Performances + Events
Honoring the legacy of John Heiss, this weeklong festival features residencies with guest artists Raven Chacon and John Musto, a barn dance with Alex Cummings and Adah Hetko, a four-night run of John Musto and Mark Campbell’s opera, Later the Same Evening and more.
2024 marks the return of the NEC Festival, a week-long event honoring the legacy of composer, legendary NEC faculty member and Festival founder John Heiss. Organized by NEC’s Faculty Senate Steering Committee and running from November 10–17, this year’s edition celebrates the legacies of two visionary American composers: Charles Ives (1874–1954) and Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953).
Wide-ranging events include a residency and concert with Pulitzer Prize winning guest artist Raven Chacon, a newly commissioned work by NEC faculty member Farayi Malek, a barn dance with Alex Cumming and Adah Hetko, a four-night run of John Musto and Mark Campbell’s opera, Later the Same Evening, performances by the NEC Symphony, Chamber Orchestra, Song Lab, Jazz Studies and Contemporary Musical Arts departments, workshops surrounding Music and the Black Church with Minister Nedelka Prescod and American Roots with Suzy and Eric Thompson, panel discussions on jazz & gender in the arts, presentations by NEC faculty, and much more.
November 10 – 17, 2024 Full NEC Festival Schedule
NEC Festival: Charles Ives, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and American Musical Innovation
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10
NEC Contemporary Musical Arts: Barn Dance
Sunday, November 10, 2024 | 2 – 5 p.m. | Brown Hall
An afternoon of traditional American and Jewish dancing with great live music by the American Roots and Jewish Music ensembles. Dances will be taught by world-renowned teachers Alex Cumming and Adah Hetko – no partners or previous experience is needed. Families are welcome!
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11
American Ledger No. 1 Open Rehearsal with Raven Chacon
Monday, November 11 | 10 a.m. | Pierce Hall
American Ledger No. 1 Open Rehearsal with Raven Chacon
Monday, November 11 | 6 p.m. | Williams Hall
American Ledger No. 1 by Raven Chacon is a narrative score for performance, telling the creation story of the founding of the United States of America. In chronological descending order, moments of contact, enactment of laws, events of violence, the building of cities, and erasure of land and worldview are mediated through graphic notation, and realized by sustaining and percussive instruments, coins, axe and wood, a police whistle, and a match. This event is part of a residency by Chacon showcasing his innovative approach that bridges Diné (Navajo) worldviews with Western classical, avant-garde, and art-music traditions.
Demonstration: SANLIKOL Renaissance 17 with Mehmet Sanlikol
Monday, November 11 | 2 p.m. | Brown Hall
Sanlikol will talk about and demonstrate the SANLIKOL Renaissance 17, a digital microtonal keyboard with 17 keys per octave, conceived and designed by him (patent pending). The event will include his jazz trio which will play a few compositions using the keyboard. Co-sponsored by the Music History & Musicology department.
Roots + Culture + Spirit: Music and the Black Church, Pt. 1 with Special Guest Nedelka Prescod
Monday, November 11 | 2 p.m. | Eben Jordan Ensemble Room
Exploring the music and musical practices of two eras within the ever expanding legacy of the American Black Church. Part griot-style, multimedia lecture, part community gathering time, Roots + Culture + Spirit: Music and the Black Church is a workshop that tells a story of the integral role of music, and its inherent spirituality, in the lives of Black Americans during trying times. Selected instrumental and vocal students will receive live coaching as they participate in small ensemble practices and offer live demonstrations of an African American Spiritual and a contemporary Gospel music selection. Attendees will also engage in the collective practice and expression of elements found within contemporary Gospel repertoire.
African American Spirituals: Music and the Black Church, Pt. 2 with Special Guest Nedelka Prescod
Monday, November 11 | 4 p.m. | Eben Jordan Ensemble Room
A continuation from the earlier workshop, part two of Roots + Culture + Spirit: Music and the Black Church offers a more in depth exploration of the African American Spiritual. Students will learn of the history, evolution, elements and practices, roles and relevance, and legacy of Spirituals within Black American religious and performance communities across time. Students will read through Spirituals and engage in their rehearsal and performance practices.
NEC Chamber Orchestra: Ives, Crawford Seeger, Haydn
Monday, November 11, 2024 | 7:30 p.m. | Jordan Hall
NEC’s Chamber Orchestra performs Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 3 and Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Andante for Strings. Also on the program is Haydn’s Symphony No. 44.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12
Artist Talk with Raven Chacon
Tuesday, November 12 | 12 p.m. | Pierce Hall
As a part of his residency with the Department of Contemporary Musical Arts, Diné composer, musician and artist Raven Chacon presents a talk about his work. Chacon is a composer, performer, and visual artist, creating videos, prints, photographs and installations that bring sonic experimentation into the gallery. Score-based creation is fundamental to his practice, encouraging generous forms of collaboration among performers and audiences, sights of significance, nonhuman actors, found sounds, and natural elements. In this way, he connects Diné (Navajo) worldviews and relationship models with Western classical, avant-garde, and art-music traditions. Chacon’s own renown is increasingly cross-disciplinary and international, with artworks in museum collections from the Whitney Museum of American Art to the Los Angeles County Art Museum, and compositions commissioned for ensembles around the world. Voiceless Mass, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in music, making him the first Native American and art-music composer to receive this honor.
