together the two communities in which she was beloved: the world of vocal arts, and the online ACOR Colon Discussion list where she was an inspiring contributor.

While Parcells made her mark in early music, opera, and new music, a project for which she is particularly remembered was a recreation of an actual Jenny Lind recital, which she produced in Jordan Hall in the late 1970s.

The Boston Children's Chorus is SOLD OUT for its live Martin Luther King Day telecast from NEC's Jordan Hall on January 16. But you don't have to be locked out of this event--tickets are still available for the afternoon open dress rehearsal. This is your chance to be there when the program gets its final tune-up, with time to go home and watch the results on WCVB-TV Channel 5.

The open rehearsal is at 1pm, telecast is at 7pm, and "Good Morning America" news anchor Robin Roberts of ABCNEWS has signed on as master of ceremonies. NEC is lead artistic partner for this event, which brings children's choruses from Chicago and New York together with the Boston group.