Tag: From the Top

On a Wednesday afternoon, eleven From the Top young musicians gathered in Boston to begin a 4-day residency. They arrived as strangers; some having traveled across the country to be there. One goal was clear – the young musicians had to prepare for a performance and recording for NPR’s From the Top radio show. (In fact, the group […]

From the Top Receives Grants from the National Endowment for the Arts From the Top has received two Art Works grants for $20,000 and $40,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to support From the Top’s nationally-distributed NPR radio program and associated outreach activities. National Endowment for the Arts Acting Chairman Mary Anne […]

This past June, 20-year-old cellist Zlatomir Fung won the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition’s top prize in the cello division, adding to his already impressive list of accolades that include first prize wins at the 2018 Alice & Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition and 2016 George Enescu International Cello Competition. As the first place winner of […]

From the Top returns to our home concert hall, New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall in Boston, on Sunday, October 14 at 2PM. The show brings back alum Yuga Cohler as Guest Host. Yuga is a respected conductor, recently receiving critical acclaim for “Yeethoven” at Lincoln Center – a concert comparing the works of Kanye West and Beethoven.  At […]

Guitarist Nicholas Padmanabhan performed on NPR’s From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley in March 2018. You can listen to his performance, airing on stations nationwide the week of May 28, 2018, here. Like all FTT performers, Nicholas went through our Arts Leadership Orientation, where he and his peers explored leadership concepts and planned for a community engagement […]

This article is part of our ongoing series exploring the projects launched by the recipients of our Alumni Leadership Grant. 2017 was the pilot year for From the Top’s Alumni Leadership Grant, which funds leadership initiatives launched by our alumni all across the country. One of those grants supported FTT alum Avik Sarkar as he spearheaded a benefit concert […]

My name is Noah Lee, and I am a high school senior from Oakland, New Jersey, getting ready to start college in Boston in the fall. I was fortunate enough to have been born into a musical family. My mother and sister are both musicians. In fact, my mother was my first teacher. So it […]

From the Top alumni are no strangers to celebrating big-time success, and Emi Ferguson has a lot to celebrate right now. Emi first appeared on From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley  on Show 121 playing one of J.S. Bach’s famous flute sonatas, and has since gone on to attend Juilliard with a prestigious grant, perform […]

Alum Joseph Conyers, age 36, grew up in the small southern city of Savannah, Georgia. He performed on From the Top in 1999 as part of our second pilot program. We reached out to him recently to see what he’s up to in 2017. 18 years after performing on From the Top, he now serves […]

This interview is part of This Land/Our Land, a music video project bringing together six young musicians from immigrant backgrounds to perform a new arrangement of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” The arrangement is by From the Top host Christopher O’Riley. Watch the video here. Want more stories like this? Scroll down to […]

This interview is part of This Land/Our Land, a music video project bringing together six young musicians from immigrant backgrounds to perform a new arrangement of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” The arrangement is by From the Top host Christopher O’Riley. Watch the video here. Want more stories like this? Scroll down to […]

What happens when 8 classically-trained musicians, 8 vocalists, 10 visual artists, and one rap artist come together? The answer is our latest music video, a cover of Jon Batiste & Stay Human’s “Express Yourself (Say Yes)”. We filmed this video at the Epicenter of Artists for Humanity, a non-profit here in our hometown of Boston. […]

On May 10, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu announced approval of more than $82 million to fund local arts projects and partnerships in the NEA’s second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2016. From the Top is proud to be an Art Works award recipient. The Art Works category supports the creation of work and […]

There are no manuals for how to become a great cellist. It can’t be learned on YouTube. It requires hard work and immense dedication, and it also requires a teacher, one human, who will pour his/her soul into giving musicians the tools to find their own expressions of their own souls. What a thing that is! It’s the ultimate example […]

Dear Friends, After 12 years, hundreds of radio shows, and countless other productions including two seasons of Emmy-winning television, our long-time music director Tom Vignieri is officially moving on. Tom, his wife Alison, and their two children have relocated to the English countryside to be closer to family in Devon and to give Tom the […]

Prologue: My name is Chad Lilley, and I’m a classical saxophonist and Washington DC area native. I appeared on NPR’s From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley in the fall of my junior year: October 5, 2013, in the near acoustically (and aesthetically) perfect Jordan Hall at The New England Conservatory. In the summer after […]

46-year-old violin star Joshua Bell didn’t appear on From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley as a kid because, well, the show hadn’t been created yet! But in 1999, and again in 2005, he did indeed perform on the show as a guest artist, which makes him an honorary alum of the show in our books. […]

This post is Part 3 of a three-part series about From the Top’s Fall 2014 residency at the Conservatory Lab Charter School (CLCS), an elementary school in Boston with a music-intensive curriculum. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.     It was a Friday afternoon at Conservatory Lab Charter School. A large room filled to the brim with elementary […]

It’s that time again! The leaves are changing color, the air is getting crisper, and Boston’s young musicians are in the midst of another academic year. Lots of music is yet to be made, some in a formal concert hall, some out in our community. We find it’s the unexpected encounters with music that often have the most […]

For the past three years, From the Top has enjoyed a partnership with Conservatory Lab Charter School in Brighton, Massachusetts. Conservatory Lab is the only music-infused public elementary school in the state and provides all students free vocal and instrumental instruction. However, the students at Conservatory Lab don’t have access to playing in small ensembles, […]