Performances + Events
Your Impact at NEC
Your gift to NEC has a profound and lasting impact on students dedicated to creating meaningful lives through music.
Thank you for making the unparalleled NEC experience possible!
Your Impact at NEC
Your gift to NEC has a profound and lasting impact by supporting:
- Financial aid for more than 90% of NEC students
- Over 400 internationally-esteemed College and Prep faculty members
- NEC’s new Integrative Curriculum that emphasizes project-based learning, collaboration, and experimentation so our students can create the future of music as artistic leaders, difference makers, and community builders
- Masterclasses and residencies featuring world-renowned musical guests annually
- Partnerships with 119 organizations in the greater Boston community and beyond
- Individual advising and career coaching to incubate new creative work and encourage artistic exploration and innovation
- Opportunities to engage with 119+ community partners across the Boston area through robust, meaningful performances and teaching fellowship programs
Thank you for making the unparalleled NEC experience possible!
After NEC
Student Stories
You Inspire NEC Students
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Pualina Lim ’23 MM, ’25 GD, ’26 GC, Piano
Singaporean pianist Pualina Lim graduated in May 2023 from New England Conservatory with her Masters in collaborative piano and in May 2025 with her Graduate Diploma, having studied with Pei-Shan Lee and Cameron Stowe. Pualina is passionate about collaborative music making and community engagement, and participated as a Community Fellow in NEC’s Community Performances and Partnerships (CPP) program. During the 2024-2025 academic year, NEC students like Pualina taught nearly 1,200 hours, gave close to 200 performances, and reached over 16,000 people in Boston and beyond through CPP. Pualina’s NEC education was generously supported by the Francis W. Hatch, Sr. Presidential Scholarship Fund.
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Joshua Brown ’22, ’24 MM, ’26 AD, Violin
Joshua Brown is currently pursuing his Artist Diploma at New England Conservatory as an inaugural member of the Institute for Concert Artists, where he also earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees studying with Donald Weilerstein. He rose to international prominence after winning Second Prize and both Audience Awards at the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. He also received First Prize at the inaugural 2023 Global Music Education International Violin Competition in Beijing, as well as First Prize and the Audience Award at the 2019 Leopold Mozart International Violin Competition in Augsburg. In March 2025, Joshua was named an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient. His NEC scholarship is generously supported by The Nancy and Richard Lubin Institute for Concert Artists Scholarship.
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Masanobu Pires, NEC Prep
Masanobu Pires began at NEC Prep in 2019 and brings enthusiastic passion and energy to his study of piano. Masanobu won First Place at the NEC Prep Concerto Competition in May 2022. He is one of four winners of the Musicale “Outstanding Young Artist Award” and has won three Gold Prizes at the Musicale Music Festivals as well as numerous top prizes at competitions in the U.S. and internationally. At NEC Prep, Masanobu has been grateful to participate both in Piano Seminar, supported by the Angel Ramón Rivera Endowed Scholarship and Visiting Artists Fund for the Preparatory School Piano Seminars as well as the Chamber Music Intensive Performance Seminar (CHIPS), made possible by The Robert and Jane Morse Endowed Chamber Music Fund at NEC.
After NEC
Faculty Stories
You Empower NEC Faculty
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Erica J. Washburn, Faculty
Erica J. Washburn has been Director of Choral Activities at NEC since 2009. Under Erica’s leadership, the NEC college choirs have continued to champion lesser-known 19th-21st century choral works, as well as commissioned works specifically for NEC. Her dedication to evolving choral repertoire, partnered with her student-centric approach to classroom and rehearsal instruction, makes the NEC choirs leaders among collegiate ensembles in the U.S. of new choral music. Erica centers project-based learning in her choral conducting instruction, ensuring students gain the practical skills needed for successful careers in the field, such as delving into the formulation and generation of concert programming, from repertoire, to budgeting, program-note writing and venue impact. She has participated in the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Project-Based Learning Summer session, presented at NEC’s 2024 Conversations on Teaching and Learning, currently serves as a member of the faculty AI committee of the Faculty Council, and is a recent recipient of the NEC Louise and Adrienne Krasner Teaching Excellence Award.
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Andrew Schartmann, Faculty
Andrew Schartmann, a faculty member in Music Theory and Interdisciplinary Studies, is helping to develop new innovative courses and curriculum that are student-centered. He explained the importance of this approach, “I believe in the complete musician—not just a performer, or composer, or musicologist. One ideal of music education is to integrate experience and intuition with learning, and we need to teach in ways that support this process for students instead of leaving them to do that work on their own.” A spirit of innovation is a defining characteristic of Andrew’s career. His own interests span a diverse range of musical topics from classical composers to video game scores. Among his publications is a 2015 book, Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack, and he has collaborated on several technology projects, including NADIA, a mobile app based on research in music perception that immerses students in the fundamentals of music theory through gamified lessons. NADIA has been used with students in NEC Prep.
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Ayano Ninomiya, Faculty
Award-winning violinist Ayano Ninomiya joined the NEC faculty in 2015. A former student at NEC Prep, she was excited to join this community again. “NEC is unique in that everyone here is a treasure trove of wisdom and experience. Everybody comes with such a drive and commitment to music, and to excellence,” she said. Like her colleagues throughout NEC, Ayano guides her students to reach their artistic potential as well as to develop their own unique creative voices. She describes NEC as “a supportive and inspirational community, where students can grow as people and as musicians.” In a 2012 TEDx talk at the University of Tokyo, she described how her thoughts about being a performer have changed over time. She now believes that the goal of a live performance is to connect with her audience by taking the notes on the page and making them “come alive.” Ayano shares this passion for connection in her teaching, and helps students to learn how to communicate through their music.
After NEC
Program Stories
You Enrich NEC Programs
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The Integrative Curriculum
NEC’s Integrative Curriculum introduces courses that teach multiple skills across disciplines in various formats, drawing together the many strands of a conservatory education in new and dynamic ways. Music history, analysis, entrepreneurship, composition, performance—all are essential to the 21st-century musician. In this interconnected, applied-learning model, NEC supports and nurtures each student’s artistic voice and professional development, equipping them with a comprehensive range of core musical and management skills. The result: NEC students graduate as holistic musicians with the tools to make a transformative artistic and social impact on their careers— and on the world.
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Expanded Education
Unleashing the power of music extends beyond the boundaries of our campus and the enrollment of our full-time students. Expanded Education initiatives embody the growth and reimagining of NEC’s Preparatory School, adult, summer, and digital learning programs in service to NEC’s commitment to music for all. Through innovative programming and approaches to teaching music, Expanded Education offers students of all ages a diverse range of experiences and the opportunity to explore and enhance their study of music. Those opportunities include new NEC programming, summer courses, and individual lessons.
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Community Performances and Partnerships
NEC’s Community Performances and Partnerships (CPP) Program has been recognized as a trailblazer for more than 20 years. It is one of the nation’s premier programs for connecting conservatory students with their communities through meaningful partnerships and high-quality community engagement training. NEC students who participate in the CPP Program benefit from exploring what it means to be a musician living in and contributing to community life within an atmosphere of personal attention, supportive mentoring, professional development, and experiential learning.
