News & Events

While the College is on Spring Recess, the Bard men's varsity baseball team (the College's first since 1937) is on the road. A walk-off RBI single by sophomore Tom Danz highlighted their doubleheader split with Crown College in Florida on Monday afternoon.
http://www.bardathletics.com/news/2013/3/25/BB_0325134316.aspx

More than 85 colleges and community organizations across the country have joined the Bard Center for Environmental Policy and C2C Fellows Network in leading a national conversation on democracy and climate change with a screening of The Island President—the 2011 documentary that chronicles Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed’s efforts to confront climate change and rising sea levels, which threaten to submerge the low-lying island nation. The film will be screened on Wednesday, April 17.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2413

Sō Percussion and the Bard College Conservatory of Music Percussion Program present their second annual spring concert at the Fisher Center on April 12. Works include music by Steve Reich, Lou Harrison, Paul Lansky, and other recent percussion masterworks.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2414

Professor Armstead lectures on her book Freedom’s Gardener: James F. Brown, Horticulture, and the Hudson Valley in Antebellum America at Columbia University's Lehman Center for American History on April 24.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lehmancenter/seminars.html

"The danger of drones is how they change us as humans," writes Arendt Center director Roger Berkowitz on Bard's new Drones Seminar.
http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=9904

President Botstein reflects on Professor Achebe's life, work, and legacy on CNN. "Achebe's contribution was not merely literary . . . He was committed to his people and his community. He did not shy away from political controversy, and he did so in a manner that was unforgettable."
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/22/opinion/opinion-botstein-achebe/index.html

The Bard community was deeply saddened to learn of the death of groundbreaking Nigerian writer and Bard professor emeritus Chinua Achebe. The author and educator was best known for his first and most influential novel, Things Fall Apart. He wrote numerous books, including novels, collections of short fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children's books. Professor Achebe received more than 30 honorary degrees, as well as many awards for his work. He was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard from 1990 to 2009. (Photo by Don Hammerman)

The Peace Corps and Bard College have teamed up to launch an expanded Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program partnership, an initiative that provides graduate school scholarships to returned Peace Corps volunteers. All Fellows complete a degree-related internship in an underserved American community, allowing them to bring home and expand upon the skills they learned as Peace Corps volunteers. Selected Fellows will have the opportunity to work toward a master of arts in teaching.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2412

The celebration on April 14 will include an open house with chamber music performances, followed by a celebration in the performance hall at 4 p.m., with Conservatory director Robert Martin; musical performances by students of the Conservatory and Bard’s Music Program; a reading by acclaimed poet Robert Kelly, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature; and remarks by László Z. Bitó ’60 and Bard College president Leon Botstein.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2411

The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) has named the Irish curator, writer, artist, and educator Paul O’Neill as director of the graduate program for its two-year Master of Arts program in Curatorial Studies.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2410

Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Music, will receive an honorary degree from Smith College at their commencement in May. Professor Tower has taught at Bard College since 1972. She is regarded as one of the most important living American composers, and has made lasting contributions as composer, performer, conductor, and educator in a career spanning more than 50 years.
http://www.smith.edu/newsoffice/releases/NewsOffice13-14.html

On Monday, April 1, Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning fiction writer and recipient of a 2012 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, will read from his work at Bard College. The New York Times called Díaz “one of contemporary fiction’s most distinctive and irresistible new voices.”
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2409

Bard College first-year percussion student Chris Gunnell was featured in the annual report of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Chris is pursuing a five-year dual degree at Bard, studying music at the Conservatory as well as philosophy and social policy at the College.
http://www.nationalmerit.org/

The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College presents Monogamy, a major exhibition by Gerard Byrne and Sarah Pierce, curated by Tirdad Zolghadr, on view March 24 – May 26, 2013 in the CCS Bard Galleries.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2408

Acclaimed Israeli author and filmmaker Etgar Keret will give a reading at Bard College on Monday, April 15. Keret will read selections from his recent work Suddenly, a Knock on the Door, as well as from The Girl on the Fridge, which contains his earliest stories.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2407

Vassar College professor Amitava Kumar interviews Bard College distinguished writer in residence, historian, and photographer Teju Cole. This issue also contains a series of Cole's paired photographs from different global locations, with Kumar's exploration of their relationships to each other and other great works of art.
http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/pitch-forward/

Bard students have received two Davis Projects for Peace prizes! Saim Saeed has been awarded $10,000 to launch an intercultural youth dialogue course in Istanbul, Turkey. Lauren Blaxter, Ameer Shalibi, Nadine Tadros, and Daniel Gettinger will also receive $10,000 to support the Bard Palestinian Youth Initiative's work in Mas'Ha.

