Hampson Honorary Doctorate

This Event has been cancelled due to Thomas Hampson's illness.

NEC to Bestow Honorary Doctorate on Baritone Thomas Hampson, March 7, 2014

Ceremony to Take Place during Masterclass by the Renowned Opera and Lieder Singer

Baritone Thomas Hampson, recently honored as a Metropolitan Opera Guild “Met Mastersinger,” will receive an honorary Doctor of Music degree from New England Conservatory, March 7, 2014.  Presided over by President Tony Woodcock, the ceremony will take place during a masterclass Hampson will lead for voice and opera students at 4 pm in NEC’s Brown Hall. The event marks Hampson’s second visit to NEC in less than a year, the baritone having directed a Richard P. and Claire W. Morse Masterclass last April. This event is made possible by the Ruth S. Morse Fund for Visiting Scholars in Voice.

Praised by the New York Times for his “ceaseless curiosity” and one of the most respected, innovative, and sought-after soloists performing today, Hampson will travel to Boston between performances of the Metropolitan Opera’s Wozzeck, in which he is making his debut as the title character. Deborah Voight sings Marie in that production and James Levine conducts.

This season, Hampson also reprised his star turn in the title role of Simon Boccanegra at the Vienna State Opera, and revisited such signature parts as Amfortas in Parsifal at Lyric Opera of Chicago (as well as in concert with the National Symphony); Giorgio Germont in La Traviata at the Bavarian State Opera; Mandryka in Arabella at the Salzburg Festival; and Scarpia in Tosca in upcoming performances at London’s Royal Opera House.

In the concert hall, he opened the season in performances of Eisler’s Ernste Gesänge with Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden, and sangs Brahms, Schubert, and Wolf on a twelve-stop European tour with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. Other orchestral collaborations include programs of arias and duets with Luca Pisaroni in Prague, Bratislava, Essen, Baden-Baden, and Paris, and selections from Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the BBC Scottish Symphony. The baritone takes his celebrated lieder recitals to London’s Wigmore Hall, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and to Coburg, Heidelberg, Brussels, and Berne.

Hampson was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has won worldwide recognition for thoughtfully researched and creatively constructed programs that explore the rich repertoire of song in a wide range of styles, languages, and periods. Through the Hampsong Foundation, founded in 2003, he employs the art of song to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding. He is one of the most important interpreters of German Romantic song and with his celebrated “Song of America” project, a collaboration with the Library of Congress, he has become known as the “Ambassador of American song.”

For further information, check the NEC Website or call the NEC Concert Line at 617-585-1122.  NEC’s Jordan Hall, Brown Hall, Williams Hall and the Keller Room are located at 30 Gainsborough St., corner of Huntington Ave. Pierce Hall is located at 241 St. Botolph St. between Gainsborough and Mass Ave.

ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
A cultural icon approaching its 150th anniversary in 2017, New England Conservatory (NEC) is recognized worldwide as a leader among music schools. Located in Boston, Massachusetts, on the Avenue of the Arts in the Fenway Cultural District, NEC offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. NEC alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC-trained musicians and faculty.

NEC is the oldest independent school of music in the United States. Founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee, an American music educator, choral conductor and organist, its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, NEC features training in classical, jazz, and Contemporary Improvisation. Graduate and post-graduate programs supplement these core disciplines with orchestral conducting and professional chamber music training. Additional programs, such as the Sistema Fellows, a professional training program for top postgraduate musicians and music educators that creates careers connected to music, youth, and social change, and Entrepreneurial Musicianship, a cutting-edge program integrating professional and personal skills development into the musical training of students to better develop the skills and knowledge needed to create one’s own musical opportunities, also enhance the NEC experience.

Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Programs and Partnerships Program, the Conservatory provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, and adults. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music, jazz, and Contemporary Improvisation. Currently more than 750 young artists from 46 states and 39 foreign countries attend NEC on the college level; 1,400 young students attend on the Preparatory level; and 325 adults participate in the Continuing Education program.

The only conservatory in the United States designated a National Historic Landmark, NEC presents more than 900 free concerts each year. Many of these take place in Jordan Hall (which shares National Historic Landmark status with the school), world-renowned for its superb acoustics and beautifully restored interior. In addition to Jordan Hall, more than a dozen performance spaces of various sizes and configurations are utilized to meet the requirements of the unique range of music performed at NEC, from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to big band jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre or Paramount Center in Boston, and a semi-staged performance in Jordan Hall. This past 2012-2013 season, the operas produced were Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and Rossini’s La Gazzetta. The 2013-14 opera season includes Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, and Strauss' Die Fledermaus.

NEC is co-founder and educational partner of From the Top, a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by National Public Radio and is heard on 250 stations throughout the United States.

Contact: Ellen Pfeifer
Senior Communications Specialist
New England Conservatory
290 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
617-585-1143
Ellen.pfeifer@necmusic.edu