Allison Charney Epstein and Ben Loeb were already good friends by the time they directed and conducted\u00a0The Marriage of Figaro<\/em> together for the Lowell House Opera in 1989. They’ve been making music together ever since their professor, Luise Vosgerchian, introduced them.\u00a0Their latest work, ALIKE: My Mother\u2019s Dream, <\/em>just earned them both a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.<\/p>\n Today, Allison lives in New York City with her husband, Adam Epstein \u201988, and their children, while Ben is with his family in Plano, Texas. Nonetheless, they still seek each other out as creative sounding boards and professional partners. Catch up with this duo to learn how Harvard brought them together and what their partnership means to them now. \u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Ben:<\/strong> Definitely! I remember talking in the dorms about our ambitions, from singing at major opera houses to being music directors of international orchestras. For the few other serious classical musicians we knew, there were similar goals. Remarkably, many of those same friends from then have achieved great things in music. Allison and I were pretty excited that when our new album charted on Billboard this summer that there were three Harvard alums (all students of Professor Vosgerchian) in the Classical Top 12: the two of us and Yo-Yo Ma \u201976! \u00a0<\/p>\n Allison<\/strong>: I was determined to be a musician, too. I traveled to New York once a week for voice lessons while at Harvard and knew that I would go to a music conservatory after Harvard\u2014which I did. I got two graduate degrees in music from the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University, the second of which I got while also starting my career, singing opera all over the country.<\/p>\n Ben:<\/strong> Since 1987.\u00a0<\/p>\n Allison<\/strong>: I remember Professor Vosgerchian insisted that I ask Ben to play piano for me. At first, I balked: Ben seemed scary. He clearly knew so much more than I did about music, and I was sure he wouldn\u2019t take me seriously. Much to my surprise, he eagerly accepted my request that we start making music together and the rest is history. (Ben likes to say that I may have been scared of him that first time we spoke, but that he\u2019s been scared of me ever since!)\u00a0<\/p>\n Ben and I led the Lowell House Opera in our senior year. He conducted, and I directed and sang a leading role in\u00a0The Marriage of Figaro<\/em> (which was actually my senior thesis). I also sang in\u00a0The Merry Wives of Windsor <\/em>the year prior, which was the very first opera conducted by Alan Gilbert \u201989\u2014our classmate who later became music director of the New York Philharmonic [and is now chief conductor for the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Germany]. By the way, Ben actually played viola in that orchestra.<\/p>\n Allison<\/strong>: Definitely the friendships, so many of which have lasted for decades, and of course, my relationship with Luise. Other academics were important too, but, in the end, it\u2019s the relationships I value most.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ben:<\/strong> My experience was similar in terms of lasting friendships, but I don\u2019t discount Harvard\u2019s academic rigor and high intellectual standards, which made a strong impression on me and equipped me well for conservatory and beyond. \u00a0<\/p>\n Allison<\/strong>: Absolutely yes. I always want to tell undergraduates that they may think their four years on campus are the point of their Harvard education. But, truly, those four years are just the entry point to the alumni community, which is the most lasting relationship any of us has with Harvard. I also devote a tremendous amount of my volunteer efforts to Harvard-related activities.\u00a0<\/p>\n Allison<\/strong>: The album is a tribute to my mother\u2019s lifelong mission to focus on what makes us alike as human beings rather than what separates us. How could there ever be a more important goal than that? The album is made up of seven tracks of classical music: four pieces by living composers and three rediscovered and reimagined pieces that had been composed at the end of the Romantic era of classical music by composers of the past.\u00a0<\/p>\n The heart of the album is the country pairs: one composed by a Russian, one by a Ukrainian; one by an Iranian, one by an Israeli. Our point is to show that just as these pieces belong right next to each other on our album, so do these people belong next to each other\u2014living in peace\u2014on planet Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ben<\/strong>: There are also the three orchestral anchor pieces that help us tell the story of the album. It opens with Dvo\u0159\u00e1k\u2019s nostalgic \u201cSongs My Mother Taught Me\u201d and closes with American composer Kim D. Sherman\u2019s magnificent \u201cInvocation\u201d\u2014a setting to music of a single line of text: \u201cMake peace on all your lands\u201d sung in 15 different languages. In the middle is the first-ever English-language recording of Amy Beach\u2019s 10-minute-long scena for soprano and full orchestra, \u201cJephthah\u2019s Daughter.