Performances + Events
Your Impact at NEC
Your gift to NEC has a profound and lasting impact on students dedicated to creating meaningful lives through music.
Thank you for making the unparalleled NEC experience possible!
Your Impact at NEC
Your gift to NEC has a profound and lasting impact by supporting:
- Financial aid for more than 90% of NEC students
- Over 400 internationally-esteemed College and Prep faculty members
- NEC’s new Integrative Curriculum that emphasizes project-based learning, collaboration, and experimentation so our students can create the future of music as artistic leaders, difference makers, and community builders
- Masterclasses and residencies featuring world-renowned musical guests annually
- Partnerships with 119 organizations in the greater Boston community and beyond
- Individual advising and career coaching to incubate new creative work and encourage artistic exploration and innovation
- Opportunities to engage with 119+ community partners across the Boston area through robust, meaningful performances and teaching fellowship programs
Thank you for making the unparalleled NEC experience possible!
After NEC
Student Stories
You Inspire NEC Students
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Haoyu Zheng ’24, Composition and Contemporary Musical Arts
An aspiring film composer, Haoyu Zheng chose to double major in Composition and Contemporary Musical Arts. Making the most of his time at NEC, he earned a minor in music theory and a concentration in music technology while serving as a teaching fellow through NEC’s Community Performances and Partnerships program at Orchard Gardens K-8 School in Roxbury. Haoyu is grateful for the supportive learning environment at NEC and the opportunities to connect personally with notable alumni like Conrad Pope ’73 and his Grammy-award-winning alumni mentor, Stephanie Economou ’12. Haoyu is a recipient of the Tan Family Foundation Scholarship.
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Masanobu Pires, Prep, Piano
Masanobu Pires brings enthusiastic energy to everything he does. He began studying piano at NEC Prep with Bianca Oglice in 2019, shortly before the pandemic emerged. When lessons became virtual, it did nothing to dampen his spirit or his music. Masanobu won First Place in the NEC Prep Concerto Competition in May 2022. He is one of four winners of the Musicale “Outstanding Young Artist Award,” selected from close to 1,000 young pianists worldwide who competed in the Musicale Festivals throughout the pandemic. He has won three Gold Prizes at the Musicale Music Festivals and numerous top prizes at competitions in the U.S. and internationally. Eriko Pires, Masanobu’s mother, shared that “without generous support from the NEC Prep community, we as parents cannot support the music education that benefits him and helps him grow as a musician.”
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Lexine Feng ’24, Cello
Lexine Feng is an award-winning cellist. One of the determining factors in her choice to attend NEC was the chance to study with cello faculty member Laurence Lesser. Reflecting on her time here, Lexine notes, “NEC has opened up such a wide range of musical opportunities and possibilities for me to explore, and I have gained so much insight, progressed as a musician, and established many great relationships and connections with peers and teachers.” Lexine is the recipient of a scholarship made possible by the Gregor Piatigorsky Fund.
After NEC
Faculty Stories
You Empower NEC Faculty
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James Markey, Faculty
In 2012, James Markey came to Boston to join the Boston Symphony Orchestra as bass trombonist and to join the faculty at NEC. He currently serves on the trombone faculty and as a Suzuki Trombone and Suzuki Class Instructor with NEC Prep. James keeps a full schedule in Boston and around the country as a featured artist and educator. His teaching experience spans a wide range of ages and levels, and it is clear from how James interacts with students that he finds joy from sharing his knowledge and music with others. He regularly posts videos on social media explaining technique or fundamentals like embouchure and breathing, and also shares performances and practice challenges. James has cultivated a community of passionate musicians of all ages that share in his enthusiasm.
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Ayano Ninomiya, Faculty
Award-winning violinist Ayano Ninomiya joined the NEC faculty in 2015. A former student at NEC Prep, she was excited to join this community again. “NEC is unique in that everyone here is a treasure trove of wisdom and experience. Everybody comes with such a drive and commitment to music, and to excellence,” she said. Like her colleagues throughout NEC, Ayano guides her students to reach their artistic potential as well as to develop their own unique creative voices. She describes NEC as “a supportive and inspirational community, where students can grow as people and as musicians.” In a 2012 TEDx talk at the University of Tokyo, she described how her thoughts about being a performer have changed over time. She now believes that the goal of a live performance is to connect with her audience by taking the notes on the page and making them “come alive.” Ayano shares this passion for connection in her teaching, and helps students to learn how to communicate through their music.
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Andrew Schartmann, Faculty
Andrew Schartmann, a faculty member in Music Theory and Interdisciplinary Studies, is helping to develop new innovative courses and curriculum that are student-centered. He explained the importance of this approach, “I believe in the complete musician—not just a performer, or composer, or musicologist. One ideal of music education is to integrate experience and intuition with learning, and we need to teach in ways that support this process for students instead of leaving them to do that work on their own.” A spirit of innovation is a defining characteristic of Andrew’s career. His own interests span a diverse range of musical topics from classical composers to video game scores. Among his publications is a 2015 book, Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack, and he has collaborated on several technology projects, including NADIA, a mobile app based on research in music perception that immerses students in the fundamentals of music theory through gamified lessons. NADIA has been used with students in NEC Prep.
After NEC
Program Stories
You Enrich NEC Programs
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The Integrative Curriculum
NEC’s Integrative Curriculum introduces courses that teach multiple skills across disciplines in various formats, drawing together the many strands of a conservatory education in new and dynamic ways. Music history, analysis, entrepreneurship, composition, performance—all are essential to the 21st-century musician. In this interconnected, applied-learning model, NEC supports and nurtures each student’s artistic voice and professional development, equipping them with a comprehensive range of core musical and management skills. The result: NEC students graduate as holistic musicians with the tools to make a transformative artistic and social impact on their careers— and on the world.
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Expanded Education
Unleashing the power of music extends beyond the boundaries of our campus and the enrollment of our full-time students. Expanded Education initiatives embody the growth and reimagining of NEC’s Preparatory School, adult, summer, and digital learning programs in service to NEC’s commitment to music for all. Through innovative programming and approaches to teaching music, Expanded Education offers students of all ages a diverse range of experiences and the opportunity to explore and enhance their study of music. Those opportunities include new NEC programming, summer courses, and individual lessons.
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Community Performances and Partnerships
NEC’s Community Performances and Partnerships (CPP) Program has been recognized as a trailblazer for more than 19 years. It is one of the nation’s premier programs for connecting conservatory students with their communities through meaningful partnerships and high-quality community engagement training. NEC students who participate in the CPP Program benefit from exploring what it means to be a musician living in and contributing to community life within an atmosphere of personal attention, supportive mentoring, professional development, and experiential learning.
