Jazz

When she first arrived on NEC's campus, accomplished jazz clarinetist and recent graduate Jahnvi Madan ’24 had never composed a piece of music before. Remarkably, just a few years later, she became the youngest musician to be commissioned by Seattle's Earshot Jazz to create a new original composition for its 2023 Festival. As an Indian-American woman who grew up seeing very little representation of herself in media, especially in the arts, Jahnvi embeds her identity and experiences into her music — and her compositions are resonating widely.

Whether performing with the Gospel Ensemble, hosting events for the Center for Cultural Equity and Belonging, or songwriting with this spring's electronic-inspired CMA Honors Ensemble, redbird, Yifei Zhou ’22, ’24 MM has been deeply engrained within NEC's community since her first undergraduate semester. Having just graduated with her Master of Music, she reflects on her musical growth at NEC and the people and experiences that shaped this formative time.

NEC alumni ​​Yoon-Ji Lee ’06 MM, ’07 GD and Nicole Rampersaud ’06 MM were awarded 2024 Guggenheim Fellowships in the “Music Composition” category, announced on April 11. Lee and Rampersaud are two of 14 composers among the list of 188 total artists, scholars, and scientists selected for the honor by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

New England Conservatory’s Jazz Studies Department has appointed Grammy Award-winning trombonist and composer Kalia Vandever to its faculty beginning in the fall of 2024.