The Conductors Institute

Faculty

Director

• Harold Farberman, Founder and Artistic Director Biography
  Maestro Farberman anchors the faculty of visiting guest conductors. New visiting faculty and new repertoire each week assure all Institute participants of exposure to a variety of expert opinions. In addition, internationally known scholars, composers, and conductors present regularly scheduled evening lectures.
  

Conductors

• Leon Botstein, Special guest Biography
  

  Leon Botstein has been music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992. He recently was named conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, which he had served as music director since 2003. He is also the founder and co-artistic director of the SummerScape Festival and the Bard Music Festival, now in its 22nd year. He has been president of Bard College since 1975.

  Mr. Botstein maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor throughout Europe and may also be heard on numerous recordings, including operas by Strauss, Dukas, and Chausson, as well as works of Shostakovich, Dohnányi, Liszt, Bruckner, Bartók, Hartmann, Reger, Glière, Szymanowski, Brahms, Copland, Sessions, Perle, and Rands. Many live recordings with the American Symphony Orchestra are now available for download on the Internet.

  He is the editor of The Musical Quarterly and the author of numerous articles and books. In spring 2011 he was chosen to give the prestigious Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the University of California, Berkeley. For his contributions to music he has received the award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Harvard University’s prestigious Centennial Award as well as the Cross of Honor, First Class from the government of Austria. He is a 2009 recipient of the Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award and recently was inducted into the American Philosophical Society.

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• Mark Gibson, Conductor-in-Residence — July 9–13 Biography
  Currently artistic director of the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, Mark Gibson maintains an active performing career on three continents while heading the Orchestral Studies program at the College–Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati.
  
  Formerly principal conductor of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and music director of the Ash Lawn/Highland Summer Festival, Maestro Gibson has enjoyed an extensive career both in the opera house and concert hall. Trained in the United States with Gustav Meier, Seiji Ozawa, and Leonard Bernstein, Gibson pursued an opera career in Spain, serving as associate conductor of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona and music director of the Opera de Maò, Menorca. Since returning to the U.S., he has led productions at such American opera companies as the New York City Opera, Minnesota Opera, Opera Pacific, Dallas Opera, Cleveland Opera, and Michigan Opera Theatre. He has appeared with many orchestras, including the Minnesota Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, and Rochester Philharmonia as well as at the summer festivals in Chautauqua and Spoleto U.S.A. Internationally, he has led new productions of Turandot in Sagunto, Un Ballo in Maschera in Malaga, and Mosé and Turandot in Seoul, while also appearing with orchestras in Barcelona, Bochum and Munich.
  

  With the Opera Theatre and Music Festival of Lucca, he has led acclaimed productions of Handel’s Alcina, Verdi’s Falstaff and the Italian premiere of Dominick Argento’s Casanova’s Homecoming. He has recently appeared with the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra in China and led the world of premiere of David Cutler’s Toy Fantasy, a concerto for two harps and orchestra, with the Korean Chamber Ensemble in Seoul.

  At the College–Conservatory of Music (CCM), Gibson serves as music director of the CCM Philharmonia, one of the preeminent conservatory orchestras in the world. With the CCM Opera Theatre, he has conducted groundbreaking new productions of Dvorák’s Rusalka, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, and Kurt Weill’s The Royal Palace. Highly sought after as a teacher, he has been invited to give conducting master classes in Beijing and Munich; his student Xian Zhang recently won the prestigious Maazel/Vilar Conductor’s Competition. Before coming to Cincinnati, Gibson was visiting music director of the Eastman Philharmonia. His first book, a major revision of the classic conducting text, The Modern Conductor (7th edition), was recently published by Prentice-Hall.

• Raymond Harvey, Conductor-in-Residence — July 2–6 Biography
  

  With an immediately noticeable style that has been described as “elegant, but suffused with energy,” Raymond Harvey has garnered critical acclaim on symphonic podiums throughout the United States. Currently music director of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Harvey was previously music director of the Springfield Symphony in Massachusetts and the Fresno Philharmonic in California. He has appeared as guest conductor with many of America’s leading orchestras, including those of Philadelphia, Atlanta, St. Louis, Utah, Indianapolis, Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit, Louisville, New Orleans, and Minnesota as well as the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts and the Boston Pops. He has also had engagements with the Maggio Musicale Orchestra of Florence, Italy; the Pusan Symphony of South Korea; and the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica.
  
