June 23–June 30, 2023
NEC Summer Choral Conducting Institute is a week-long program focused on codifying and improving musicians through masterclasses and individual lessons, musician health and wellness, enhancing choral rehearsal and vocal pedagogy techniques through singers’ diction, choral repertoire exploration, and experiencing high-level choral rehearsal and performance artistry with master teachers Erica Washburn and Anthony Maglione. Conducting and Choral Fellow participants will delve into the study of Turkish secular choral repertoire, as well as Middle Eastern singing techniques and Byzantine chant, with master teacher Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol. Time will also be built into the schedule for participants to reflect and commune with like-minded colleagues so they have the opportunity to expand their professional network.
How to apply to THE SUMMER CHORAL CONDUCTING INSTITUTE
Conducting Fellow Application Required Materials
- 20 minutes total conducting footage which includes rehearsal and/or performance
- Resume/CV which includes your conducting experience
- Open to upper-level undergraduate students to seasoned professionals
- A short (250 word) statement of interest
Choral Fellow Application Required Materials
Open to vocalists who are interested in the performance and classroom experience, but not in the conducting experience.
- Audio or Video recording of one art song or aria
- Resume/CV which includes preferred choral voice part and experience
- Open to upper-level undergraduate students, advanced adult amateurs, professionals, and everyone in between
- A short (250 word) statement of interest
Important application Deadlines
Priority Application Deadline: Mar 31, 2023
Deadline to Apply: April 24, 2023
Due Date Initial Deposit: May 9, 2023
Full Payments Due: June 9, 2023
SUMMER CHORAL CONDUCTING INSTITUTE Tuition and fees
Application Fee: $40
Conducting Fellow Tuition: $1600 (Please note: initial deposit of 50% of program fees is due by May 9, 2023)
Choral Fellow Tuition: $1000 (Please note: initial deposit of 50% of program fees is due by May 9, 2023)
Housing: $720
*Participants have the option of choosing to live off campus or in our NEC dormitory located in the heart of Boston.
SUMMER CHORAL CONDUCTING INSTITUTE Program information and faculty
2023 Faculty:
Conductor and mezzo-soprano Erica Washburn has been Director of Choral Activities at New England Conservatory since 2009, and conductor of the NEC Preparatory Youth Chorale and Camerata since 2019. Known for her student-centric approach to classroom and rehearsal instruction, and commitment to the performance of new music, she is the recipient of several outstanding alumni awards, including the distinguished honor of induction to the Westminster Choir College Music Education Hall of Fame.
As a conductor, Washburn has worked with numerous ensembles, including Kansas City, MO based Cardinalis, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music Schola Cantorum, the East Carolina University Women’s Chorale, and the Eastman Women’s Chorus. She is a sought-after guest clinician who frequently leads state and regional festival choruses, and spent five summers as a conductor and voice faculty member for the New York State Summer School of the Arts School of Choral Studies.
Under her direction the NEC choirs have been featured on several live and pre-recorded broadcasts, including North Carolina based station WCPE Great Sacred Music, WICN Public Radio, and WGBH Boston. The choirs can also be heard in collaboration with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project on the BMOP/Sound recording Paul Moravec: The Blizzard Voices.
Washburn’s stage credits include appearances as Madame Lidoine in Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, Rebecca Nurse in Robert Ward’s The Crucible, Mother/Allison in the premiere of Lee Hoiby’s This is the Rill Speaking and others. Her recital and orchestral solo credits are numerous, and her live premiere from Jordan Hall of the late Richard Toensing’s Night Songs and Evening Prayers can be heard on Albany Records, with the New England Conservatory Symphonic Winds.
Anthony J. Maglione is the Director of Choral Studies at William Jewell College in Liberty, MO where he holds the Robert H. McKee Chair of Music. Under his direction, the William Jewell College Concert Choir was twice awarded 2nd Place for the American Prize in Choral Performance, College/University Division and has appeared at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists, the Southwestern Division and the National Conference of the American Choral Directors Association.
A sought-after clinician, Maglione often leads professional workshops and honor choirs across the United States. In addition to his work at the College, he serves as Director of Music at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, conducting teacher for Artefact Institute, and since 2011, he has served on the summer conducting faculty of Westminster Choir College where he teaches conducting with James Jordan.
As a tenor, Maglione currently performs and records with The Same Stream, the GRAMMY-nominated St. Tikhon Choir, and made his debut with Portland-based Capella Romana on the 2021-2022 season. As a composer, his works have appeared at state and national-level conventions and have been recorded on Albany, Centaur, Gothic, and Spiritum Records. With a growing career as a producer, Maglione lends his ears to recording projects around the country and recently received national attention through his work with Sam Brukhman and Dallas-based Veridgris Ensemble on "Betty's Notebook" by Nicholas Reeves. This ground-breaking programmable art-music is the first of its kind and the first to be sold using blockchain technology. Maglione holds degrees from Westminster Choir College, East Carolina University, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol is a Grammy nominated composer and CMES Harvard University Fellow. He made his Carnegie Hall debut in April 2016 premiering his commissioned piece Harabat/The Intoxicated with the American Composers Orchestra. Other recent works have been heard at Tanglewood’s Ozawa Hall and on A Far Cry string orchestra’s recording Dreams and Prayers. He hails from Cyprus and Turkey, and is also a Jazziz Top 10 Critics’ Choice 2014 pick, a Jazz pianist, a multi-instrumentalist, and an active ethnomusicologist. Sanlıkol has been praised by critics all over the world for his unique, pluralist, multicultural, and energetic musical voice. The Boston Globe noted that Sanlıkol’s “music is colorful, fanciful, full of rhythmic life, and full of feeling. The multiculturalism is not touristy, but rather sophisticated, informed, internalized; Sanlıkol is a citizen of the world … and [Sanlıkol] is another who could play a decisive role in music’s future in the world.”
