New England Conservatory of Music

If you have never heard of First Mondays at Jordan Hall, do your self a favor and go to one. I am firmly of the mind that Boston is filled with great artistic venues. Students, faculty, and amateur performers regularly rehearse, train, and perform their craft all over town, and often for free. First Mondays at NECM are exactly that.
If you enjoy classical music even just a little bit, come hear the next generation of professional musicians while they are still right at your door step. Student orchestras, faculty, and visiting musicians regularly perform solos, and symphonies for free in glorious Jordan Hall every month.
There is not much to complain about here. The seats are reasonably comfortable, although there is not much room to extend your legs unless you get into a row near a break in the seating chart. However that is practically guaranteed; there are always plenty of available seats, because who attends classical concerts for fun these days? You do! That is who. Their loss is your gain. Now get out there, and get your self some culture.

This review is for the Music Referral Service (MRS) provided by the New England Conservatory. For our recent wedding in Boston, we decided to hire an NEC student violinist. We put in the online request 6 and ½ weeks before the wedding and received a prompt response from the MRS team. Within 2 weeks we were in contact with a violinist. The violinist was very responsive and gave us suggestions for pieces he knew that matched our ideas for song choices. We didn’t want to go with the traditional ceremony music, and it was really nice that he gave us plenty of options. He even recorded a few of his pieces so we would get an idea of his pacing and style. He played 4 different pieces during the hour he was at our ceremony (prelude, processional, bride’s entrance, recessional), and everything was perfect! The rate of $ 125/​hour is extremely reasonable, especially when it makes the ceremony so much more memorable. The violinist was very professional and I highly recommend them for your special event!

Each month… on the first Monday, they have free performances in Jordan Hall. This isn’t typically my cup of tea but thought I’d go listen. The musicians were phenomenal, the location is convenient and the building was beautiful. Will definitely go again!

NECM is a phenomenal school and hearing 14 year old Victor Li play piano moves any place to 5 stars.

Great school — amazing teachers, top-​notch offerings… but it is absolutely unacceptable and inexcusable that the extent to which NEC regulates practice rooms — beyond prohibiting bringing food and drink into a room — is pretty much nill. I’m a student at NEC that’s here to study piano performance. In addition to tens of thousands of dollars a year, I pay an extra several hundred dollars for access to «piano priority» rooms. And yet I’ve been able to find a practice room TWICE in the last week and neither of them had a grand piano. Yesterday I waited for over an hour. I watched other students texting, talking on their phones, or doing homework that didn’t require a practice room. I saw people leave for about ten minutes and go get coffee and come back. It seems completely ludicrous that a music school of all places would run one of the most essential aspects of its curriculum in such a sloppy and completely unprofessional manner. At the very least, using your cell phone as anything more than a timer or metronome should be prohibited. It seems like it would also be really basic to let students sign up for a guaranteed hour of practice every day. And one would think that it would be common courtesy that students would form lines when they’re waiting for rooms, rather than aggressively «stealing» a room as soon as it opens. Every day I watch people misuse practice rooms, become increasingly aggressive and unmannerly in finding them, and really, it’s not helping us become musicians. We aren’t getting any better at practicing our instruments by having the idea that we should do all of our practicing at once engendered in us. Having a cutthroat attitude about taking practice rooms doesn’t help anyone create a more beautiful sound. All that NEC’s deregulations constitute is a systematic reeducation of young musicians in the wrong directions. NEC could do SO much better.

Back in the day, we were in Boston almost every weekend seeing my sister in law who was a student here.
I’ve sat through a few student performances and saw others on the Green T line. It was and still is one of the favorite places for students to practice and pick up some extra cash. LOL I undestand, Government Center was one of the most profitable.
Since then, depending on what city we lived in, we have always found some alum. Many were church organists, but some were voice majors who were paid section leaders and fill-​ins on Sundays with the choral.
It makes you appreciate how successful graduates of NE Conservatory become in life. Nice!

Love this school and Jordan Hall is fantastic. I go to NEC and the hall is one of the best I have ever played in. Amazing school and facutly.