  Equally at home in the world of opera, Mr. Harvey served for fifteen years as music director of the El Paso Opera in Texas. Among the many productions he has conducted are Carmen, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, La Bohème, Turandot, Aïda, La Traviata, The Tales of Hoffman, The Marriage of Figaro, and Così fan tutte. He has also appeared with the Houston Grand Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Texas Opera Theater, Opera Idaho, and Indiana University Music Theater.
  
  Recognized as an outstanding pianist, choral conductor, and teacher, Raymond Harvey holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a doctor of musical arts degree from the Yale School of Music. He has been featured in Ebony and Symphony magazines and is profiled in the book Black Conductors by Antoinette Handy. He is a frequent guest teacher for the Conductor’s Institute at Bard and for the American Symphony Orchestra League’s Conducting Workshops.

• Apo Hsu, Conductor-in-Residence — July 23–27 Biography
  

  “She generates electricity from the podium in two directions: into the orchestra and into the audience.” —The Oregonian

  Apo Ching-Hsin Hsu began her tenure as orchestra director at National Taiwan Normal University in the fall of 2003. In the summers since 2000, she has served as a guest faculty member of the Conductor’s Institute at Bard College in New York.
  
  Hsu previously served as music director and conductor of the Springfield Symphony in Missouri; artistic director of the Women’s Philharmonic in San Francisco; and music director and conductor of the Oregon Mozart Players in Eugene, Oregon, after completing a three-year tenure as Affiliate Artist/NEA Assistant Conductor of the Oregon Symphony.
  
  In September 2001, Avon Women in Concert presented Ms. Hsu on tour in Brazil with the Women’s Philharmonic, performing an all-bossa nova program featuring works of the Brazilian poet Vinícius de Moraes. In spring 2000, producer Debbie Allen included Hsu and the Women’s Philharmonic in a series titled “Cool Women,” which was broadcast on U.S. cable television through the 2000–2001 season. Ms. Hsu and the Women’s Philharmonic recorded a CD featuring the symphonic music of African American composer Florence Price, which was released on the Koch International Classics label.
  
  Guest appearances have taken Ms. Hsu all over the United States as well as to Russia, Asia, and Australia. In a performance with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., she captivated students in an interactive Youth Education Series. She has collaborated with various symphony orchestras in Taiwan. Other guest appearances have included several performances for youth with the Saint Louis Symphony, a summer concert with the Minnesota Orchestra, and two appearances with the San Francisco Symphony. She has also appeared at the Interlochen Music Festival, Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute, and Colorado Music Festival; with the symphonies of Hartford, Southwest Florida, Kalamazoo, Detroit, Eugene, Elgin, Mobile, Harrisburg, Wheeling, West Shore, Lubbock, Wichita, Green Bay, Stockton, and Oregon; with the Missouri and Reno Chamber Orchestras; and in a two-week residency in Irkutsk, Russia.
  
  During the 2003 season, Ms. Hsu collaborated with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra. The fall of 2004 marked her debut with the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan as well as the Sung Nam and Prime Philharmonic Orchestras in Seoul, Korea. She returned to guest conduct the NTSO in spring 2005 and returned to guest conduct the KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) Symphony Orchestra in November 2005. Hsu has also guest conducted and led the Taiwan Wind Ensemble and Tao Yuan Symphonic Band, both esteemed professional symphonic bands in Taiwan, in diverse and interactive programs.
  
  Ms. Hsu led the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra in the university’s 60th anniversary celebration, a weeklong, three-city, Australian cultural exchange tour in May 2006. With the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra and the Festival Chorus, they embarked on a California tour titled “Formosa Dreaming” in September 2007.

