Conducted by music director finalist Adam Kerry Boyles
Join the NEP in the first of four Music Director finalist concerts! This concert, we welcome Adam Kerry Boyles to conduct the NEP.
Michael Gandolfi Stepping Up Fanfare in Honor of Richard Pittman
World Premier
Bernard Rands DREAM
Boston Premiere
Amy Beach Jephthah’s Daughter
Sarah Pelletier, soprano
Camille Saint-Saëns Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso in A minor
Ella J. Kim, violin, 2021 Young Artist Winner
Maurice Ravel Daphnis et Chloé, Suite 2
Accessibility, Parking & Public Transportation
Download the Full Program Notes
Video: 3:30 with Adam on NEP’s rehearsal of Jephthah’s Daughter
Sarah Pelletier, Soprano
Soprano Sarah Pelletier has been praised by the Boston Globe for possessing “virtues of voice, intelligence and musicianship… with purity of tone and expression”.
She has appeared as a guest artist at the Spoleto USA, Bard, Brevard, Tanglewood, Ravinia, and Aldeburgh, UK Festivals. Past seasons include multiple appearances with the New England Symphonic Ensemble at Carnegie Hall; Mahler Symphony No. 3 with Boston Ballet, Grieg Peer Gynt at the Brevard Festival; Britten War Requiem and Spring Symphony, Berg Wozzeck, and Schwantner Magabunda with New England Philharmonic; Loevendie 6 Turkish Folk Poems and Kraft Settings of Pierrot Lunaire with Boston Musica Viva; Bach B minor Mass with San Francisco Bach Choir; Handel Messiah with New Jersey Symphony Orchestra; Schumann Genoveva and Handel Ariodante with Emmanuel Music; Four Saints in Three Acts with Boston Modern Orchestra Project; and Sondheim Sweeney Todd with Princeton Festival Opera. Ms. Pelletier toured with Maestro Seiji Ozawa to Japan, China, and Italy, performing at the Saito Kinen Festival and Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Additionally, she has performed under the batons of Lukas Foss, Keith Lockhart, John Rutter, and Robert Spano.
She has been featured as a solo recitalist at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Goethe Institute as well as on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. A lover of Contemporary Music, she is a member of the Florestan Recital Project and has premiered works by Ross Bauer, Yu-Hui Chang, Howard Frazin, John McDonald, Eric Sawyer, Francine Trester, Andy Vores, and Arlene Zallman. She has performed for Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music as well as Music in Time Series at Spoleto Festival USA and Santa Fe New Music, performing Kancheli Exil. Ms. Pelletier is featured on Albany, Chesky, and New World Records.
Ella J. Kim, Violin
Ella J. Kim, age 16, is excited and honored to perform as soloist with the New England Philharmonic as the winner of the NEP 2021 Young Artist Competition. Ella began learning the violin at age five, quickly developing a love for music. She has won top prizes in numerous competitions, most recently having been selected as Grand Prize Winner of the Fidelity Investments Young Artists Competition, leading to a solo performance with the Boston Pops Orchestra at Symphony Hall. Ella also won top prizes at the American Protégé International Concerto Competition (Judge’s Top Prize and First Prize), leading to a solo performance at Carnegie Hall; Rivers Youth Orchestra Concerto Competition, resulting in a solo performance with the Philharmonia Orchestra; Arlington Philharmonic Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition, for which she was invited as soloist with the orchestra; and the Roman Totenberg Young Strings State Competition. She has also received the Rivers Conservatory String Department Prize, and she has been selected as one of the top violinists in the nation to perform for the All-National Honors Orchestra.
Ella has served as concertmaster of the Weston High School orchestras, Boston Youth Symphony senior orchestra, Massachusetts Music Educators Association (MMEA) Eastern Junior and Senior District Orchestras, and the MMEA All-State Orchestra. She enjoys giving back to her community as a musical volunteer for Continuo Boston, Weston elementary schools, Weston Brook Apartments, and Newton-Wellesley Hospital. At the start of the pandemic, Ella organized her fellow student musicians in a virtual fundraising concert to benefit families in need. She is a former student of Magdalena Richter and she currently studies with Peter Zazofsky. Ella, an eleventh grader at Weston High School, enjoys spending time with family and friends as well as playing tennis.