Performances + Events
Flutist Mimi Stillman, an internationally acclaimed solo, chamber, and recording artist, will return to NEC Preparatory School for a special tribute performance of Cécile Chaminade’s Concertino for Flute and Orchestra to celebrate the memory of Daniel Riley. Stillman, a Brookline native, studied at NEC Prep with Riley, a flutist, who conducted her in a performance of Chaminade’s Concertino with the Senior Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble when she was an NEC Prep student. Soon thereafter, Stillman enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music.
“Without Dan’s teaching and the important foundation he gave me I never would have been able to win the audition at Curtis when I was 12,” Stillman said.
Last year, Ms. Stillman reached out to Allison Lacasse, assistant conductor of NEC Prep’s three Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensembles, hoping to honor Riley, who died in 2022.
“I’ve known Mimi for probably 15 years,” said Lacasse, who met Stillman when she was a guest artist at the Kingston Chamber Music Festival in Rhode Island. Stillman, Lacasse said, “took an interest in me because I was a flute player.”
On May 16, Stillman will give master classes at rehearsals of the three MYWEs — the Junior Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble, Senior Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble, and Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble Concert Band — “offering them the unique opportunity to work with an internationally renowned artist and distinguished pedagogue who once sat in their seat,” NEC Prep Director Sean Buchsbaum said. On May 19, Stillman will perform the Chaminade Concertino with the Senior MYWE.
“We’ve been rehearsing it throughout the spring term,” Lacasse said, adding that a student of NEC faculty flutist Paula Robison has been helping the ensemble prepare. “Anna Ridenour ’25 has been coming in and playing the solo line with the wind ensemble to continue to help the kids prepare for Mimi’s arrival,” Lacasse said. Ridenour was a manager of the Senior MYWE last year.
“This is really unique,” Lacasse said. “I’ve been connected to MYWE since 2018 and we’ve never had a guest artist come in and solo with the groups.”
“We are thrilled to welcome Mimi Stillman back to NEC,” Buchsbaum said. “As an alumna of both NEC Prep wind ensembles and orchestras, it is truly a full-circle moment to have her return as a featured soloist with the Senior Massachusetts Youth Wind Ensemble.”
“I’m delighted to have this opportunity to work with the MYWE musicians honoring the memory and legacy of my esteemed teacher,” Stillman said.
Stillman is hailed by the New York Times as “not only a consummate and charismatic performer, but also a scholar. Her programs tend to activate ear, heart, and brain.” Renowned for her “exquisite purity of sound and depth of emotion” (Diario de Yucatán), she has appeared as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra and “The President’s Own” Marine Chamber Orchestra, among other ensembles, and at such venues as Carnegie Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, National Sawdust, the Verbier Festival (Switzerland), and Kol HaMusica (Israel). She is the founding artistic director of Philadelphia-based Dolce Suono Ensemble, and is an artist in residence at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance. At age 12, Stillman was the youngest wind player ever admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music where she studied with the legendary Julius Baker.
Learn more about NEC Prep, which is celebrating 75 years of service to the community.
From left: Daniel Riley, Mimi Stillman, age 11, and Boston Symphony Orchestra principal piccolo player, Lois Schaefer, with whom Stillman also studied
