NEC Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Winds, & Symphonic Choir

Artist(s)

Joseph Higgins serves as Director of Bands at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, where he conducts the Wind Ensemble and teaches courses in conducting and literature. During his tenure, the program has grown to include multiple directors, three concert ensembles, and the new “Pride of the Profs” Marching Band; ensembles under his direction have premiered over forty new works and collaborated with many world-class artists, including a recent residency with contemporary chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird. For his exceptional leadership in the classroom, Higgins was awarded the Frances S. Johnson Innovative Teaching Award. He also received the Rowan University Values Award for Inclusivity in recognition of curating a “Music of Social Justice” performance series. In addition to his work at Rowan University, Higgins serves as guest conductor-clinician with outstanding professional, community, and student ensembles throughout the country. His current season includes performances in Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, as well as conducting the 2024 New Jersey All-State Band, Philadelphia Wind Symphony, and United States Air Force Band.

Higgins is a passionate advocate of socially-conscious programming that encourages greater connection among performers, audiences, and their environments. He served as co-chair of the Rowan University Catalysts for Sustainability initiative and is actively engaged with sustainability research, climate activism, and environmental education. Higgins founded and produced the first Sound Planet Music Festival in 2023; now an annual series, SPMF events feature commissioned new works that reach thousands of community members.

He earned doctor and master of music degrees in conducting from Northwestern University, where his primary teacher was Mallory Thompson, and a bachelor of music degree in music education from the University of Georgia. Prior to graduate study, Higgins taught at North Gwinnett High School in Suwanee, Georgia.
 

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Praised by The Stradmagazine and The New York Times, internationally renowned cellist Amit Peled (NEC '99) is acclaimed as one of the most exciting and virtuosic instrumentalists on the concert stage today. Having performed in many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., Salle Gaveau in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Konzerthaus Berlin, Peled has released over a dozen recordings on the Naxos, Centaur, Delos, and CTM Classics labels. Musical America named Peled one of the Top 30 Influencers of 2015.

Career highlights include Bach Suite cycles in the United States, Europe, and Israel; performances of the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto at the Kennedy Center; a debut collaboration with the Peabody Chamber Orchestra led by Maestra Marin Alsop; a return to the Ravinia Festival in celebration of Peled’s recording of the Brahms Cello Sonatas on the Goffriller cello (1733) once owned by the legendary cellist Pablo Casals; a return visit as a soloist to the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico; performances of the Shostakovich Cello Concerto and Penderecki’s Second Cello Concerto conducted by the legendary Krzysztof Penderecki himself; Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata recorded on the Casalscello; and a South-America tour.  Sponsored by the March of the Living Foundation, Peled performed for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz at the Krakow Philharmonic Hall, Jewish Cultural Center and at Auschwitz in front of a crowd of 20,000 people.

An enthusiastic chamber music artist, Peled is a member of the acclaimed Tempest Trio with violinist Ilya Kaler and pianist Alon Goldstein. Peled also performs with Goldstein and clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein as a member of the Goldstein-Peled-Fiterstein Trio.

One of the most sought-after cello educators in the world, Peled is a professor at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University where he has taught since 2003 and was one of the youngest professors ever hired by a major conservatory. He has instructed students who have gone on to garner top prizes at international competitions such as the Carlos Prieto International Competition in Mexico, the Schoenefeld International Competition in China, and Young Concert Artists Guild in New York. Embracing the new era of the pandemic, Peled established the Amit Peled Online Cello Academy in order to reach cellists all over the world with private lessons and in-depth courses on his First Hour technique method.

Passing on the tradition in which he performed with his mentors Bernard Greenhouse and Boris Pergamenschikow, Peled regularly performs with the Amit Peled Cello Gang. Composed of students from Peled’s studio at the Peabody Institute, members of the Cello Gang range in age from undergraduate freshmen to second year master’s students. Peled and the Cello Gang tour regularly around the country with recent performances at the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, the Society of Four Arts in Palm Beach, the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra, as a resident ensemble in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and all across Maryland, the gang’s home state.

Peled is also the founder, conductor, and artistic director of the Mount Vernon Virtuosi, a chamber orchestra dedicated to nurturing the careers of recently graduated music students, which annually performs in the Baltimore-Washington area.

Raised on a kibbutz in Israel, Amit Peled began playing the cello at age 10. From 2012 through 2018, Peled performed on the Pablo Casals 1733 Goffriller cello, which was loaned to him personally by Casals’ widow, Marta Casals Istomin.  

Amit Peled is represented worldwide by CTM Classics