Performances + Events
Institute for Concert Artists Recital: Clayton Stephenson, Piano
Jordan Hall
Performers in this highly selective two-year program pursue the Conservatory’s prestigious Artist Diploma through recital and showcase concerts and with the support of a full-tuition scholarship and stipend, dedicated mentorship, and comprehensive career-development guidance.
Clayton Stephenson ’23 NEC/Harvard, ’27 AD, Piano studies Piano with Wha Kyung Byun and is the recipient of a scholarship made possible by the Saj-nicole A. Joni Founding Endowment for the Institute for Concert Artists.
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Artist(s)
Clayton Stephenson, Piano
American pianist and NEC Concert Artist Clayton Stephenson ’23 NEC/Harvard, ’27 AD has a love for music that is immediately apparent in his joyous charisma onstage, expressive power, and natural ease at the instrument. Hailed for “extraordinary narrative and poetic gifts” and interpretations that are “fresh, incisive and characterfully alive” (Gramophone), he is committed to making an impact on the world through his music-making.
Stephenson grew up in New York City, started piano lessons at age 7, and the next year was accepted into The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program — a full scholarship program for disadvantaged students — where he lingered to watch student recitals and fell in love with music. Stephenson practiced on a synthesizer at home until he found an old upright piano on the street. For the next six years, that would be his practice piano, until, at age 17, he received a new piano from the Lang Lang Foundation.
Stephenson credits the generous support of community programs that provided him with musical inspiration and resources along the way. As he describes it, the “Third Street Music School jump-started my music education; the Young People’s Choir taught me phrasing and voicing; Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program introduced me to formal and rigorous piano training, which enabled me to get into Juilliard Pre-College; the Morningside Music Bridge validated my talent and elevated my self-confidence; the Boy’s Club of New York exposed me to jazz; and the Lang Lang Foundation brought me to stages worldwide and transformed me from a piano student to a young artist.”
Recent seasons have included concerto performances with the Houston, North Carolina, Virginia, and Cincinnati symphonies; festival appearances at Grand Teton, Grant Park, and Tippet Rise; recitals at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the 92nd Street Y in New York City; and gala performances with the New York and Las Vegas philharmonics. He served as the 2024-25 artist-in-residence at the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights of his 2025-26 season include performances with the Cincinnati Philadelphia, and Sarasota orchestras, the symphonies of Nashville and Portland, Maine, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and the Boston Pops Orchestra. He will give recitals at the Jacobins Festival (Toulouse, France), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), and Crystal Bridges Museum (Arkansas) and will conclude his season in spring 2026 on tour with the Stuttgart Philharmonic in Italy.
Stephenson graduated from the Harvard/New England Conservatory dual degree program in spring 2023 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard and a Master of Music degree in piano performance from NEC, where he studied with Wha Kyung Byun. In addition to being the first Black finalist at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, he received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2024, won the inaugural Nina Simone Piano Competition that year, and received the Sphinx Organization’s Sphinx Medal of Excellence in 2025.
