Performances + Events
Nods for NEC community include pop vocal, Americana, composition, orchestral, jazz, rock performance, and song of the year categories
More than 80 New England Conservatory alumni and faculty have been honored with 41 Grammy nominations, maintaining a longstanding presence among the world’s leading musicians. NEC-affiliated artists have been nominated across 27 categories for this year’s Grammy Awards, with winners to be announced at the Los Angeles ceremony on Sunday, February 2, 2025.
Lake Street Dive, which includes NEC alumni Rachael Price ’07, Bridget Kearney ’08, and Michael Calabrese ’07, received a nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for Good Together. Also recognized in that category was bassist Jorge Roeder ’05, who performed on Cyrille Aimée’s À Fleur de Peau.
Sarah Jarosz ’13 was nominated for Best Americana Performance for Runaway Train and for Best Americana Album for Polaroid Lovers.
Aoife O’Donovan ’03 was recognized with nominations for Best Folk Album for All My Friends while the recording’s title track received a nod for Best American Roots Song. O’Donovan was recently named to NEC’s Institute for Concert Artists advisory council.
Steven Bilodeau ’15 MM was a producer on J. Cole’s Might Delete Later, which was nominated for Best Rap Album. He shares his production credit on the song “Stickz n Stonez” with acclaimed hip-hop producer Alan Maman (The Alchemist).
Bandleader and composer Christopher Zuar ’09 earned a nomination for Best Instrumental Composition for the piece “Communion,” which was recorded for his second album, Exuberance, by the 22-piece Christopher Zuar Orchestra. This is Zuar’s first Grammy nomination.
Sean Hutchinson ’07 (percussion/engineering) and double-bassist Francisco Ojeda ’12 contributed to Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet, which was nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Album category. Hutchinson also performed, alongside violist Nicholas Bootiman ’06 MM, on Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, which was nominated in the same category. The album’s lead single, “Fortnight,” which features Post Malone, was nominated for Record of the Year. Hutchinson contributed to the track.
Violinist Lily Honigberg ’18, ’20 MM performed on Shaboozey’s A Bar Song, which received nominations for Best Country Song, Song of the Year, Best Country Solo Performance, and Best Remixed Recording.
Zaccai Curtis ’03, ’05 GD received a nomination for Best Latin Jazz Album for Cubop Lives! and nominations in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album and Best Jazz Performance categories for his contributions to Lakecia Benjamin’s Phoenix Reimagined (Live), which also features Randy Brecker, Jeff “Tain” Watts, and John Scofield.
The Dan Pugach Big Band’s Bianca Reimagined: Music for Paws and Persistence, which features trumpeter David Adewumi ’16, and the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra’s And So It Goes, which features former NEC Prep student Bijon Watson on trumpet, were nominated in the Best Large Jazz Ensemble category.
NEC alumni also played key roles in several orchestral and classical recordings that were nominated this year. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, led by Gustavo Dudamel and featuring María Dueñas, received Best Orchestral Performance, Best Classical Compendium, and Best Engineered Album, Classical nominations for Ortiz: Revolución Diamantina. The recording, which features the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Steve Pence ’04, also received a nomination in the Best Contemporary Composition category. Under the direction of John Adams and also in collaboration with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the LA Phil earned nominations for Best Engineered Album, Classical and Best Opera Recording for John Adams: Girls of the Golden West. NEC-affiliated musicians involved in these recordings include violinists Chao-Ching Lin ’96 MM, Kristine Whitson ’90, Weilu Zhang ’18, and Melody Ye Yuan ’19, oboist and NEC faculty member Anne Marie Gabriele, double-bassist Jack Cousin ’76, trumpeter Christopher Still ’95 MM, principal percussionist Matthew Howard ’15, associate principal violist Ben Ullery ’05 MM, assistant principal cellist Dahae Kim ’11, ’13 MM, and bassoonist Shawn Mouser ’91 MM, ’93 GD.
The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, which includes violinists Jacqueline (Jacqui) Galluzzo ’97, Shieh-Jian Tsai ’02 MM, Xiaofan Liu ’16, ’18 MM; flutist Natalie Debikey Scanio ’01 MM; clarinetist William Amsel ’07, oboist Henry Ward ’08, cellist Feng Hew ’95, ’97 MM, ’98 GD, violist Matthew Phillips ’93 MM, and bassoonist Natalya Rose Vrbsky ’93 MM, received nominations in multiple categories. The orchestra’s recording of Lukas Foss’ Symphony No. 1 and Renaissance Concerto, featuring Amy Porter and Nikki Chooi under the direction of JoAnn Falletta, was nominated for Best Classical Compendium, while the orchestra’s recording of Kodály’s Háry János Suite, Nyári este, and Symphony in C major, also conducted by Falletta, was nominated for Best Orchestral Performance.
