Performances + Events
Wind, Brass, and Percussion Ensembles
In addition to participation in NEC’s orchestras and chamber music ensembles, NEC offers specialized ensembles available to woodwind, brass, and percussion instrument majors.
All woodwind, brass, and percussion majors will participate in Wind Ensemble or Symphonic Winds in addition to Orchestra each semester of their degree program. In addition, all brass players will participate in the annual Brass Bash during the spring semester. Percussionists will have opportunities to participate in the NEC Percussion Ensemble.
NEC Wind Ensemble
For more than 50 years, the NEC Wind Ensemble has maintained its reputation as one of the premier ensembles of its kind. Composed primarily of 3rd- and 4th-year undergraduate and graduate students, Wind Ensemble offers the opportunity to play various pieces and instrumentation. The ensemble’s creative programming ranges from Gabrieli to Cage, Mozart to Xenakis, and Lully to Ellington. It has premiered or commissioned many works, including those by Colgrass, Schuller, Harbison, Gandolfi, Mingus, Brookmeyer, Previn, Brubeck, and Lang. Through the annual Wind Ensemble Concerto Competition, students also have the opportunity to be featured as solo performers.
NEC Symphonic Winds
The NEC Symphonic Winds, conducted by William Drury, performs woodwind, brass, and percussion repertoire from the Renaissance through the present day. The group’s recording of Richard Toensing’s Whitman Tropes won The American Prize: Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music.
Brass Bash
NEC’s annual Brass Bash is a Jordan Hall concert that puts the spotlight on current and former Boston Symphony Orchestra members who teach at NEC, along with their students — often performing side by side. Students enrolled in classes in horn, trumpet, trombone, and tuba perform in Brass Bash.
NEC Percussion Ensemble
The Percussion Ensemble, directed by Will Hudgins, performs twice yearly in Jordan Hall. The ensemble plays a wide-ranging repertoire that has included premieres and commissions of works by composers such as Elliott Carter, Peter Child, Mark-Anthony Turnage, John Harbison, Jennifer Higdon, Felicia Sandler, Gunther Schuller, and Joan Tower. These works appear on two Naxos CDs released under the American Music for Percussion banner.