The premier musical institution in Boston and easily one of the top music schools in the United States. The New England Conservatory is now more than ever a place for cutting edge ideas and unmatched performance opportunities. The faculty are often leaders in their respective fields and are genuinely interested in giving students the best education available. I see only good things coming from NEC in the future!

NEC is a great school and they have some really great shows & recitals that you can go to for free. Even the ticketed events are not too expensive. Jordan Hall is the most famous but they have several other great performance halls within the group of buildings. My wife has been doing her masters in vocal performance over the past two years, that’s why we moved up here. The faculty are some of the best in the world when it comes to music. All in all we have really enjoyed NEC and what they offer.

I’ve seen a few concerts at Jordan Hall (notably Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring) and I thought each performance was incredible — especially considering that these are free concerts.
I haven’t had any trouble with the seats but I haven’t had to sit off to the side either. Just make sure to get there somewhat early on some of the more popular shows if you want a particular seat.

I saw the string ensemble at Jordon Hall and agree with Katherine T — my big complaint is about those seats!!! They tilt way off to the side so you’re forced to lean on the person to the left (or right if you’re on the opposite side of the hall). Your back hurts, your side goes numb, it is highly unpleasant. The hall itself is beautiful and the music was lovely. Aside from the seat I had a very enjoyable time.
*Edited to add that I was sitting on the balcony to the side. I hope if you’re in the center your seat won’t tilt.

Saw a concert here the other night and it was great! The New England String Ensemble… very nice show. The staff were friendly, the sound was great (even in the nosebleed seats), but I have one beef with this theater.
The sections on the side are tilted downward towards the stage. Though the seats themselves are level, both myself and my friend managed to get sore backs from the seating… very strange.

I saw my first opera ever at Jordan Hall at the NEC, and I am not psyched to admit it, but I found it to be mediocre.
We took our middle school kids to see Cinderella. Maybe I couldn’t fully enjoy it because I was on the clock monitoring the haters?
There were some modern twists; there was a T.V. prop, Cinderella wore flats, the ugly stepsisters snacked on potato chips, there was a bi-​racial couple, drag queen step-​mother, etc.
The music was song in English, yet written in the tradional 1800s French Opera style, and I just wasn’t feeling it! I couldn’t really understand what people were saying and I found the singing composition to be screechy and not very harmonious, the acting to be subpar, and the lyrics themselves to be lacking. The fairy godmother’s singing sounded like a cacophonic nervous breakdown.
Great idea to expose kids to Opera and use our nearby resources for free concerts, cultural education, and college tours. Also, I appreciated NEC providing opera lesson material, as well as how the cast took questions and interacted with the schools after the show.
I really hope to make time to see more and better concerts at Jordan Hall because it is supposed to be «one of the most acoustically perfect halls in the country» and the building and rooms have some striking architecture.
It’s also lovely to hear people making music right next door to the school where I teach–

I have been to a few concerts at Jordan Hall and have enjoyed each one. It’s a beautiful space with a posh atmosphere and great acoustics. The seats on the side of what is usually the orchestra section is tilted downward toward the stage, but no matter where you sit the sound is fantastic. What’s best is that they offer free or cheap concerts by talented students and groups all the time. Get your classical music fix for much less than what you pay further up the street and catch a young, rising star.

You can catch great performances at Jordan Hall, a really beautiful intimate space, by top name professional groups all the time. However, take advantage of the student performances, from the grad level even down to the prep level. The NEC Youth Philharmonic Orchestra is probably the best youth orchestra in the country (and they sound legitimately good), and these days NEC’s string department is thought by many to be better than even more-​famous Juilliard. So for all the poor people out there — definitely a good way to hear cheap (and often free) classical music.
If you are a student there on the other hand, my friends have shown me around, and well it’s not posh, aside from Jordan Hall. But that’s a different review.

one the nation’s première conservatories, nec boasts performances year round by fantastic artists, provides lessons available from some of music’s finest teachers, and of course has the lovely jordan hall – a much more affordable alternative to symphony hall. i used to catch the metamorphosen chamber orchestra here annually and never left unimpressed!

Alternative to the pricey Symphony Hall. Jordan Hall has Great Acoustics for classical ensembles. great for classical music fans.