The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College announces 15 exhibitions curated by CCS Bard master’s degree candidates, on view March 24 – May 26 in the Hessel Museum of Art. These exhibits feature the work of more than 54 major international and emerging contemporary artists including Vito Acconci, Liam Gillick, An-My Lê, and Bruce Nauman, among others.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2405

On January 26, the Bard Prison Initiative held its 10th and largest-ever commencement ceremony at Eastern Correctional Facility. Sixty incarcerated students received associate's or bachelor's degrees. The Reverend Calvin Butts, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in the City of New York, delivered the address and President Leon Botstein presided.

http://vimeo.com/59691635

The Bard College baseball team swept a doubleheader against Yeshiva University on Sunday afternoon in the Bronx, making a splash in their return to varsity status for the first time since the spring of 1937.
http://www.bardathletics.com/news/2013/3/3/BB_0303130859.aspx

Eighty students from Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Kingston, and the three Bard High School Early Colleges competed on Friday, March 1, in a World-Schools-Style debate tournament at Bard. The Bard College Debate Union and the Bard Center for Civic Engagement hosted the second annual tournament, with twice as many middle and high school students participating as did last year.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2402

This new series, curated by Bard faculty members Roger Berkowitz and Walter Russell Mead, will engage an ongoing discussion with the nation’s leading bloggers in politics, history, art, and culture. Bard professor Francine Prose, who blogs for the New York Review of Books, will speak on March 5. All events take place at the Bard Graduate Center in Manhattan.
http://www.bard.edu/hannaharendtcenter/events/

Peter Steinfels, professor and co-director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, will give a talk titled "Memo to the Papal Conclave: The Crisis in Catholicism Beyond the Headlines," on Monday, March 11.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2404

The Bard College swim teams have earned Scholar All-American Status for their academic performance. The women's team has a cumulative GPA of 3.29, and the men's team has a GPA of 3.19.
http://www.bardathletics.com/news/2013/2/26/MSWM_0226135615.aspx

The Da Capo Chamber Players present a program of chamber works in their annual “Celebrate Bard!” concert, on Monday, March 11, at 8 p.m. at the new László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building. “Da Capo’s annual ‘Celebrate Bard’ concert features faculty composers, other composers from the area, Bard alumni, and current students. It is thus a celebration of the creativity, imagination, continuing influence and vitality of the Bard Music Program,” says flutist and Da Capo member Patricia Spencer.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2401

This year's Senior Playwrights Project, Choice Is Power, will feature three short plays written, performed, and directed by women. Performances will take place in the Fisher Center's Theater Two, February 28 – March 3.
http://fishercenter.bard.edu/calendar/event.php?eid=117471

Bard College president Leon Botstein has been awarded the Bruckner Society Medal of Honor in recognition of his exemplary work in furthering the understanding and appreciation of the life and work of Anton Bruckner. The award was presented on February 24 at a concert of the American Symphony Orchestra in New York City, before a performance of Bruckner's Symphony No. 8.
http://www.abruckner.com/thebrucknersociety/brucknersocietynew/leonbotstein/

Bard freshman Tytravia Riley capped a fine first season at Bard by being named Co-Rookie of the Year in the Liberty League in the results of coaches' voting released on Thursday. She was also named to the All-Rookie Team and All-Liberty League Honorable Mention.
http://www.bardathletics.com/news/2013/2/21/WBB_0221134215.aspx

“The Secret Listener,” a lecture and recital including a performance of Robert Schumann’s Phantasie, will be presented by acclaimed pianist/conductor Jeffrey Kahane, on Monday, March 4, at 8 p.m. in Olin Hall.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2399

Bard's parliamentary debate team, composed of junior Lee Gensler and senior Ian Busher, won the Adelphi Debate Tournament in Garden City, New York, over the weekend of February 16–17. Lee Gensler was also named third overall speaker at the tournament and Ian Busher sixth. In all, five members of the Bard Debate Union participated, with four debating and one judging. The team heads to Western Connecticut State University on February 23–24 for the regional championships.
http://www.bard.edu/news/news.php?id=57

Bard presents its annual Eugene Meyer Lecture in British History and Literature, with acclaimed Irish writer Colm Tóibín. Tóibín will speak about his work with Fintan O’Toole, a leading Irish editor, writer, and critic on Thursday, March 7, at 5:30 p.m.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2400

The Fisher Center presents J. S. Bach’s sacred oratorio St. John Passion, featuring members of the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, with singers from the Bard College Chamber Singers and the Graduate Vocal Arts Program, with James Bagwell, choral director.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2398

The Hannah Arendt Center presents this special concert series, featuring music composed and performed by Jewish prisoners in Nazi territories during World War II. Three concerts will feature a brief introduction by a noted scholar in the field, placing the music in social, historical, and political context. The series also includes a screening of the Academy Award–Nominated documentary Orchestra of Exiles, a film about Bronislaw Huberman, the Polish violinist who founded the Israel Philharmonic.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2395

