Performances + Events
News from NEC alumni, students, and faculty members including Michelle Johnson, Chelsea Basler-Aston, Samuel Rosner, Josaphat Contreras, Angela Yam, Maria Ioudenitch, Minami Yoshida, Andrew Boudreau, Simón Willson, Kevin Sun, Frank Carlberg, Andreia Pinto Correia, Katherine Balch, Jason Forbach, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, Miguel Zenon, Antonio Sanchez, and others.
The Boston Lyric Opera opened their season on October 1st and 3rd at Leader Bank Pavilion, with NEC alums, Michelle Johnson ’05 and Chelsea Basler-Aston ’06. Samuel Rosner ’21 MM NEC/Harvard, Josaphat Contreras ’22 MM, and Angela Yam ’21 GD were also featured in the chorus.
Read the Boston Globe’s review of the performance
Read about how the production came together, including thoughts from Michelle Johnson
Violinist Maria Ioudenitch ’20 MM, ’22 AD has won first prize at the 2021 Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition. She was awarded €30,000 following her finale performance of Brahms Violin Concerto and also won prizes for Best Interpretation of the Commissioned Work, the Chamber Music Award, a recording and distribution deal with Warner Classics, music from G. Henle Verlag as well as multiple future concert engagements.
Minami Yoshida ’21 was also one of the four finalists.
Andrew Boudreau ‘18 MM, Simón Willson ’15, ’17 MM and Vicente Hansen recently released an album, Family Plan. The trio enlisted help of Kevin Sun ’15 MM to produce, play on a track, and release the album through his label, Endectomorph Music. Faculty member Frank Carlberg ’92 MM also wrote liner notes for the album. A true NEC collaboration!
Composer Andreia Pinto Correia ’06 MM, ’13 DMA was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, to premiere one of her pieces at shows this spring, on March 17, 18, and 19, 2022, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
Andreia has also recently been appointed to the adjunct faculty at the the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, along with Katherine Balch ’14 NEC/Tufts.
Vocal performance alum Jason Forbach ’03 MM has been cast in the Broadway production of Phantom of the Opera, which is returning to the stage on October 22 at the Majestic Theatre in New York City.
Faculty member Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol recently received a Jazz Road Creative Residencies Grant for his unique jazz orchestra/combo, Whatsnext?. The group will write and record new compositions for jazz orchestra with guests, saxophonist Miguel Zenon, clarinetist Anat Cohen, and percussionist Antonio Sanchez ’98 GD.
The music will fuse Western jazz and Middle Eastern (Turkish modes, microtones, rhythms) and draw on Muslim and Sufi literary and spirtual sources.
NEC Prep student Keila Wakao has been announced as a featured soloist in Newton’s New Philharmonia Orchestra
Faculty member Nick Kitchen was featured in a recent interview with Strings Magazine about how he and the Borromeo Quartet use iPads to gain deeper insight into the music they play
Jazz alum Neil Leonard ’84, ’00 MM released an LP based on his sound installation, presented by the Williams College Museum of Art, Sonance for the Precession
WHRB interviewed viola and chamber music faculty member Nicholas Cords
Aram Demirjian ’11 MM, the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Music Director, led a project called the KSO1x1 project in which orchestra donors commissioned composers to write a short solo piece for a specific KSO musician, resulting in a total of 24 pieces