Artist Talk with John Musto
Tuesday, November 12 | 2 p.m. | Eben Jordan Ensemble Room
Composer and pianist John Musto’s activities encompass orchestral, operatic, instrumental, chamber and vocal music, and music for film and television. His music embraces many strains of contemporary American concert music, enriched by sophisticated inspirations from jazz, ragtime and the blues. As a pianist, he performs frequently as soloist and chamber musician in a broad range of repertoire including his own piano concerti. He appears frequently with his wife, soprano Amy Burton, in recital and cabaret. Musto was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his orchestral song cycle Dove Sta Amore, and is a recipient of two Emmy awards, two CINE Awards, a Rockefeller Fellowship at Bellagio, an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, and a Distinguished Alumnus award from the Manhattan School of Music.
Where are the Women? Highlighting Women and Gender-Marginalized Composers in the Classroom
Tuesday, November 12 | 4:30 p.m. | Brown Hall
Join Dr. Laura Colgate (NEC alum) and Kathryn Radakovich from the Boulanger Initiative for a discussion examining why, in the 21st century, the classical music industry is still not inclusive of music by women. Discover how we got here, what needs to be done, and how you can diversify content and repertoire in the classroom to create a more level playing field for the future of classical music. We will learn more about why the Boulanger Initiative developed their composer database, how they go about finding resources and researching composers, and how we explore using more underrepresented music in our classrooms.
NEC Contemporary Musical Arts: I, Too, Sing America: Ruth Crawford Seeger and Other Untold Stories of America, with Special Guest Raven Chacon
Tuesday, November 12, 2024 | 7:30 p.m. | Jordan Hall
Tonight’s festival concert by NEC’s Department of Contemporary Musical Arts (CMA), produced by department Cochair Eden MacAdam-Somer, celebrates often untold American voices and perspectives, featuring works of iconoclast and visionary Ruth Crawford Seeger; American Ledger No. 1, by Guest Artist Raven Chacon, a narrative score telling the creation story of the founding of the United States of America; I, Too, a newly commissioned work by CMA faculty Farayi Malek inspired by Langston Hughes’ iconic poem; performances of John Zorn’s COBRA led by Anthony Coleman, reimagining of Charles Ives’ songs by the Indie/Punk/Art Rock Ensemble (Lautaro Mantilla), and traditional and original works performed by CMA students.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13
Festival Jazz Forum with Sarah Charles and Caroline Davis
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 | 10 a.m. | Eben Jordan Ensemble Room
Caroline Davis (saxophone, electronics) and Sarah Elizabeth Charles (voice), will present a concert of their music and will hold an open Q&A with the NEC community.
Presentation: Two Works of Ruth Crawford Seeger
Wednesday, November 13 | 12 p.m. | Eben Jordan Ensemble Room
NEC Department of Composition Chair, Michael Gandolfi, and Composition Faculty Sid Richardson, offer a presentation on Ruth Crawford Seeger’s String Quartet and Suite for Wind Quintet, with live performances by student chamber music ensembles.
CEB Panel Discussion: Jazz and Gender Justice with Caroline Davis and Sarah Charles
Wednesday, November 13 | 2 p.m. | Eben Jordan Ensemble Room
NEC Symphony, David Loebel, conductor: Dvořák, Ives
Wednesday, November 13, 2024 | 7:30 p.m. | Jordan Hall
Loebel and the NEC Symphony perform Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” and salute Charles Ives with a performance of his Symphony No. 2.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14
Workshop and Lecture/Demo with Suzy and Eric Thompson
Thursday, November 14 | 10:30 a.m. | Eben Jordan Ensemble Room
Suzy and Eric Thompson have devoted their lives to the pursuit of weird and obscure old-time American music – warped fiddle tunes in odd tunings, cinematic ballads, country blues songs that contain mysterious metaphors, early Cajun music with incomprehensible French lyrics and backwards chords. Using fiddle, mandolin, guitars, Cajun accordion, banjo (and the occasional odd instrument such as the ten-stringed cuatro) they bring these early 20th century sounds right into the present day. This morning’s event begins with a workshop (bring your instruments!) followed by a lecture/demo with these two great artists.
Discussion: Ives in Jazz with Ken Schaphorst
Thursday, November 14 | 2 p.m, | Room G-01 in the Saint Botolph Building
Charles Ives was actively composing at the same time that jazz was first recognized as a uniquely American music. And Ives’s music shares many of the same influences, including marches, ragtime and American popular songs. Ives was also an experienced improviser and often included multiple options in his scores, reflecting the multiple directions in which he could imagine his music going. Recordings of Ives playing his own compositions were often at odds with the notated score. Ives’s music will be analyzed along with treatments of his music by jazz musicians.
