NEC to honor Joseph Maneri, Benjamin Zander & more May 17, 2009

New England Conservatory to Confer Diplomas, Certificates on Graduates at 138th Commencement, May 17, in Jordan Hall

Benjamin Zander, Faculty, Conductor, and Transformational Speaker, to Give Commencement Address

Microtonal Composer Joseph Maneri and Zander to Receive Honorary Doctorates

Thomas Oboe Lee, Sarah Bob, Roger Kellaway to Receive Outstanding Alumni Awards at Reunion

Veronica Jochum to Receive Alumni Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award

New England Conservatory President Tony Woodcock will confer diplomas and certificates on 246 graduates at the 138th Commencement Exercises, Sunday, May 17 at 3 p.m. in NEC’s Jordan Hall. Longtime NEC faculty member, conductor, and transformational speaker Benjamin Zander will give the Commencement Address. Zander and Joseph Maneri, retired faculty member and microtonal composer, will receive honorary degrees. Among the graduates crossing the platform will be the first two to have completed the joint degree program between Harvard University and NEC. Composer-pianist Julia Carey and cellist Bong Ihn-Koh will each receive the Master of Music after having received bachelor’s degrees last year from Harvard.

The ceremonies will be the culmination of a weekend of festivities that also includes the annual Commencement Concert on Saturday night and Reunion 2009 presented by the NEC Alumni Association. The concert, at 7:30 p.m. in Jordan Hall, will feature a sampling of opera; chamber music for strings, winds, and brass; piano solo; jazz; contemporary improvisation; and orchestral music. John Page will conduct the orchestral portion. Both the concert and the exercises are free and open to the public.

Welcoming past graduates, the Alumni Association will host its annual Reunion with a Night at the Pops, a cabaret of alumni performances, photographic exhibits, presentations by Outstanding Alumni, and the Alumni Awards Luncheon. The Association will recognize the remarkable contributions of alumni in the 50th, 35th, 25th, and 10th Reunion classes with the Outstanding Alumni Awards, which will be presented to Grammy-winning composer and pianist Roger Kellaway ’59; composer Thomas Oboe Lee ’74 M.M. ’76 M.M.; collaborative pianist Judith Gordon ’84 DP ’88; and pianist Sarah Bob ’99 M.M. In addition, the Association will bestow the Lifetime Achievement Award to pianist and teacher Veronica Jochum, who has served on the NEC faculty for more than 40 years.
Honorary Degree Biographies.

Benjamin Zander started his early musical training in his native England, with cello and composition lessons from his father as well as Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst. He moved to Florence at age fifteen, at the invitation of the great Spanish cello virtuoso, Gaspar Cassadó, with whom he traveled and performed extensively. In 1966 Zander joined the NEC faculty with a teaching portfolio that includes Interpretation Class and guest-conducting the College orchestras, as well as full-time responsibilities for the Preparatory School’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, at home, on international tours, and in the recording studio. He is also Artistic Director of the joint music education program between NEC and Walnut Hill School, a high school for the arts in Natick, Mass. Since 1979, Zander has been conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, while also engaging in an acclaimed and innovative recording project with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London that presents Beethoven and Mahler cycles paired with full-length discussion discs in which he explains each symphony. Co-author of the best-selling book The Art of Possibility with his partner, psychotherapist Rosamund Zander, Benjamin Zander has a globe-spanning speaking career that includes major corporations as well as the World Economic Forum in Davos and the United Nations, which awarded him the 2002 “Caring Citizen of the Humanities” Award.

Joseph Gabriel Esther Maneri. As a member of the NEC faculty from 1970 to 2007, Joseph Maneri bridged the classical and improvisation curricula by teaching theory and composition as well as jazz, while also giving studio lessons. Maneri cofounded NEC’s “Enchanted Circle” contemporary music concert series in 1977, and codirected it through 1997. Coinventor of a microtonal keyboard that has 588 notes with 72 notes per octave, he is founder and president of the Boston Microtonal Society and is co-author of Preliminary Studies in the Virtual Pitch Continuum. A band leader and solo artist on various instruments, primarily reeds, his repertoire includes jazz and ethnic music as well as his own microtonal compositions. His piano concerto Metanoia was performed by Rebecca la Brecque and the American Composers Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. Get Ready to Receive Yourself, a CD of Maneri’s improvisation quartet, received the highest acclaim, both in Europe and the U.S. Maneri’s recordings have appeared on Leo Lab, ECM, HatArt, and Tzadik.

For further information, check the NEC Website at: http://concerts.newenglandconservatory.edu
For specific information on Reunion, click on the Reunion website at: http://www.newenglandconservatory.edu/reunion/index.html
NEC’s Jordan Hall, Brown Hall, Williams Hall and the Keller Room are located at 30 Gainsborough St., corner of Huntington Ave. St. Botolph Hall is located at 241 St. Botolph St. between Gainsborough and Mass Ave.

ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY

Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.

The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.

NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.

NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by National Public Radio and is heard on 250 stations throughout the United States.
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