Performances + Events
Performances + Events
NEC requires tickets for each concert in Jordan Hall for the 2025-26 season. Tickets can be obtained digitally on each individual event page only.
Visit the Box Office for everything you need to know about attending a performance at NEC.
Looking for the program for an upcoming concert? Click the relevant button below. Please note that 2025 programs are coming soon!
Performances + Events
Not seeing the event you’re looking for? Follow the link below for an alternative performances and events listing, which includes live stream information.
Events calendar
NEC Festival: NEC Symphony + David Loebel – Schuller and Stravinsky’s Firebird
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.
Recital: Bowen Li '25 MM, Piano
Williams Hall
NEC's students meet one-on-one each week with a faculty artist to perfect their craft. As each one leaves NEC to make their mark in the performance world, they present a full, professional recital that is free and open to the public. It's your first look at the artists of tomorrow. Bowen Li '25 MM studies Piano with
Discussion with Cristi Catt: The Life and Work of Ella Jenkins
Eben Jordan Ensemble Room
This talk celebrates the life and music of Ella Jenkins, pioneering musician, educator, and cultural ambassador often referred to as “The First Lady of Children’s Music.” Through seven decades of performing, recording, and teaching, Jenkins transformed what children’s music could be, deeply rooted in African American traditions, globally inclusive, and radically particip…
Panel Discussion: Gunther Schuller and Jazz
Eben Jordan Ensemble Room
Join us for a discussion with Carl Atkins, Fred Hersch, George Schuller, and Ken Schaphorst about the creation of the first fully accredited jazz studies program in a conservatory at NEC in 1969, along with a reflection on Schuller’s personal involvement in jazz as a conductor, composer, and performer.
Composer Celka Ojakangas Discussion
SB G01
Join us for a conversation with composer Celka Ojakangas, the winner of the Gunther Schuller Centennial Third Stream Composition Contest. Ojakangas’s music plays with hybridism and recontextualization, intentionally exploring and blurring the boundaries between culturally-defined genres for a resultant fun and eclectic palette of textures, rhythms, and grooves. Themes that will be di…
NEC Festival: Jazz Without Borders – Schuller’s Bold Experiment at NEC
Jordan Hall
The NEC Jazz Orchestra reflects on the 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
NEC Opera: Jonathan Dove’s “Flight”
Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre
Jonathan Dove’s Flight lands at NEC with four nights of brilliant, high-energy opera that turns the chaos of an airport delay into an unforgettable comedy. Filled with wit, heart, and soaring music, this production brings to life one of the most captivating contemporary operas of our time.
NEC Festival: Piano Seminar – The Legacy of Gunther Schuller with Fred Hersch
Keller Room
For this seminar, Fred Hersch will join the discussion. This seminar is part of the NEC Festival, which will celebrate the legacy of Gunther Schuller, president of NEC between 1967 and 1977 with a week-long series of concerts and discussions. In addition to reflecting on his work as a composer, conductor and scholar, the legacy of Gunther Schuller’s influence on NEC will be demonstra…
Brahms Horn Trio Master Class: Christopher O’Riley, Joel Smirnoff, and Richard Todd
Williams Hall
A unique master class focusing on the Brahms Horn Trio and Gunther Schuller presented by renowned artists Joel Smirnoff, violin, Christopher O’Riley, piano and Richard Todd, horn. One of Schuller’s last projects was to record this monumental chamber work in a definitive version. He recruited these three artists to realize his vision and together they worked through the music …
Piano Master Class: Fred Hersch
Williams Hall
A member of jazz’s piano pantheon, Fred Hersch has been an influential creative force over more than three decades as an improviser, composer, educator, bandleader, collaborator, and recording artist. He has been proclaimed “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade” by Vanity Fair and “a living legend” by The New Yorker.&#…
