private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. Considered one of the leading music schools in the United States, it is also the oldest independent music conservatory in the nation. It offers bachelor's degrees with majors in percussion, five woodwind, five brass, six string, and three keyboard instruments, plus studies such as contemporary improvisation, composition, historical performance, improvisation and jazz studies, music history and musicology, music theory, and vocal performance. The conservatory offers additional graduate degrees in accompaniment; choral, wind ensemble, and orchestral conducting; musicology; music education; and vocal pedagogy. Students perform in some 450 concerts annually in ensembles, including the New England Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, which is often led by notable American and European conductors. The school's libraries include music scores and more than 35,000 sound and video recordings, and its facilities include an electronic-music studio. Total enrollment is about 750.

The New England Conservatory was founded by Eben Tourjée in 1867. For most of its history Boston Symphony Orchestra players have taught at the conservatory and have been students there. Jazz pianist Cecil Taylor (Taylor, Cecil), composers William Grant Still (Still, William Grant) and Alan Hovhaness (Hovhaness, Alan), soprano Lillian Nordica (Nordica, Lillian), and opera conductor Sarah Caldwell (Caldwell, Sarah) are among its notable alumni, and the jazz improvisers-composers Ran Blake, Jimmy Giuffre, and George Russell have numbered among its faculty members.