Performances + Events
Joseph Bozich will need no introduction to New England Conservatory when he enrolls this fall in the Orchestral Conducting program. In order to become a full-time Graduate Diploma candidate, Bozich recently stepped away from the faculty position he’d held since 2021in NEC’s Music Theory Department.
Bozich earned a master-of-music degree in orchestral conducting from the University of Michigan in 2015 and has held conducting fellowships at the Aspen Music Festival and School, Grafenegg Festival, and Eastern Music Festival, has led ensembles in the United States and China, and has served as assistant conductor of Opera Maine, Opera Neo, the Hungarian State Opera, and the Pittsburgh Festival Opera. He’s the artistic advisor and assistant conductor of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra.
For Bozich, enrolling in NEC’s Orchestral Conducting program is a reflection of deep curiosity and a scholarly approach to the craft.
“As much as I’m working in the profession, there’s a lot more I would like to accomplish ,” he said, adding, “there are a few skills I’d like to bolster.”
He’ll do that at NEC under the tutelage of faculty conductor Stefan Asbury, whom Bozich described as a “fantastic teacher and pedagogue.”
“I’m very excited to work with him,” Bozich said. The attraction of the program, he continued, is that “it’s performance-focused” and small in terms of the number of conductors enrolled.
When he takes the podium to lead an ensemble through a piece of music, Bozich aspires to “measure up to the combined knowledge of everyone in that room.”
“You need to know the piece as well as any individual involved knows it,” he said.
That appetite for scholarship was in evidence in April, when on his faculty recital Bozich conducted a program that included the U.S. premiere of Sibelius’s only opera. His personal discovery of the work came as a result of watching the British quiz show University Challenge with his wife, soprano Maria Bozich (née Kerlee) ’17, ’19 MM, ’20 GD, and double-bassist Eddie Kass ’13, ’15 MM. The pertinent question asked on the program was about composers who wrote only one opera. “Sibelius has an opera?” Bozich asked himself.
His research led to confirmation that the work, Jungfrun i tornet (The Maiden in the Tower), hadn’t been performed in the United States.
“That any work of a composer of Jean Sibelius’s stature can be given its American premiere in 2025 is a fact almost unbelievable,” Bozich’s program note reads.
Jungfrun i tornet was composed and premiered in 1896 but ultimately set aside by Sibelius, who didn’t think it was worthy of further performance.
“Revisiting the work,” Bozich wrote in his program notes, “one can understand Sibelius’s reticence for its revival, but also disagree with his decision to shelve it entirely. The text, written in Sibelius’s native Finland-Swedish by Rafael Herzberg, leaves much to be desired in either poetic or dramatic conceit … As a piece of concert music, however, the composition survives quite well … the music is serious and compelling, and worth hearing and enjoying live.”
Bozich’s faculty recital, which featured NEC students and alumni — including his wife, Maria, as the Maiden in Jungfrun — as well as guest artists, also included a performance of Rossini’s Overture to Eduardo e Cristina and the world premiere of Bozich’s “scene for viola and orchestra,” From the Valley of Dry Bones, with soloist and current NEC student Philip Rawlinson ’25. Indeed, Bozich is also a composer — though, he said, “I never wanted composing to be the only thing I do, musically. I have always wanted to be a performer, as well.”
A pianist and saxophonist who’s mostly performed 20th century solo repertoire on the latter instrument, Bozich studied conducting “out of a love of the symphonic repertoire and a desire to be a part of bringing these incredible pieces to life.”
This fall, he’ll spend quite a bit of time on the podium, sharing his enthusiasm for music with ensembles and audiences alike, and sharing with prospective students the value of gaining further knowledge and experience in any endeavor.