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Allison<\/strong>: Her handwritten manuscript was lost to the world for over a century, having been seized by the German army in World War I, and only just recently discovered for the first time. It serves as yet another example of all that is lost in war\u2014when people are divided\u2014there is not just a horrible loss of life, but also of great beauty and great potential. I want to acknowledge that this album is obviously just a tiny effort to make this very large point. It\u2019s really a drop in the bucket. But it\u2019s my hope that it might inspire other drops from other people. And, in the end, if we all put in just our drop, maybe the bucket would overflow with goodness\u2014and wouldn\u2019t that be something?<\/p>\n Ben<\/strong>: We choose repertoire through lots of discussion, plan performances before recording, and schedule rehearsals around those. For this album, we performed in Dallas before we recorded there, and then I had Allison come perform as a guest soloist at a festival I conduct in the Czech Republic, after which we recorded in Prague.\u00a0<\/p>\n Allison<\/strong>: We also consult each other on other musical projects where we are not collaborating. We really rely on one another as creative sounding boards. \u00a0<\/p>\n Ben<\/strong>: I go mainly for Reunions, which are very meaningful.\u00a0<\/p>\n Allison:<\/strong> Quite a bit\u2014and now as a parent, it\u2019s fun seeing the campus through my son\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n Ben<\/strong>: It\u2019s an incredible honor to have been considered worthy for such recognition by our peers in the music industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n Allison<\/strong>: And it\u2019s especially meaningful that we\u2019ve both been nominated for the first time\u2014together. And even more so, since we dedicated this album to the memory of Luise Vosgerchian. I think she\u2019d get a kick out of the extra notice, and I hope she\u2019d be rewarded to know we\u2019re still at it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source alumni.harvard.edu \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Allison Charney Epstein and Ben Loeb were already good friends by the time they directed and conducted\u00a0The Marriage of Figaro together for the Lowell House Opera in 1989. They’ve been making music together ever since their professor, Luise Vosgerchian, introduced them.\u00a0Their latest work, ALIKE: My Mother\u2019s Dream, just earned them both a Grammy nomination for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2157309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[413152,413150,413157,413151,22219,325760,394041,413154,413155,413156,413153],"class_list":["post-2157308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-alike","tag-allison-charney-epstein","tag-alumni-interview","tag-ben-loeb","tag-classical-music","tag-collaboration","tag-grammy-nomination","tag-harvard-alumni","tag-lowell-house-opera","tag-luise-vosgerchian","tag-my-mothers-dream"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Behind-the-Music-Harvard-Alumni.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2157308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2157308"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2157308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2157310,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2157308\/revisions\/2157310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2157309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2157308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2157308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2157308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Did you always know you wanted careers in music?\u00a0<\/h3>\n
How long have you known each other?\u00a0\u00a0<\/h3>\n
What are your most lasting memories of Harvard?\u00a0<\/h3>\n
Do you stay connected to Harvard today?\u00a0\u00a0<\/h3>\n
![\"Alike,](\"https:\/\/alumni.harvard.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/Album43.jpg\")
Tell us about your new Grammy-nominated album,\u00a0Alike: My Mother’s Dream<\/em>.\u00a0<\/h3>\nHow do you collaborate when you\u2019re geographically apart? \u00a0<\/h3>\n
Do you come back to campus often?\u00a0<\/h3>\n
How do you feel about being nominated for a Grammy award?\u00a0<\/h3>\n