The New England Conservatory has released their upcoming schedule for spring performances, and this year’s lineup is filled with celebrations of cultural connections in our communities. NEC’s Dean and Chief Artistic Officer Hak Mou joined GBH’s All Things Considered to talk about the schedule. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Arun Rath: Tell us about the cultural performances planned for the season.
Hak Mou: You know, we have a intercultural institute that does music from the Middle East. We’ve done a lot, actually, just in the last month in fact. We also have performances by our contemporary musical arts program that often features music from different cultures. I mean, it features students that come from all over the world. We have students from China who are Chinese percussionists, you know, some of the traditional instruments that they do. And we include them in all of our concerts, you know, featuring our contemporary musical arts, or CMA program.
So one of those concerts coming up is actually April [29] , and it’s titled “Visionaries and Eccentrics: Ives Problem Children.” And so that concert will feature the composer and guitarist Mark Ribot, who works often with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, John Zorn, just name a few. And the concert itself takes that idea of Charles Ives and his concept of musical transcendentalism, paving the way for musical experimentation expression. And it gives our students an opportunity to explore these other genres. Multilayered music, you know, which includes rock, front noise, other contemporary musical art forms.
Rath: This is the 40th year the NEC is doing First Mondays. Tell people about what First Mondays is about and what we can look forward to this year.
Mou: So Lawrence Lester — or for those of us who know him better, we call him “Larry” — Larry Lester, cellist, amazing pedagogue, amazing cellist, and former president, president emeritus, in fact, of NEC founded this series First Monday. And really it features faculty, alumni, current students even, in side-by-side performances. And it’s built both a cult following and it introduces the form to new audience as well.
We just had a recent concert this past Monday that featured Ravel’s “La Valse” with two of our faculty members, the Schubert octet with faculty, alumni, BSO members. It brings in musicians both from Boston and outside of Boston. And it’s just exciting to see our students perform with faculty.
We have two more concerts: April 7 and May 5 . And, you know, for Larry to be doing this for 40 years is pretty incredible. And we hope to to get to 50. We’re just excited every year to see what he comes up with this series. But it also really features the chamber music program, you know, at NEC chamber music really being a core curriculum, part of the curriculum, a core part of the curriculum. And also a core feature of NEC. And it really that ethos of chamber music, which expands into our jazz and CMA programs, which is the small ensembles without a conductor, and forcing students, you know, to really work together and through diplomacy and communication.
Rath: I love it. Before we let you go, tell us how people can enjoy these performances. I know some of them are streaming, right. How can the public get access?
Mou: That’s right. So the first thing I would say is on our website, NECMUSIC.edu there is a performance calendar that you can go to and that’s the best, easiest way to see all that we have to offer. The 800 concerts to 1000 concerts that we have to offer each year, including the spring season. And on that website, you’ll see within each of the listings a streaming page. So you’ll you should be able to find a live stream link in the concert listing itself.