On Tuesday, February 19, Bard College will host a talk and discussion with Salim B. “Sandy” Lewis, a Wall Street leader, founder of his firm, who now, with his wife, is the owner and operator of Lewis Family Farm in Essex, New York, a beef farm with a unique USDA certificate in grass. Lewis will explore “Why Fixing Wall Street and the Economy is Critical to the World” in a discussion with Matt Taibbi ’92, the renowned political and financial columnist for Rolling Stone.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2391

Acclaimed soprano Dawn Upshaw and singers from her graduate Vocal Arts Program at The Bard College Conservatory of Music perform a concert of contemporary songs featuring the world premier of a work by George Tsontakis as well as new works composed by current students and recent alumni of the Conservatory and the Longy School of Music of Bard College. The performance takes place on Tuesday, February 19 at 8:00 p.m.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2396

Did the Arab Spring come from nowhere, or was it preceded by modes of social and political action that might have eluded our common conceptual frames? Hannah Arendt Center Fellow Jeff Jurgens reviews last week's lecture at Bard by Asef Bayat, author of Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East.
http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=9372

Highlights of this year's SummerScape at the Bard Fisher Center include the 24^th Bard Music Festival, “Stravinsky and His World,” Taneyev’s opera Oresteia, Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita, and Bill T. Jones/Anne Bogart’s new Rite. This year's festival will take place July 6 through August 18.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2387

On February 20 Robert Coover, Samuel R. Delany, Ben Marcus, Rick Moody, and Francine Prose will read letters by Gaddis and discuss what he has meant to them as writers and readers, introduced by Conjunctions editor Bradford Morrow.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2389

The Clif Bar Family Foundation has launched a new approach to philanthropy, making its first-ever $100,000 “Program Related Investment” (PRI) in Bard College’s new MBA in Sustainability, one of a handful of programs globally that fully integrates sustainability into a graduate business curriculum.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2390

The February program features the world premiere of Harold Farberman’s TRIPLE PLAY Concerto for Clarinet and the rarely performed original version of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2392

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts presents the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra on Sunday, February 17. The program includes Ottorino Respighi’s Fountains of Rome; Krzysztof Penderecki’s Viola Concerto, with Lin Wang, viola; and Sergey Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2388

Bard College Conservatory of Music professor Jeffrey Kahane talks about his musical values, teaching philosophy, and the Conservatory.


http://vimeo.com/57680564

Since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, students in Bard's New Orleans Project have traveled to the city to help rebuild. This year, 20 Bard students spent January intersession working at the Andrew H. Wilson Charter School as tutors, art workshop facilitators, academic support mediators, and community garden educators for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
http://www.bard.edu/news/news.php?id=55

This month, the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College launches the inaugural edition of its annual journal, HA: The Journal of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College. “HA offers smart, nonpartisan thinking about politics that is smarter than the debate," says Arendt Center director Roger Berkowitz.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2386

Join us for two free events in February at the Fisher Center. On February 12, choreographer and director Bill T. Jones and longtime New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Weschler discuss art and its relationship to science, history, technology, and current events. On February 16, the Company performs a work-in-process showing of Story, a new work created during its week in residence at Bard.
http://fishercenter.bard.edu/calendar/event.php?eid=117753

Daniel Mendelsohn, award-winning author, critic, and Charles Ranlett Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College since 2006, has been named a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism for his most recent book, Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2384

The Bard College Farm started in 2012 with plenty of enthusiasm and financial assistance from Bard students, staff, and faculty, as well as community members. Last season the farm grew 30 kinds of vegetables and had the largest cranberry bog in the Hudson Valley. The farm sells produce to the campus dining service and at a local farmer's market, and offers opportunities for people on and off campus to learn about sustainable agriculture.
http://www.bard.edu/news/news.php?id=54

The Bard Center for Environmental Policy’s C2C Fellows will host a national screening of the movie The Island President on April 17. The film will be shown on a number of college campuses, and followed by a discussion with award-winning director Jon Shenk, 350.org executive director and cofounder May Boeve, and Bard CEP director Dr. Eban Goodstein.
http://blogs.bard.edu/theislandpresident/

The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) will hold its 10th commencement on January 26 at the Eastern NY Correctional Facility in Napanoch, New York. BPI will award A.A. and B.A. degrees to 60 students, BPI’s largest graduating class. The students include 56 men and four women earning 47 A.A. degrees and 13 B.A. degrees in social studies, literature and the humanities, and mathematics.
http://www.bard.edu/news/releases/pr/fstory.php?id=2383