Stephanie Perrin, Retiring Head of Walnut Hill School to Be Commencement Speaker May 18
(l to r) Perrin, Woodcock, Churchill, Zander
For Immediate Release:
May 1, 2008
New England Conservatory will confer honorary degrees on jazz great and former NEC faculty member Bob Brookmeyer and the retiring head of Walnut Hill School for the Arts Stephanie Perrin at its 137th Commencement Exercises, May 18 at 3 p.m. in NEC’s Jordan Hall. Perrin, who actually received her degree earlier this spring on the stage of Carnegie Hall during Walnut Hill’s New York gala, will give the commencement address. Tony Woodcock, in his first commencement since assuming the position of President, will present diplomas and degrees to the 250 members of the Class of 2008.
Preceding the exercises on Saturday night, May 17, New England Conservatory students will be showcased in a Commencement Concert. The performance, also in NEC’s Jordan Hall, takes place at 7:30 p.m. Both the Commencement exercises and the concert are free and open to the public.
Stephanie Bonnell Perrin will step down this spring as Head of the Walnut Hill School, the oldest independent secondary school for the arts in the nation. Over her 30 year tenure, Perrin moved Walnut Hill into the vanguard of arts education and earned it international recognition. Among her most important initiatives was to create in 1988 the New England Conservatory at Walnut Hill program, the first time an independent school in the U.S. had affiliated with a major conservatory of music. That program has become an internationally recognized music education model for high school students.
Under Perrin’s leadership, Walnut Hill also developed an innovative and dynamic academic program with intensive programs in visual art, ballet, writing, and theater.
Perrin has overseen enormous expansion of scholarship support, which grew from $129,000 (7% of gross tuition) in 1984 to $2.4 million (24% of gross tuition) in 2006. Over the same period, she directed international outreach initiatives to boost enrollment of international students to 20% of the student body.
Under Perrin’s leadership, the School has also been active in engaging with public schools and conducting research on and advocating arts education for all children. Walnut Hill was a founding partner of the National Arts and Learning Collaborative, an independent organization whose mission is to promote high quality arts education in public schools.
Prior to joining Walnut Hill, Perrin served on the faculty of Abbot Academy and Phillips Andover Academy, where she taught art and art history, and served as a counselor.
A Klingenstein Fellow at Columbia University in 1991, Perrin graduated from Boston University in 1967 with a BA in Art History and earned two graduate degrees from Harvard University: an MAT in Art Education and an M.Ed. in Counseling and Public Policy.
Jazz trombonist, composer and conductor Bob Brookmeyer taught at NEC from 1997 to 2007, and created NEC's Jazz Composers' Workshop Orchestra. In 2006, he was named one of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Masters.
Born December 19, 1929, Brookmeyer attended the Kansas City Conservatory of Music where he won the Carl Busch Prize for Choral Composition. His jazz career began in 1952, when he arrived in New York playing piano with Mel Lewis and Tex Benecke. He stayed on to perform the music of Eddie Sauter with Ray McKinley and freelanced with Coleman Hawkins, PeeWee Russell, Ben Webster, Charles Mingus and Teddy Charles. In 1953 he joined Stan Getz, followed by a long stay with Gerry Mulligan, and then with the Jimmy Giuffre Three and his own quintet with Clark Terry.
Brookmeyer played and composed for the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra beginning with its founding in 1965, and, after ten years in California, returned as musical director for Mel Lewis and the Jazz Orchestra.
In 1988 he was appointed Director of the BMI Composers Workshop and in 1991 he moved to Holland to start a radical new school for improvised and composed music. Upon the demise of this venture he returned to the United States and settled in New Hampshire, assuming the position of Chair of the Jazz Composition Department at NEC.
His work as a composer has been recognized with a succession of NEA jazz composition grants. In 1994 he was appointed musical director of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Big Band, a worldwide jazz-based ensemble dedicated to new music. That ensemble became the New Art Orchestra, an 18- piece group that remains Brookmeyer’s compositional voice. He and the orchestra have recorded three CDs for the Challenge label – New Works, which was CD of the Year in England, Waltzing With Zoe and Get Well Soon, which was nominated for a Grammy in 2005. Brookmeyer and the orchestra were also nominated for a 2007 Grammy for Spirit Music, a project they recorded through ArtistShare, the fan-funded music service.
For further information, check the NEC Website or call the NEC Concert Line at 617-585-1122. 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.
Contact: Ellen Pfeifer
Public Relations Manager
New England Conservatory
617-585-1143
epfeifer@newenglandconservatory.edu
Jazz Studies and Improvisation; Director of Jazz Composers' Workshop Orchestra