  Ms. Hsu was invited to guest conduct the Sydney Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra in 2007 and August 2009. She returned to the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra in 2007, and guest conducted the China National Symphony Orchestra in the opening concert of the 2008 Beijing International Congress on Women in Music at the new China National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, presented by the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) and the China Conservatory of Music (CCM). In 2009, she appeared with the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra on its Masterworks Series and returned to lead the Springfield Symphony Orchestra for its 75th anniversary season celebratory opening concert. In October 2010, Ms. Hsu guest conducted the Lamont Symphony Orchestra in Denver in a program that included the U.S. premieres of Taiwanese composer Hsu Tsang-Houei’s Deux Mouvements pour orchestre a cordes, op. 26; and Nu-guan-zi (after the poetic tune of Wei Zhuang), op. 14.
  
  Ms. Hsu has served on the faculties of the American Symphony Orchestra League Conducting Workshops, National Youth Orchestra Festival 2000, Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute 2002 and 2004, 2007 All State Orchestra in New Mexico, and 2009 All State Orchestra in Colorado. She has been a music review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer, and serves as a member of the Evaluation Committee at the CKS Center in Taipei.

• Eduardo Navega, Director, Discovery Program Biography
  Eduardo Navega, a native of Brazil, began his musical studies in São Paulo. He received his bachelor’s degree in composition and conducting from the State University of Campinas (Brazil), his master’s degree in music from the University of Sheffield (England), and his artist diploma in orchestral conducting from the Hartt School of Music. Mr. Navega’s conducting teachers have included Benito Juarez, Henrique Gregori, and Harold Farberman. From 1978 to 1989, he was conductor of the University of São Paulo Choir. During this period he wrote a significant number of arrangements of Brazilian popular songs for choir, most of which are still in the repertoire of choirs throughout Brazil.
  
  Mr. Navega joined the Campinas Symphony Orchestra as a viola player in 1987 and two years later became its assistant conductor, a post he held until 1997. He was assistant professor of choral and orchestral conducting and conductor of the symphony orchestra at the State University of Campinas from 1991 to 1997. In 1995, Mr. Navega was awarded the prize of Up and Coming Conductor of the Year by the APCA, a prestigious critics association in the State of São Paulo.
  
  From 1992 to 1993, Mr. Navega was the conductor of the University of Sheffield Chamber Orchestra and received public and critic acclaim for his performances. He has guest conducted the Varna Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria as well as a number of choirs and orchestras in the Brazilian States of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Parana, and Rio de Janeiro. In the field of modern music, Mr. Navega has conducted a number of world premieres by such important contemporary composers as Livio Tratemberg, Cirio Pereira, and Antonio de Almeida Prado, among others.
  
  Mr. Navega has conducted a number of opera productions in Brazil and the United States. He has been director of orchestral activities and conductor of the Vassar College Orchestra since 1999. Mr. Navega teaches at the Conductors Institute at Bard College, one of the most prestigious summer programs for conductors in the United States.
  

Alexander Technique

• Alexander Farkas, Alexander Technique Biography
  Alexander Farkas, qualified as a teacher of the Alexander Technique in 1998, trained in London with Shoshana Kaminitz and had prior and further study with Patrick Macdonald, Margaret Goldie, Marjorie Barlow and Elisabeth Walker.  A musician as well, he received a MM in piano from the Manhattan School of Music and, with a focus on becoming a collaborative artist, had further study with Brooks Smith, John Wustmann and Paul Ulanowsky.  His earlier piano studies were with Nadia Reisenberg. As a teacher Alex has been on the faculty of the Yale School of Music, the Hartt School, University of Hartford, and Vassar College. He was also the recipient of an IREX Grant for study in Hungary and has translated several books on music for Editio Musica, Budapest, most notably the Selected Writings of Lajos Bardos.  As a pianist Alex has played for Jennie Tourel and served as accompanist for the class of Pierre Bernac.  Applying the Alexander Technique to the vocal arts, Alex has presented workshops and masterclasses both here and abroad including the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music, London, the Musikhochschule Luzern and the Musikschule Basel, Switzerland and as a guest teacher for Alexander students at training courses in the U. K., Australia and France.  Alex has taught for the Conductors Institute at Bard since 2000 and for the Bard Conservatory of Music since 2005.