Performances + Events
From left: Conrad Pope, Wendy Shattuck, Michael Tilson Thomas (photo by Brigitte Lacombe), Chad Smith (photo by Kayana Szymczak), and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu
Smith to serve as Commencement Speaker at May 18 Ceremony
BOSTON — New England Conservatory (NEC) today announced this year’s Commencement speaker and five honorary degree recipients for the 154th graduation exercises on May 18 in NEC’s Jordan Hall.
President and CEO of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Chad Smith ’95 NEC/Tufts,’98 MM will be the featured speaker and receive an honorary doctor of music degree; City of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu; maestro Michael Tilson Thomas; film scoring great Conrad Pope ’73; and life trustee Wendy Shattuck ’75 will all receive honorary doctor of music degrees. Brian McCreath ’90 MM will be the alumni speaker. Marvin E. Gilmore, Jr. ’51, ’24 hon. DM received an honorary degree at a ceremony in October.
“We are thrilled to honor Chad Smith, City of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Michael Tilson Thomas, Conrad Pope, and Wendy Shattuck as part of NEC’s 154th Commencement,” NEC President Andrea Kalyn said. “Each of these honorees stands as a powerful example of how music can be transformative and open doors to endless possibilities. We look forward to celebrating their impact on the performing arts and in our communities, and to sharing their inspirational stories as we continue to expand NEC’s reach and impact in Boston and beyond.”
“Music presents endless opportunities to inspire, comfort, and challenge audiences in ways inaccessible through other art forms,” said Chad Smith. “But its power of renewal requires the act of creative regeneration by young and emerging musicians. I was one of those musicians 30 years ago, when I walked across the NEC stage, a newly minted graduate of the NEC/Tufts program. It was that time in Boston, at the Conservatory, in its practice rooms and on its stages, that set me on the career path I have followed – followed all the way back to Boston and the BSO, and the remarkable musical, cultural and intellectual community which inspired me so many years ago. There is no musical community like NEC, with the most talented young musicians and faculty from across the world. I am honored to be speaking at this year’s graduation, as I have been honored to serve NEC as a trustee during this time of expansion, change, and innovation.”
“The performing arts have been a powerful part of my life since I was a child and have shaped my determination as a public official working to make Boston a home for everyone,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said. “New England Conservatory has been making Boston a home for the arts for over 150 years, and I’m deeply honored to receive an honorary degree from NEC alongside this distinguished group that includes friends and heroes of mine. I’m grateful for NEC’s continuous efforts to support every generation of musicians from all backgrounds and communities. Music education has the potential to create pathways for students beyond just artistry, and the City of Boston is proud to partner with NEC on delivering classes in our public schools and scholarship opportunities for all students in our communities.”
About Chad Smith
Over more than 20 years of service, Chad Smith has dramatically altered the landscape of classical music and music education. Through curated festivals and programs that unite disparate forms of music and art, he has set a new and aspirational standard for what an orchestra should be in the 21st century. Smith is currently the Julian and Eunice Cohen President and CEO of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), which he has led since 2023; he has previously served as president and CEO of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil).
Smith made major investments in the BSO’s artistic future by extending Music Director Andris Nelsons’s contract indefinitely and naming him head of conducting at the Tanglewood Music Center. He also deepened the BSO’s partnerships with Boston’s community of universities and nonprofits, including media partners GBH/CRB and WBUR, and cultural partners Boston Ballet, Boston Lyric Opera, and Project STEP. A longtime advocate for new music and emerging composers, Smith established the Deborah and Philip Edmundson Composer Chair position. The inaugural chair, Carlos Simon, began his three-year term in fall 2024.
A former fellow at Tanglewood, Smith carries on his longstanding dedication to training and supporting the next generation of artists and cultivating an inquisitive audience. In 2024, Smith and the BSO announced the Boston Symphony Orchestra Humanities Institute to advance this goal. Inspired by the foundational work that began in 2019 with the opening of the Linde Center for Music and Learning and the launch of the Tanglewood Learning Institute, the BSO Humanities Institute will present a platform of offerings that will contextualize and enhance the orchestra’s musical offerings with lectures, exhibitions, and other programming rooted in an exploration of the humanities. Also this year, Smith and the BSO expanded the Susan W. and Stephen D. Paine Resident Fellows Program, which presents rising musicians from historically underrepresented backgrounds with valuable professional experience at a crucial time in their careers.
Smith’s tenure in Boston builds on his two decades of experience at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he climbed the ranks from a junior programming position to CEO of the institution — a position he held from 2019 to 2023. In his time at the LA Phil, Smith worked alongside Music Directors Esa-Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel to expand the orchestra’s programming and commissioning of new music, create highly successful community education initiatives such as the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), and establish the institution as America’s most vibrant orchestra. He also oversaw the development of the Beckmen YOLA Center and the management of The Ford Theater.
