Performances + Events
New England Conservatory is pleased to announce that Grammy Award-winning virtuoso violinist Hilary Hahn will be a Visiting Artist during the 2026–2027 academic year. Hahn, a dynamic musician whose repertoire reflects deep curiosity and a commitment to championing new works, is a gifted communicator whose insights are invaluable to today’s students.
Hahn sits on NEC’s Institute for Concert Artists Advisory Council, whose esteemed members provide guidance and support to the Conservatory’s Concert Artists. She gave a master class at NEC in April 2024 and has visited the Conservatory since —most recently to give coaching sessions in April 2026.
As a Visiting Artist, Hahn will come to NEC five times during the academic year. Engagements will include participating in roundtable discussions about life as an artist with students across various programs, coaching conductors on collaborating with soloists, leading ensemble workshops, offering guidance on concerto preparation, and advising NEC’s Concert Artists. Hahn will also present a violin master class.
“We are thrilled to welcome Hilary Hahn to NEC,” Hank Mou, the Conservatory’s Dean and Chief Artistic Officer, said. “Her extraordinary experience as an artist, educator, and advocate for the arts makes her an inspiring mentor for students. In this new role, she’ll offer unique insight into and guidance on navigating life as an artist in an ever evolving musical landscape.”
“I’m honored to be working with NEC as a Visiting Artist,” Hahn said. “While serving on the Institute for Concert Artists Advisory Council over the past two years, I’ve had a chance to see how dedicated NEC is to a well-rounded musical education. I’m looking forward to running my roundtable workshops and working with students in different departments on more specific topics such as musical collaboration and career customization. I also hope to develop some new workshop models in tandem with NEC.”
In addition to recording award-winning and internationally acclaimed albums, Hahn is a sought-after performer and pedagogue. She was the Chubb Fellow at Yale University’s Timothy Dwight College in 2022 and remains a member of the faculty at The Juilliard School which she joined in 2025, having been a visiting artist at the school in the 2023–24 academic year. She won the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize in 2024.
Hahn, who has appeared with the world’s major orchestras, was the first-ever artist-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 2021 to 2024, held the same position at the New York Philharmonic in the 2023–2024 season, and was a curating artist at the Dortmund Festival the same year.
Hahn has commissioned new works from more than 40 living composers including Carlos Simon, Jessie Montgomery, and Jennifer Higdon, whose Violin Concerto, composed for and recorded by Hahn, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Hahn has recorded a broad range of repertoire for the Decca Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, and Sony Classical labels, and has worked across genres with such artists as singer-songwriters Josh Ritter and Tom Brosseau, pianist and composer Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka), and the alternative band … And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead.
In 2017, Hahn launched the social-media project #100daysofpractice “as a way to prioritize process over results.”
“In our lives, we’re all practicing something,” she has explained. “This is 100 days in the life of a practicing person, and that practicing person is all of us.”