A musical polymath, Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol has composed for, performed, and toured with international stars and ensembles such as Dave Liebman, Bob Brookmeyer, Anat Cohen, Esperanza Spalding, Antonio Sanchez, Tiger Okoshi, The Boston Camerata, A Far Cry string orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Boston Cello Quartet, Okay Temiz, Erkan Oğur, Omar Faruk Tekbilek and Brenna MacCrimmon. Sanlıkol’s unique blend of jazz composition and Turkish music has been praised by the Boston Globe as “a true fusion of jazz and folkloric Turkish language and colors.” He is now in the process of completing his next CD release with his unique jazz orchestra/combo, Whatsnext? Sanlıkol pairs Turkish instruments such as zurna (double reed wind), ney (end-blown flute), kös (large kettledrums) and nekkare (small kettledrums) with the jazz orchestra/combo to perform his Turkish music–influenced compositions, in which Turkish makam (mode) and usul (rhythmic cycles) are intertwined with modern jazz as well as specifically film noir–influenced music.
On the other hand, his “coffeehouse opera,” entitled Othello in the Seraglio: The Tragedy of Sümbül The Black Eunuch, which has been the recipient of the Paul R. Judy Center grant at Eastman School of Music in 2015, bridges the musical cultures of opera house and coffeehouse, Baroque Italy and Ottoman Turkey. This love story is designed to draw the audiences into a meditation on race, slavery, sexuality and the entwined histories of East and West. With music from 16th and 17th century European and Turkish sources, arranged, adapted and woven together with original music by Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol, this unique music drama is being performed on European period instruments and traditional Turkish instruments by an ensemble of specialists in those fields.
Sanlıkol studied Western classical piano with his mother Fethiye Sanlıkol and started giving piano recitals as early as age five. Later on he studied with the internationally acclaimed Turkish composer/Jazz pianist Aydın Esen and won a scholarship to Berklee College of Music. While at Berklee Sanlıkol studied jazz composition with such accomplished composers as Herb Pomeroy and Ken Pullig. After studying with composers such as George Russell, Bob Brookmeyer, and Lee Hyla, in the year 2004 Sanlıkol completed his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Composition at New England Conservatory and helped found the organization DÜNYA based in Boston, Massachusetts. Sanlıkol is the president of DÜNYA, a musicians’ collective dedicated to contemporary presentations of Turkish traditions, alone and in interaction with other world traditions, through musical performance, publication, and educational activities. Since its founding Sanlıkol has produced, performed and delivered talks at over two hundred DÜNYA events. DÜNYA has also released 9 CDs, a single, a DVD and a documentary film featuring Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol both as a director/performer and a composer. The unique nature and the success of DÜNYA resulted with Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol going on the air numerous times on NPR and PRI.
Sanlıkol actively delivers papers and talks at academic conferences such as International Conference on Analytical Approaches to World Music and Society for Ethnomusicology. Sanlıkol’s book, entitled The Musician Mehters, about the organization and the music of the Ottoman Janissary Bands has been published during 2011 in English by The ISIS press and in Turkish by Yapı Kredi Yayınları.
Coming soon! Daily sample schedule
SUMMER CHORAL CONDUCTING INSTITUTE Vaccination policies
NEC requires documentation of up to date COVID-19 vaccinations (completion of the primary series plus one booster vaccination when eligible) for all students (ages 5 and older) who are studying on campus. The COVID-19 vaccination requirement is critical for NEC to maintain an environment of in-person teaching and learning. Students who fail to submit this documentation, unless a religious or medical exemption has been approved or there is a valid reason that it is not possible to receive the vaccine (e.g. a student living in a country where there is not access to a vaccine), may be prohibited from attending in-person courses and denied access to NEC facilities, including classrooms and performance spaces. If you have questions regarding this requirement, please be in touch with us at 617-585-1160 or summer@necmusic.edu. Please note that our COVID-19 policies are subject to change.
Students requesting a medical or religious exemption for Summer Orchestra Institute (SOI) from the COVID-19 vaccination requirement must complete a vaccine exemption form and submit it electronically through the NEC Prep secure email portal on or before March 1, 2023. Families can request the vaccine exemption form by emailing summer@necmusic.edu. Medical exemption requests must be verified by the student’s primary care or specialty care provider. The Director of Health Services and relevant administrators in the NEC Prep Office will review requests for exemption and may consult with other relevant administrators as necessary. Students will be notified whether or not the request is approved.