Performances + Events
Meet the Concert Artists
New England Conservatory’s esteemed concert artists represent the pinnacle of musical achievement, embodying the artistry, dedication, and excellence that defines NEC. Each of these distinguished musicians brings an extraordinary skill level and unique artistic voice to the global stage. They are redefining the future of music worldwide through the impact of their superior musicianship, meaningful artistic contributions, and deep dedication to their craft.
Meet the Concert Artists
Current Artists
Leonhard Baumgartner
’28 AD, Violin
Studio faculty: Miriam Fried
Born in Vienna in 2007, Leonhard Baumgartner gained international recognition after winning First Prize at the Eurovision Young Musicians Competition in 2024 and making his debut with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra under Eivind Aadland.
Baumgartner has received major awards, including First Prize at the Zhuhai International Mozart Competition (2022), First and Special Prizes at the Ilona Fehér International Violin Competition (2024), the Discovery Award at the International Classical Music Awards (2023), and First and Audience Prizes at the Osaka International Music Competition (2024). At age 15, he made his debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at the Wiener Konzerthaus and has since performed with leading orchestras across Europe.
Recent and upcoming highlights include performances of Brahms’s Violin Concerto at the Vienna Musikverein, Tchaikovsky’s, Bruch’s and Brahms’s double concertos in Salzburg, Oslo, and German cities, and a tour of Australia featuring Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
A dedicated chamber musician, Baumgartner has collaborated with such artists as Gidon Kremer and performs regularly with Alexander Warenberg and Nikola Meeuwsen, with whom he recorded an album for BR Radio featuring recordings of piano trios by Mendelssohn and Ravel. In 2024, he was selected to premiere and record a newly discovered work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for Deutsche Grammophon.
Baumgartner is mentored in the Stretton Excellence Mentorship Program under Vilde Frang and is supported by the Stretton Society and the Music Academy Liechtenstein. He studied with Dora Schwarzberg in Vienna and Ingolf Turban in Munich, and with R. Brandstätter in Graz, and has received artistic guidance from Leonidas Kavakos and Ana Chumachenco.
He performs on a 1683 Antonio Stradivari violin, the “ex Petherick,” generously on loan from a member of the Stretton Society, which is also supporting him through the Nina Gscheider and Florian Schwarz Scholarship.
Paul Jang
’28 AD, Opera Studies
Studio faculty: Bradley Williams
South Korean baritone Paul Jang is quickly establishing himself as a compelling figure on the operatic stage, recognized for his dramatic versatility and powerful vocal presence. In July 2026, he will join the prestigious Merola Opera Program in San Francisco to perform the role of Harlekin in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos.
Since relocating to the United States, Jang has undertaken a diverse range of principal roles. In 2024, he garnered acclaim for his portrayal of Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and the titular character in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi at Yale Opera. That summer, he appeared as Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen at Music Academy of the West. Jang’s 2025 season included performances as lbn-Hakia in Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Garrido in Massenet’s La Navarraise at Yale and covering the role of The Forester in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen (in Czech) for Des Moines Metro Opera. In early 2026, he performed the role of Marcello in La boheme at Yale.
Jang’s vocal excellence has been recognized at several of North America’s most prominent competitions. He was the United States Regional Winner of the 2024 International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition and a finalist at Chicago Lyric Opera’s 2024 Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center auditions. In 2025, he won fourth place at the Loren L. Zachary Society for the Performing Arts’ National Vocal Competition for Young Opera Singers.
Originally from Seoul, Jang holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Hanyang University, where he studied under baritone Seng-Hyoun Ko, and a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, where he currently studies with the renowned vocal consultant, professor, and Yale Opera Director Gerald Martin Moore. Jang is expected to earn his Master of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music in 2026.
Clayton Stephenson
’23 NEC/Harvard, ’27 AD, Piano
Studio faculty: Wha Kyung Byun
Photo Credit: Neda Navaee
American pianist Clayton Stephenson’s love for music is immediately apparent in his joyous charisma onstage, expressive power, and natural ease at the instrument. Hailed for “extraordinary narrative and poetic gifts” and interpretations that are “fresh, incisive and characterfully alive” (Gramophone), he is committed to making an impact on the world through his music-making.
