Five-time Grammy Winner Billy Joel Endows New England Conservatory’s Performance Outreach Fellowship Fund
Classically Trained Entertainer Seeks to Support Performances for Underserved Audiences and to Give Young Musicians New Performing Opportunities
Singer, songwriter and pianist Billy Joel has made a $300,000 gift to support New England Conservatory’s Performance Outreach Fellowship Ensembles Program. To be called the Billy Joel Performance Outreach Endowment Fund, the gift will support the training, transportation, and honoraria for about 20 students to stage 40 free community concerts each academic year.
The five-time Grammy winning artist has in recent years turned his attention to the classical music he studied as a child, and has become an ardent supporter of music education and classical music organizations. His gift to NEC is one of five $300,000 pledges he is making this year to American music schools. (The others are Eastman School of Music, Syracuse University, SUNY Purchase, New York University, and the Tanglewood Music Center.) Since the early 1990’s, he has endowed a named fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center and in 2004 made a $50,000 gift to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Between 1993-2003, Joel made contributions to 33 colleges in amounts ranging from $5000 to $100,000.
Joel, who began holding master class sessions on college campuses more than 20 years ago, established the Rosalind Joel Scholarship for the Performing Arts at City College in New York City and has supported VH1’s Save the Music Program, which advocates for music in the public schools. To dramatize the cause of the latter, he appeared with former President Bill Clinton in 2000 on “Good Morning America” to talk about the importance of music education in schools. The episode was filmed at PS 96 in East Harlem, a school that had just received free instruments through the VH1 Save the Music Foundation.
In recognition of these efforts, Joel was named the MusiCares Person of the Year in 2002, an award given out at the Grammy Awards by the charitable arm of the National Academy of Recording Artists.
The “piano man’s” return to his classical roots has also informed his performing and recording career. He issued his first classical CD album, Fantasies and Delusions, in 2001.
NEC’s Performance Outreach program, inaugurated in the 2003-04 school year, has grown exponentially under the direction of Tanya Maggi. Its purpose is to give student musicians substantial experience designing programs and giving performances for non-traditional audiences. In 2004-05, approximately 150 NEC students presented 300 programs and events that reached 12,500 people, including 6000 school children. Each year, four to five dedicated Performance Outreach Fellowship Ensembles are chosen by a competitive application/interview process from groups that are particularly committed to outreach activities. Each selected ensemble plans and performs eight programs in the community, working intensively with Maggi on choosing appropriate repertory, learning how to talk to and play for young children, inner-city youth and the elderly. Besides training, the group members receive honoraria and travel expenses. It is this program that the Billy Joel Performance Outreach Endowment Fund will benefit.
“Billy Joel's generous support will help us prepare our students to face the changing demands of performance,” said NEC President Daniel Steiner. “To succeed in today's world, students must be able to play music for and to talk about the music to a wide range of audiences. Our Performance Outreach Fellowship program does just that -- it gives young musicians training and experience playing for children, the elderly, and many community groups.”
For more information, visit NEC on the web at http://www.newenglandconservatory.edu/outreach/index.html
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 more than two hundred stations throughout the United States.