A graduate of Tufts University and a double graduate of New England Conservatory, Smith has served as an NEC trustee since 2017. He also serves on the executive committee of the Avery Fisher Prize.
About Boston Mayor Michelle Wu
Michelle Wu is the first woman and first person of color to be elected Mayor of Boston. The daughter of immigrants, a Boston Public Schools mom, and an MBTA rider, Mayor Wu first began playing piano at the age of four to accompany her mother while she sang. Since then, she has always found a home in front of the keys—growing up playing background music at parties to earn some spending money; becoming the first mayor to move a piano into her office at City Hall; and now treasuring the chance to watch her own two boys discover the joys of learning an instrument.
Mayor Wu has played alongside youth choirs at the North End Music & Performing Arts Center’s 20th Anniversary and the Boston Children’s Chorus’s MLK Tribute Concert, where she made her debut at Symphony Hall. She joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as the soloist for the Andante movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 and accompanied the Embrace Choir at Embrace Boston’s inaugural Juneteenth Concert. Last year, she joined internationally acclaimed classical pianist Lang Lang for a duet at Boston Arts Academy; the next day, she played at Symphony Hall for the third time at the BSO’s Concert for the City, performing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.
Mayor Wu’s deep connection to the arts and mission to make Boston a home for everyone has led to the creation of Gold Hall, the first permanent space for the Black arts institution Castle of our Skins; the preservation of the Humphreys Streets Studios in Dorchester and Charlestown Rehearsal Studios, where hundreds of artists and musicians can continue to practice, collaborate, and develop their craft; and the transformation of the former Beasley Media Group building into rehearsal rooms and recording studios for displaced artists and musicians.
Under Mayor Wu’s leadership, the City has invested millions to support musical programming throughout Boston, from the BAMS Fest in Franklin Park to a dozen free music events on City Hall Plaza — including the GLD FSTVL to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop — since its reopening in 2023. As part of the City’s Connect, Learn, Explore program, Boston has partnered with such institutions as the BSO, Community Music Center of Boston, MGM Music Hall, and New England Conservatory to make sure that every BPS student has cost-free opportunities to learn an instrument and cultivate a love of the arts.
This year, Mayor Wu announced an expansion to Boston Family Days so school-age children and their families can attend free shows and concerts at leading performing arts institutions across Boston, including the Boston Lyric Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The first Boston Family Days show at the BSO will take place in May.
About Marvin E. Gilmore, Jr.
Marvin Gilmore is a humanitarian, entrepreneur, political advisor, honored World War II veteran, musician, and family man. Gilmore was a co-founder of the Unity Bank and Trust Company in Roxbury in the late ’60s, the first Black-owned and operated commercial bank in Boston.
Later, he served on the Low Income Housing Commission. For 42 years, Gilmore served as resident and CEO of The Community Development Corporation of Boston (CDC).
Gilmore was a primary force in Boston’s most crucial urban development projects of the Southwest Corridor, Roxbury, and the South End, and under his leadership, the CDC took many run-down properties and turned them into successful examples
of urban revitalization.
Battalion, which stormed Normandy, Utah, and Omaha beaches on D-Day, 1944, remaining in Europe for five years. On January 15, 2010, by a decree signed by the president of the French Republic, Marvin E. Gilmore Jr. was named “Chevalier” of The Legion of Honor — and on May 20, 2010, at the Massachusetts State House, on the occasion of the 75th Annual Massachusetts Lafayette Day, Gilmore was honored for having been admitted to France’s Legion of Honor by local, national, and international dignitaries being presented with the Governor’s Citation from Governor Deval Patrick.
Gilmore earned a bachelor’s degree in percussion and performance from New England Conservatory. For more than 35 years, he owned and operated the legendary Cambridge music venue The Western Front, which featured soul, R&B, Latin, jazz, and salsa music, and became one of the East Coast’s main hubs for reggae. Today, at 99 years young, Gilmore is president and co-founder of the “new” Western Front, a minority-owned and operated cannabis dispensary with three locations in Chelsea and Cambridge.
About Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas is Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, and Co-Founder, Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony and Distinguished Professor of Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is a twelve-time Grammy Award winner and has conducted the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.
Born in Los Angeles, he studied conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl at the University of Southern California and, as a young musician, worked with artists including Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. In his mid-20s, he became Assistant Conductor—and later Principal Guest Conductor—of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He subsequently served as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.
In 1987, he co-founded the New World Symphony, a postgraduate orchestral academy in Miami Beach dedicated to preparing young musicians of diverse backgrounds for leadership roles in classical music. He has worked with more than 1,200 NWS Fellows, many of whom have gone on to major musical careers.
He became Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony in 1995, ushering in a period of significant growth and heightened international recognition for the orchestra, championing contemporary and American composers alongside classical masters.
His discography includes more than 120 recordings, and his television work includes series for the BBC and PBS, the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts, and numerous televised performances. His profile Michael Tilson Thomas: Where Now Is aired on PBS’s American Masters series in fall 2020.