NEC Opera: Musto “Later the Same Evening”
Thursday, November 14, 2024 | 6:00 p.m. | Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre
New York City, 1932: Elaine plays piano while her husband ignores her. Jimmy is over the moon to see his first Broadway show. Estelle prepares for her first date since her husband’s death.
Figures from five Edward Hopper paintings come to life through intimate vignettes as imagined by John Musto and Mark Campbell in this chamber opera, based on “Room in New York,” “Hotel Window,” “Hotel Room,” “Two on the Aisle,” and “Automat.”
NEC’s Joshua Major is the stage director and Robert Tweten conducts the members of the NEC Philharmonia.
Please note: There will be no late seating for this production. Please make every effort to arrive on time, as we cannot accommodate late entry.
NEC’s Jazz Studies Department and Song Lab Present: Ives In Song
Thursday, November 14, 2024 | 8:00 p.m. | Jordan Hall
NEC’s Jazz Studies department collaborates with NEC’s Song Lab in a program exploring Charles Ives’ songs as originally scored, along with arrangements by Theo Bleckmann, explored during his residency with the Jazz Studies department in October 2024.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15
Presentation: Echoes of Existence: Influence of Ives’s Unanswered Question on Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls
Friday, November 15, 2024 | 4:30 p.m. | Pierce Hall
In this presentation, Xiaofeng Jiang (MM Music Theory in 2022), will discuss the profound influence of Charles Ives’ “The Unanswered Question” on John Adams’ composition “On the Transmigration of Souls.” The discussion will focus on the thematic connections between these two pivotal works, highlighting how Ives’ exploration of existential questions inspired Adams’ reflection on life, death, and the spiritual journey.
Performance: Exploring the Innovation in Music of Ruth Crawford Seeger: Diaphonic Suite I and Beyond
Friday, November 15, 2024 | 5:00 p.m. | Pierce Hall
This event will honor the remarkable legacy of Ruth Crawford Seeger’s “Diaphonic Suite I” presenting a variety of student interpretations inspired by its third movement. Join us in celebrating this innovative composer and her enduring influence on contemporary music!
NEC Opera: Musto “Later the Same Evening”
Friday, November 15, 2024 | 6:00 p.m. | Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre
An Evening of Chamber Music with NEC’s Chamber Singers, Don and Vivian Weilerstein, and more
Friday, November 15, 2024 | 8:00 p.m. | Jordan Hall
Tonight’s concert of chamber music features Donald Weilerstein, violin, and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, piano, performing Ives’ Third Violin Sonata and the NEC Chamber Singers, directed by Erica J. Washburn, singing Chant, 1930 by Ruth Crawford Seeger. Additionally, Melissa Reardon, viola, will give the U.S. premiere of Kati Agóc’s Sun and Shield, and Trio Eris, the NEC Piano Trio in Residence, will perform Katherine Balch’s different gravities and Charles Ives’ Piano Trio.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16
NEC Opera: Musto “Later the Same Evening”
Saturday, November 16, 2024 | 7:30 p.m. | Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17
NEC Opera: Musto “Later the Same Evening”
Sunday, November 17, 2024 | 3:00 p.m. | Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre
About The NEC Festival
In 1967, newly inaugurated NEC president Gunther Schuller hired John Heiss (1938-2023), who became one of the young stars of an innovative and forward-looking school. Starting in the 1970s, John designed and directed annual festivals that engaged students, faculty, and living composers, including Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Berio, Carter, Cage, Messiaen, Harbison, and Tippett. Every festival had a theme, from “The Magic Years, 1900-1915” (1990), which featured works by Ives, Berg, and Stravinsky, to “Music from the Source” (1992), a celebration of NEC at age 125, and “Playing with Time” (2002), devoted to the how and history of musical pulse. The festival programs, preserved in the NEC Archives, chronicle NEC passion and loss: a symposium “On the Nature of Teaching,” with Louis Krasner, Eugene Lehner, Veronica Jochum, and Russell Sherman; a “Sundown Seminar” on Beethoven’s Grosse fuge with the Borromeo Quartet; and a conversation with conductors moderated by Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer. The life force behind these events was John Heiss, who captured the secret ingredient of NEC magic in a burst of joy: “We had a wonderful time preparing these works!”
In Spring of 2024, NEC’s Piano Department, under the leadership of Bruce Brubaker, celebrated the 150th birthday of Charles Ives with several programs devoted to his music. Titled “Ives 150,” these events inspired the focus of this fall’s newly-returned schoolwide festival. Organized by NEC’s Faculty Senate Steering Committee, this year’s festival honors the legacy of John Heiss with a broader exploration of the works of Charles Ives, an in-depth look at the life and work of composer and musicologist Ruth Crawford Seeger, and a celebration of American musical innovation, beyond genre and across disciplines.
