Fulbright, Beebe Grant Winners

Congratulations are in order for five NEC students or alums who have just been awarded Fulbright and Beebe grants to live, work, and study abroad. They are: jazz saxophonist Elan Asch ’10, saxophonist Derek Beckvold ’09, percussionist Emily Feeney ’14 M.M., violist Emily Deans ’09, ’14 DMA, and soprano Bridget Haile ’13 M.M., ’14 G.D. 

Fulbright Awards

Elan Asch, who studied jazz saxophone at NEC with Jerry Bergonzi and George Garzone, will relocate to Seoul on his Fulbright to study the piri and taepyeongso (Korean double-reed instruments) with Korean "Living Human Treasure" Jeong Jae Guk. Elan will study music of the royal court, folk music, and shaman ritual music. In his research, Elan will explore parallels between the saxophone and Korean reed instruments, as well as parallels between the jazz tradition and Korean traditional music, as they relate to time and improvisation.

Derek Beckvold, who studied saxophone performance with Kenneth Radnofsky,  has performed a wide range of music with many people in many places across North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He has taught music extensively throughout the Greater Boston area, and has been on the faculty at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (Kabul, Afghanistan), the Global Music Institute (New Delhi, India) and the Music Matters School (Colombo, Sri Lanka). The backbone of his Fulbright project involves learning the tradition, language and repertoire of the Hindustani drum tabla. Having first studied tabla with NEC faculty Jerry Leake, he will continue in depth studies with Shailendra Mishra Ji in New Delhi, India. The acquired knowledge of the instrument will then be assimilated into a cross-cultural pedagogical approach to learning and internalizing this drum's language and rhythmic structures. He will work with Music Basti, an organization devoted to establishing music education programs for at-risk youth in New Delhi, as well as with the Global Music Institute, a school which is actively training the next generation of Indian musicians and teachers.

Emily Feeney, who has been studying with Will Hudgins, will spend a year in Germany on her Fulbright. She will study percussion performance at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, focusing on the methodology for orchestral playing unique to Germany, involving instrument construction, playing style, interpretation and audition preparation.  She will also investigate effective audience building strategies used by successful arts organizations in German, particularly the Berlin Philharmonic.

Frank Huntington Beebe Fund for Musicians Grants

Emily Deans, who has worked at NEC with Kim Kashkashian, will be studying Baroque violin and viola in Cologne with Richard Gwilt.  She will also travel to Freiburg to work with Gottfried von der Goltz, music director of the Freiburg Barockorchester. She will incorporate the research from this year abroad and write her dissertation for her NEC doctorate.

Bridget Haile, a student of Carole Haber, plans to spend a year in Berlin working with John Norris, a voice teacher and coach with the Bavarian State Opera Studio and the Opera Studio at the Berliner Staatsoper Unter den Linden.  She will concentrate on the intersection of opera and art song in performance, both through attending concerts and through her own performing and programming.