Throughout his career, he has been an active composer, with major works including From the Diary of Anne Frank, premiered with narrator Audrey Hepburn, and Meditations on Rilke. Both appear on SFS Media’s recent Grammy Award-winning recording of his music. In 2023, Yuja Wang and Teddy Abrams released a recording on DG which included Michael Tilson Thomas’ You Come Here Often? which won a 2023 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.
He is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, member of the American Academies of Arts & Sciences and Arts & Letters, National Medal of Arts recipient, and a 2019 Kennedy Center Honoree.
Three major recording projects were released in 2024 in celebration of his 80th birthday: GRACE: The Music of Michael Tilson Thomas, a four-disc box set of Tilson Thomas’ compositions on Pentatone, The Complete Columbia, CBS and RCA Recordings on Sony Classical and The Complete Deutsche Grammophon & Argo Recordings on DG Eloquence.
About Conrad Pope
Conrad Pope is a composer, orchestrator, conductor, and one of Hollywood’s most respected and sought-after musicians. Over a career that has included more than 100 films, he has collaborated with such legendary composers as John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Alexandre Desplat, and Howard Shore, contributing to iconic scores for Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, The Hobbit, The Matrix, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, among many other films.
Pope’s original music has been featured in such films as My Week with Marilyn, Tim’s Vermeer, and The Sound of Violet. His concert works have been performed internationally and he has received commissions from the Hartt School, Spokane Symphony, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.
A dedicated educator, Pope teaches at the Hollywood Music Workshop in Austria and the Los Angeles Film Conducting Intensive. He has held academic appointments at Brandeis University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison and was the William Bolcom Resident Artist at the University of Michigan.
A graduate of Princeton University and New England Conservatory, where he received the George Chadwick Medal, Pope is a Fulbright Scholar and recipient of numerous honors including ASMAC’s Golden Score Award and the Prague Composer Summit’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Grammy-winning composer and arranger Nan Schwartz.
About Wendy Shattuck
Wendy Shattuck is a Life Trustee and long-time supporter of New England Conservatory, where she earned her bachelor of music in 1975. A gifted vocalist, Shattuck earned her master of music degree from Boston University in 1980 and enjoyed a vibrant performance career in Boston and beyond, including singing with the NEC Chorus under the direction of NEC’s Lorna Cooke DeVaron.
Shattuck has spent her life championing the arts not only as a performer, but as a leader, advocate, and philanthropist. As a member of NEC’s Board of Trustees for more than 10 years and a current Life Trustee, her insight and wisdom have shaped the Conservatory’s future. She has served in key leadership roles including chair of the Opera Committee, chair and long-time member of the Friends of Music Committee, and member of the Leadership Gifts Committee, positions that reflect her enduring commitment to NEC’s mission and its students. Since 2008, Shattuck and her husband, Sam Plimpton, have sponsored a biannual chamber music week at their summer home in Maine with NEC faculty Miriam Fried and Paul Biss. They have hosted many aspiring musicians who have gone on to have distinctive careers including Blaise Déjardin, principal cellist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, among others. Through her generosity, the Wendy Shattuck ’75 Presidential Scholarship for Vocal Studies and the Wendy Shattuck Chair in Voice were established to support vocal studies students and faculty in perpetuity, and the multi-purpose Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre has been home to unforgettable performances showcasing NEC students’s talent and creativity since 2017.
Beyond her contributions to NEC, Shattuck has had an indelible impact on many of Boston’s most treasured cultural institutions, serving on the boards of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Lyric Opera, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy. In 2022, Boston Magazine honored Shattuck by naming her one of the city’s “Most Influential Bostonians” — a powerful acknowledgment of a lifetime spent enriching Boston’s cultural landscape through her artistry, visionary leadership, and steadfast support of the arts.
About Brian McCreath
Brian McCreath produces and hosts CRB’s Boston Symphony Orchestra broadcasts from Symphony Hall and Tanglewood Music Center, executive produces WCRB In Concert, and produces and hosts The Bach Hour.
As director of production, he oversees GBH music productions from the Fraser Performance Studio. He arrived at GBH in 2004 as a digital content producer and produced and hosted GBH’s weekend morning classical program for five years. Brian has also hosted live broadcasts and video streams from GBH’s Fraser Performance Studio, live broadcasts of the Handel and Haydn Society from Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall, and live broadcasts from Rockport Music’s Shalin Liu Performance Center and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Calderwood Hall. He has hosted three GBH classical music Learning Tours to Germany, Central Europe, and Switzerland. Prior to his work at GBH, Brian was the principal trumpeter of the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, a member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, and assistant principal trumpeter of the Symphony Orchestra of the State of Mexico.
He began his radio career as a production assistant at Wisconsin Public Radio. He holds degrees in trumpet performance from New England Conservatory of Music and The College of Wooster.