Stephenson grew up in New York City, started piano lessons at age 7, and the next year was accepted into The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program — a full scholarship program for disadvantaged students — where he lingered to watch student recitals and fell in love with music. Stephenson practiced on a synthesizer at home until he found an old upright piano on the street. For the next six years, that would be his practice piano, until, at age 17, he received a new piano from the Lang Lang Foundation.
Stephenson credits the generous support of community programs that provided him with musical inspiration and resources along the way. As he describes it, the “Third Street Music School jump-started my music education; the Young People’s Choir taught me phrasing and voicing; Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program introduced me to formal and rigorous piano training, which enabled me to get into Juilliard Pre-College; the Morningside Music Bridge validated my talent and elevated my self-confidence; the Boy’s Club of New York exposed me to jazz; and the Lang Lang Foundation brought me to stages worldwide and transformed me from a piano student to a young artist.”
Recent seasons have included concerto performances with the Houston, North Carolina, Virginia, and Cincinnati symphonies; festival appearances at Grand Teton, Grant Park, and Tippet Rise; recitals at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the 92nd Street Y in New York City; and gala performances with the New York and Las Vegas philharmonics. He served as the 2024-25 artist-in-residence at the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights of his 2025-26 season include performances with the Cincinnati Philadelphia, and Sarasota orchestras, the symphonies of Nashville and Portland, Maine, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, and the Boston Pops Orchestra. He will give recitals at the Jacobins Festival (Toulouse, France), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), and Crystal Bridges Museum (Arkansas) and will conclude his season in spring 2026 on tour with the Stuttgart Philharmonic in Italy.
Stephenson graduated from the Harvard/New England Conservatory dual degree program in spring 2023 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Harvard and a Master of Music degree in piano performance from NEC, where he studied with Wha Kyung Byun. In addition to being the first Black finalist at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022, he received an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2024, won the inaugural Nina Simone Piano Competition that year, and received the Sphinx Organization’s Sphinx Medal of Excellence in 2025.
Zitong Wang
’24 MM, ’26 GD, ’28 AD, Piano
Studio faculty: Dang Thai Son
Zitong Wang has captivated audiences with her authenticity, bravura, and sensitivity, most notably at the 19th Fryderyk Chopin International Piano Competition (2025), where she was awarded the Bronze Medal and the Krystian Zimerman Award for the Best Performance of a Sonata.
She has appeared at such major venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, Warsaw
Philharmonic, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Seoul Arts Center, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. As a concerto soloist, she has performed with such leading orchestras as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, and New Jersey Symphony.
An active chamber musician, Wang has performed with such artists as David Shifrin and Roberto Díaz and was selected as a Protégé Project Artist at Chamber Music Northwest. She is currently pursuing her graduate studies with Dang Thai Son at New England Conservatory, after studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Meng-Chieh Liu and the late Eleanor Sokoloff, and at the Central Conservatory of Music.
Chris Ryan Williams
’28 AD, Contemporary Musical Arts
Chris Ryan Williams is an artist and musician whose work unfolds through electroacoustic composition and performance installation. His EP Live earned praise from Jazz Right Now and The Quietus for its “dazzling collaged pieces that ricochet between improvised passages and written material” (Peter Margasak, The Quietus). His debut LP, Odu: Vibration II, praised by Pitchfork and named one of NPR’s Best New Albums, reimagines a journey through Plato’s Cave. Williams’s work has been performed and presented extensively across the United States and Europe, including at the Venice Biennale, Roulette Intermedium, Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Royal Danish Playhouse, National Sawdust, and Performa Biennial. He has received commissions from the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, WasteLAnd, the American Composers Forum, and the International Contemporary Ensemble.
Collaborative exchange forms a vital part of Williams’s practice. He has worked with such creators as Ralph Lemon, Eyvind Kang, Patrick Shiroishi, Bennie Maupin, Nicole Mitchell, Imani Dennison, Wendy Eisenberg, Luke Stewart, Pink Siifu, and Marjani Forte-Saunders. Williams also maintains an ongoing collaboration with cellist Lester St. Louis under the moniker HxH, a duo described by Piotr Orlov (Pioneer Works) as having “embraced the challenge of bringing laptop instrumentalism into a wide personal world by making sounds that are at once art-minded and accessible, and true to the tenets of spontaneous composition and social music.”
