Kennedy Center Selects Shepherd School for New Program

The Shepherd School of Music is one of eight leading music conservatories in the United States chosen by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to participate in its new program, the Conservatory Project.

The project will showcase young performers who show extraordinary talent with seven performances of classical music, jazz, and opera. The participants will have the opportunity to be critiqued by world-renowned musicians, including Leonard Slatkin and Plácido Domingo.

The Shepherd School participated in the project’s inaugural week of free performances May 24 to May 31 at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. In the future, the music festival will be presented biannually in late winter and late spring, and three Rice students will perform annually.

“We are extremely pleased with this invitation and its recognition of our national reputation among the top-tier music schools in the country,” said Anne Schnoebelen, interim dean of music at the Shepherd School, when the program was announced in March. “The students we choose to perform at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will not only be presented to Washington audiences but also will benefit from the feedback of prominent artists associated with the center.”

The other colleges and universities chosen to participate in the project are Berklee College of Music, the Curtis Institute of Music, Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, the Juilliard School, the Peabody Conservatory of Music at Johns Hopkins University, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the School of Music at Indiana University.

—Ellen Chang