Common Curriculum
The Common Curriculum is made up of those classes taken by the students of both the choral and orchestral conducting programs. Both the
orchestral and
choral conducting programs also require additional courses unique to each program.
Music History
This four-semester sequence concentrates on major works from the 18th and 19th centuries in the first semester and the 20th and 21st centuries in the second semester, with a focus each week on a particular composer within the larger musical, historical, biographical, and cultural context.
The third semester is devoted to the history of opera, from Monteverdi to the present. The fourth-semester course, built around American Symphony Orchestra programs in New York City and at Bard, illuminates the relationship of music history to the sociology of music, particularly that of listening. The course examines shifting attitudes toward public performance; the different contexts of performance: spaces, politics, economics, and social status of musicians; the history of the orchestra; and economics of concert life.
Ear Training and Score Reading
The Ear Training and Score Reading course combines work on solfège and harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic dictation with practice in transposition and the reading of open score.
Foreign Language Study
Two semesters of German or Italian are required. The course includes a study of the grammar of the studied language, with a special focus on developing the text translation and reading skills needed by conductors.
Career Workshops
A series of workshops with distinguished guest speakers addresses the practical aspects of working as a conductor and/or music director. Topics include creating an ensemble, applying for grants, and developing a board of directors.
Composition
This two-semester class gives young conductors first hand experience in the compositional process. It deepens their knowledge of the means of musical expression and increases their awareness of the many notatonal challenges inherent in any printed score.
Topics in the first semester include melodic organization and materials; basic counterpoint; motivic development in small forms; composing for strings, winds, brass, chorus, piano, and percussion; examination of nonstandard pitch materials; and analysis of selected repertory, including 20th-century works. Assignments include melodic composition and melodic expansion, a short invention or study using two-part instrumental texture, a piece in free texture for solo instrument (usually piano), and the development of a work for string ensemble or chorus, to be read under the composer’s baton at the conclusion of the first semester.
In the second semester students compose a theme and variations, score for larger ensembles of mixed winds and strings, compose with nontonal pitch materials (either restricted to three- or four-pitch classes, working with a nontonal motive, or using a tone row), and compose a woodwind quintet or choral work with small ensemble, to be read under the composer’s baton. During the second part of the semester, each student starts sketching and drafting ideas for a work of about four minutes’ duration, to be completed and performed as part of the student’s conducting program for the thesis concert.
