Performances + Events
In celebrating the legacy of Gunther Schuller, New England Conservatory last week also honored the artists and educators who continue to carry his vision forward. During the 2025 NEC Festival, Jumpin’ in the Future: The Legacy of Gunther Schuller, Conservatory President Andrea Kalyn said, “It is also a legacy of people.” In brief remarks delivered during a Contemporary Musical Arts Department concert titled “A Global Vision Realized,” Kalyn pointed out that everyone onstage that night “lives in the light of that legacy.” Schuller, who served as NEC’s president from 1967 to 1977, brought the CMA Department into being (originally as the Third Stream Department), tapping Ran Blake to serve as founding chair. Current department Chair Eden-MacAdam Somer said, “Ran really lives that vision,” adding that longtime department co-chair and current advisor Hankus Netsky “took that vision and blew it up into a global vision.”
In addition to the CMA Department, Schuller also established NEC’s Jazz Studies Department, the first fully accredited program of its kind in a major conservatory. That department’s program during the festival, “Jazz Without Borders — Schuller’s Bold Experiment at NEC,” welcomed to the Jordan Hall stage pianist Fred Hersch ’77, drummer/composer George Schuller ’82 (Gunther’s son), and Carl Atkins ’75 MM, ’21 Hon. DM, who served under Schuller as the inaugural chair of Jazz Studies — originally the Afro-American Music and Jazz Studies Department. Current Jazz Studies Department Chair Ken Schaphorst ’84 spoke before the festival about the expansive thinking Schuller brought to NEC. “When he became president of NEC in 1967,” Schaphorst said, “he acted quickly to include music that was often overlooked by musical institutions: jazz, new music, early music, musical traditions from around the world.” In broadening the scope of what the Conservatory uniquely offered students and audiences, Schuller brought together musicians who might not otherwise have traveled in the same circles, collaborated on the same projects, or shared the same stage.
The festival opened with a concert that paid tribute to Schuller, who died in 2015, while celebrating 75 years of NEC’s Preparatory School. Fittingly, that concert included a performance of Schuller’s Music for a Celebration. Netsky ’76 ’78 MM, who arrived at NEC first as a student, recently pointed to Schuller’s influence on the Conservatory’s Expanded Education Department. “When I got here, the big CMA course was a Saturday afternoon extension course,” Netsky said.
From the Prep 75 Anniversary Celebration Concert on November 15 through a faculty recital by Saxophonist Kenneth Radnofsky on November 22 — Schuller’s 100th birthday — the NEC community was both reflective and forward looking . “(Schuller) wanted to reach everybody,” Radnofsky ’76 MM, whom Schuller hired 50 years ago, said in the days before the festival, which included concerts featuring the CMA and Jazz Studies departments, an evening of chamber music and sonatas titled “Schuller and the Spirit of Collaboration,” a performance by the NEC Symphony of Schuller’s Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee on a program that also featured American music of the 19th and early 20th centuries among other works, and a multimedia-rich event cosponsored by the Conservatory and the Gunther Schuller Society titled “Of Reminiscences and Reflections – Celebrating Gunther Schuller’s 100th Birthday.”
Festival performances showcased numerous works composed and arranged by Schuller alongside music, from different traditions and points in history, by those he admired, championed, hired at NEC, and influenced — including those who, as Kalyn said, live in the light of his legacy. The festival also included discussions, seminars, master classes, and other events that brought together people whose paths might not have otherwise crossed, including faculty, students, alumni, guest artists, friends, concertgoers, and others whose curiosity, like Schuller’s, led them to NEC. It was Schuller’s idea of the “compleat musician” which he so authentically personified, that NEC celebrated throughout the 2025 festival.
Much conversation about Gunther Schuller and the NEC Festival was had in and around the Conservatory in recent weeks. Several members of NEC’s faculty answered the question Who was — and is — Gunther Schuller? The festival’s curator, Jazz Studies Department Chair Ken Schaphorst, was interviewed on WMBR and WMPG. Nancy Zeltsman ’82 was interviewed by WGBH. The Boston Globe featured the festival in a list of “Things to do around Boston this weekend and beyond.” Contemporary Musical Arts Department Chair Eden MacAdam-Somer, wrote an introductory and invitational essay for The Boston Musical Intelligencer, which also interviewed CMA Department Advisor Hankus Netsky. And Gunther’s Schuller’s son, George Schuller, joined Netsky and Schaphorst for a discussion with The Tonearm.
Relive the 2025 NEC Festival in photos.
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An evening of chamber music and sonatas explores “Schuller and the Spirit of Collaboration”
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The Contemporary Musical Arts Department celebrates “A Global Vision Realized”
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David Loebel and the NEC Symphony perform Schuller’s “Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee” on a program that also features American music of the 19th and early 20th centuries among other works
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Jazz pianist and NEC alumnus Fred Hersch performs on the Jordan Hall stage
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Schuller’s horn, on display as part of the celebration of his legacy and vision