The San Francisco Symphony, led by Esa-Pekka Salonen, was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Orchestral Performance category for its recording of Stravinsky’s The Firebird. NEC alumni who contributed to this performance include violinist In Sun Jang ’06 GD; violists Jeein Kim ’21 MM, Jonathan Vinocour ’03 MM, ’04 GD, Katie Kadarauch ’03, ’04 GD, David Kim ’05, ’06 GD, and Leonid Plashinov-Johnson ’19; cellist Davis You ’24; flutist and piccoloist Catherine Payne ’87 Tufts/NEC, ’91 MM; clarinetist Matthew Griffith ’16 MM, ’18 GD; bass trombonist Christopher Bassett ’16, ’17 MM; and timpanist Edward Stephan ’01 MM.
Additional Best Opera Recording nominations include the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera Chorus for recordings of Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas and Kevin Puts’s The Hours. NEC alumni who contributed to these recordings include violinists Qianwen Angela Shen ’14 MM, ’16 GD, Jeremías Sergiani-Velázquez ’14, Yiliang Jiang ’19, ’21 MM, ’23 GD, and Katherine T. Fong ’98, and violist William Frampton ’08.
Violinist Kobi Malkin ’12 and double-bassist Nathaniel Chase ’08 recorded with the Experiential Orchestra, which was nominated in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category along with Curtis J. Stewart and James Blachly for a recording of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.
Andrew Bulbrook, who attended NEC Preparatory School in 1997, was a featured violinist on The Beatles’ Now and Then album, which received nominations for Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance.
NEC was well represented in the Best Choral Performance category. Soprano Amanda Forsythe ’01 MM and violinist Susanna Perry Gilmore ’95 MM are both featured on a recording by Jeannette Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire of Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Maren Montalbano Brehm ’97 Tufts/NEC and Rebecca Myers ’01 MM appear on Orchre, a recording by Donald Nally and The Crossing, which includes former Expanded Education student Barbara Hill. Matthew Guard’s Clear Voices in the Dark was nominated in the Best Choral Performance and Best Engineered Album, Classical categories. The album features the Skylark Vocal Ensemble, which includes mezzo-soprano Carrie Cheron ’02 MM and soprano Sarah Moyer ’11 MM. Rounding out the Best Choral Performance category, the album A Dream So Bright: Choral Music Of Jake Runestad features numerous NEC alumni including Myers and Moyer, altos Catherine Hedberg ’95 and Thea Lobo ’05, tenor Matthew Anderson ’05 MM, bassist Elijah Blaisdell ’14 MM, and percussionist Fred Morgan ’06 MM.
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s live recording of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 and Mason Bates’s Resurrexit, conducted by Manfred Honeck, was nominated in the Best Engineered Album, Classical category. The recording features several NEC alumni, including violinists Kelsey Blumenthal ’14 MM, Boxianzi Vivian Ling ’23 MM, and Yingchen Zhang ’16, ’18 MM, ’20 GD; violist Andrew Wickesberg ’06 MM; cellist Charlie Powers ’01; double-bassist Nicholas Myers ’16; and trombonist James Nova ’98 MM.
Nine musicians with connections to NEC received nods for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album: Beyond The Years: Unpublished Songs of Florence Price was co-produced by Tamara Acosta ’92 MM; Show Me The Way, featuring soloist Will Liverman and pianist Jonathan King includes a performance by cellist Tahirah Whittington ’98; and A Change Is Gonna Come featuring soloist Nicholas Phan and the Palaver Strings includes contributions from violinists Bree Fotheringham ’23 MM, Grant Houston ’20, ’23 MM, ’24 GD, Kate Knudsvig ’23 MM, Abby Swidler ’14 MM, violist Lysander Jaffe ’20 MM, double-bassist Nate Martin ’13 MM, and vocalist and CMA faculty member Farayi Malek ’17.
In the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category, Carrie Cheron ’02 MM, Christina English ’07 MM, and Rebecca Myers ’01 MM contributed as vocalists to a recording by Beth Willer, Christopher Cerrone, and the Lorelei Ensemble of Cerrone’s Beaufort Scales.
Additionally, violists Meena Bhasin ’07 Tufts/NEC, Dana Kelley ’14 MM, and cellist Michael Katz ’03, received nominations in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition category for their performances as members of Decoda on a recording of Revelry by composer Valerie Coleman, NEC’s 2024 Malcolm Peyton Artist-in-Residence.
