NEC Festival Pays Tribute to Gunther Schuller’s Enduring Influence

New England Conservatory presents the weeklong festival Jumpin’ in the Future: The Legacy of Gunther Schuller from November 15 to November 22, 2025. The festival celebrates the centennial of the late composer, educator, conductor, and NEC president and spotlights the next generation of musical artists through performances and discussions at whose core is the fearless innovation and revolutionary spirit Schuller brought to NEC, and which continues to this day. Guest artists include pianists Christopher O’Riley and Fred Hersch ’77, violinist Joel Smirnoff, French horn player Richard Todd, the Gramercy Trio, Marimolin, bassist Ed Schuller, drummer George Schuller ’82, Carl Atkins, and more.

A MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize winner, Schuller began a decade as president of NEC in 1967 establishing the first fully accredited Jazz Studies Department at an American conservatory and launching the Third Stream Department, now the Contemporary Musical Arts Department. His revolutionary vision of musical artistry and education embraced cross-cultural dialogue including music from all corners of the globe.

“Nothing like that had ever existed,” NEC Dean and Chief Artistic Officer Hank Mou said. “Gunther Schuller fostered collaborations between artists who hadn’t previously worked together and in doing so laid the groundwork for the creation of entirely new musical languages.” 

“Gunther Schuller was the ultimate musical polyglot, breaking down boundaries between genres and inspiring future generations to embrace the full spectrum of artistic expression,” NEC Jazz Studies Department Chair Ken Schaphorst said. “NEC was transformed by his inclusive and forward-looking approach to education. And I’m looking forward to celebrating Gunther’s legacy with the NEC community.”

The festival recognizes Schuller’s enduring, outsized influence on NEC faculty, students, alumni, and the global music community. In celebrating his legacy, the Conservatory looks to a future that builds on his example of breaking barriers and bringing together once-disparate artistic voices. “While tradition certainly informs our direction,” Conservatory President Andrea Kalyn said, “that direction moves forever forward. NEC is singular in its historically proactive exploration of what music education can and should look and sound like.”

Jumpin’ in the Future: The Legacy of Gunther Schuller

Prep 75: Anniversary Celebration Concert
Saturday, November 15 | 6:00 p.m. | Jordan Hall

The celebration of NEC Preparatory School’s 75th Anniversary includes a performance of Gunther Schuller’s Music for a Celebration, as well as Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy and James P. Johnson’s Victory Stride.

Chamber Music + Sonatas: Schuller and the Spirit of Collaboration
Monday, November 17 | 7:30 pm | Jordan Hall

This special evening of chamber music looks at Gunther Schuller the composer through his works, the composers who influenced him, and composers who drew inspiration from him. In Schuller’s collaborative spirit, students and faculty from multiple departments share the same stage in performances that include three works by Schuller, including his Quartet for Double Basses, the third movement of his Piano Trio, and his Sonata for Oboe and Piano, as well as the second movement of Charles Ives’s Piano Trio, Arnold Schoenberg’s Phantasy for Violin and Piano, and Ethan Iverson’s Clarinet Sextet, with Iverson on piano.
 
Contemporary Musical Arts Today: A Global Vision Realized
Tuesday, November 18 | 7:30 p.m. | Jordan Hall

The Contemporary Musical Arts Department celebrates Gunther Schuller’s 100th birthday with a concert focusing on how his daringly inclusive musical and educational vision transformed NEC into a global artistic musical scene. Schuller’s legacy, carried forward from the 1970s through the early 2000s by the department’s emeritus chair, Ran Blake, still informs the department’s rich intercultural musical dialog nearly 60 years after Schuller became president, and has become a primary template for innovation in musical creativity worldwide. This program, produced by current Chair Eden MacAdam-Somer and former Co-chair and current advisor Hankus Netsky, features performances by CMA students and faculty drawing on sources that have inspired CMA students throughout the department’s history, including American Roots music, early jazz, Yiddish song, film noir, traditional and original music from Central Asia, the Middle East, China, and Haiti, and selections from the repertoires of Billie Holiday, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk, Joe Maneri, and Miles Davis. 

NEC Symphony + David Loebel: Schuller and Stravinsky’s Firebird
Wednesday, November 19 | 7:30 p.m. | Jordan Hall

Among Gunther Schuller’s many important contributions to our musical life was his passionate advocacy of American music of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Composers of that era whom he championed include Charles Ives, Scott Joplin, John Knowles Paine, and one of his predecessors as the leader of NEC, George Whitefield Chadwick. David Loebel and Clancy Ellis ’26 GD conduct the NEC Symphony in a program featuring Chadwick’s “Jubilee” from Symphonic Sketches, Strauss’s Overture to Die Fledermaus, Stravinsky’s Suite from The Firebird, Gunther Schuller’s arrangement of Joplin’s Overture to Treemonisha, and Schuller’s best-known orchestral composition, Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee.

Jazz Without Borders: Schuller’s Bold Experiment at NEC
Thursday, November 20 | 7:30 pm | Jordan Hall
 
The NEC Jazz Orchestra reflects on Gunther Schuller’s role in creating the first fully accredited jazz studies program in a conservatory, performing Schuller’s “Jumpin’ in the Future,” Ellington’s “Reminiscing in Tempo,” George Russell’s All About Rosie, and Mehmet Sanlıkol’s “Temmuz.” Guests include Fred Hersch ’77, George Schuller ’82, and Carl Atkins, who was hired by Schuller as the first Jazz Studies Department chair.

Piano Seminar: The Legacy of Gunther Schuller
Friday, November 21 | 10 a.m. | Keller Room

NEC faculty member Bruce Brubaker and others play recordings and discuss Schuller’s broad impact.  

Of Reminiscences and Reflections: Celebrating Gunther Schuller’s 100th Birthday
Friday, November 21 | 7:00 p.m. Pre-Concert Short Videos | Keller Room
8:00 p.m. Concert | Jordan Hall

This special event includes live performances, recorded audio, projected images, and commentary featuring Gunther Schuller, Charles Peltz, Hankus Netsky, David Amram, and others, celebrating the deep effect Schuller had on numerous musicians and the path of 20th and 21st century music. The concert features performances by pianists Ran Blake, Fred Hersch ’77, Randall Hodgkinson ’76, ’80 MM, ’82 AD, and Christopher O’Riley ’81 AD; vocalist Dominique Eade; violinist Joel Smirnoff; French horn player Richard Todd; the Gramercy Trio with violinist Sharan Leventhal, cellist Jonathan Miller, and Hodgkinson; the duo Marimolin featuring marimbist Nancy Zeltsman ’82 and Leventhal; bassist Ed Schuller; and drummer George Schuller ’82. In addition, Ken Schaphorst will lead members of the NEC Philharmonia in a performance of Celka Ojakangas’ composition Sploopy, which won the Gunther Schuller Centennial Third Stream Composition Contest. Music by Johannes Brahms, Denzil Best, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, and Schuller will also be performed. This event is co-sponsored by NEC and The Gunther Schuller Society. 

Faculty Recital: Kenneth Radnofsky
Saturday, November 22 | 8:00 p.m. | Burnes Hall

Saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky gave the world premiere of Schuller’s Saxophone Concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and made his Carnegie Hall debut with the New York premiere of the piece, with both performances conducted by the composer. On the day of Gunther Schuller’s 100th birthday, Radnofsky honors the person who appointed him to the NEC faculty with a program that also serves as his personal tribute.