He met with a group of Boston's most influential musical leaders to discuss the foundation of a school based on popular and well-established European conservatories.

The group initially rejected Tourjée's plans, arguing that it was a poor idea to open a conservatory amidst the nation's current political and economic uncertainty, which would ultimately lead to the American Civil War.

In the thirteen-year interim, Tourjée had gained both experience and success in founding three music schools in Rhode Island, and this time was able to convince his audience of the persisting need and demand for such institutions.

The men agreed to support Tourjée, and The New England Conservatory—then consisting of just seven rented rooms above the Boston Music Hall off Tremont Street—officially opened on February 18, 1867.

The hall was rapidly put to heavy use, with 109 classical music concerts and hundreds of student recitals performed in the first year.

When Henry Higginson founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1881, he called on 19 members of NEC faculty to serve as section leaders.

Chadwick again recognized the need for a new facility and selected a location on Huntington Ave, which was quickly becoming a cultural center of Boston with the recently-built Symphony Hall one block away.

Once again through the generosity of its trustees, namely Eben Dryer Jordan Jr., another plot of land was purchased and, in 1901, construction began on a new concert hall at 290 Huntington Ave.

[15] Like most academic institutions in the 1930s and early 1940s, NEC saw a decline in enrollment throughout the Great Depression and the closely following events of World War II.

Keller later founded the Department of Music for Young People, the precursor to NEC's present-day Preparatory School, and also oversaw construction of a new dormitory which opened in 1960.

Lesser shepherded a major capital campaign to fund the 1994–95 restoration of Jordan Hall, and instituted the Doctorate of Musical Arts (DMA) degree along with a considerable number of additional graduate school offerings.

He instituted both of the programs for Sistema Fellows and Entrepreneurial Musicianship, and ended his tenure with the groundbreaking for the Student Life and Performance Center (SLPC), the school's first new building since 1960.

This building primarily houses administrative departments, the copy/mail center, the store Music Espresso, and additional practice rooms.

Newspaper accounts deemed the hall "unequaled the world over," and The Boston Globe reported that it was "a place of entertainment that European musicians who were present that evening say excels in beauty anything of the kind they ever saw.

[26] The Doctor of Musical Arts degree (DMA) is a rigorous and selective program intended for performer-scholars who combine the highest standards in their major area with proven accomplishments in research and scholarship.

[29][30] Students in the Harvard/NEC dual-degree program receive a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard and a Master of Music from NEC over 5 years of study.

For the first 4 years, students pursue the typical Bachelor of Arts curriculum in their concentration (major) and take weekly studio instruction at NEC.

NEC Prep offers private lessons, theory and composition courses, chamber music, and over 35 small and large ensembles of varying levels.

Multiple certificate levels are offered for each instrumental and vocal area for students to progress through with each subsequent year of attendance.

[citation needed] Every year, the festival hosts a composer-in-residence who engages with the community in a variety of ways, including visiting classes, working with small and large ensembles, and leading masterclasses.

Past Composers-in-Residence include the founding member and artistic director of ETHEL, Ralph Farris (2018), Pulitzer Prize Winner and MacArthur Fellow recipient, John Harbison (2015), and British Composer and former Master of the Queen's Music, Judith Weir (2014).

Puerto-Rican pianist Jesus Maria Sanroma received his diploma from NEC in 1920, while the first Black students to earn bachelor's degrees were Anna Bobbitt (Gardner) and Luther Fuller, both in 1932.

Some of NEC's most famous African American alumni include Florence Price, Coretta Scott King, J. Rosamond Johnson, Cecil Taylor, D. Antoinette Handy, McHenry Boatwright, Buckner Gamby, and Denyce Graves.

NEC's Black faculty members have included talents such as Jaki Byard, George Russell, Geri Allen, and Carl Atkins.

NEC also has a long history of awarding honorary degrees to many significant artists, such as Roland Hayes (1961), Marian Anderson (1964), Shinichi Suzuki (1966), Coretta Scott King (1971), William Grant Still (1973), Seiji Ozawa (1982), Miles Davis (1986), John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (1991), Ravi Shankar (1993), Aretha Franklin (1997), Ali Akbar Khan (2000), Jose Antonio Abreu (2002), Halim El-Dabh (2007), Quincy Jones (2010), Kyung Wha Chun (2015), Sofia Gubaidulina (2017), Herbie Hancock (2018), Chou Wen-chung (2019), Jessye Norman (2019), Mavis Staples (2021), Wu Man (2021), and Ella Jenkins (2022).