Situated on a steeply sloping bluff, approximately 130 feet above the Hudson River, Blithewood is a 45-acre section of the Bard College campus that was once part of a historic estate comprising a manor house, outbuildings, drives, gardens, lawns, and meadows. Blithewood Garden is a classic example of a walled Italianate garden. Located in the heart of the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District, the garden was designed circa 1903 by Francis L. V. Hoppin (1867–1941) of the architectural firm Hoppin & Koen. Blithewood Garden today remains as breathtakingly beautiful as ever, including its awe-inspiring backdrop of the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River.
“Few places that we have ever seen exhibit such marked evidence of refined taste, and correct appreciations of rural beauty, as Blithewood. The spot itself is one possessing great natural attraction, and these have been heightened and improved to the greatest possible advantage.”
—author unknown, The Cultivator, 1845
NEW! BARD COLLEGE MUSIC COMPOSITION 2020 COMPETITION
Call for Blithewood Garden-inspired works for submission
The Friends of Blithewood Garden, a group of Bard faculty, staff and community friends, working with The Garden Conservancy, a national not-for-profit, seek short music compositions that will add to the enjoyment and reputation of the Garden, both within and beyond the College, to promote the garden and share it with others.Interested composers must be either current Bard College students or alumni/ae of the College. Entries may be submitted up until
February 15, 2020. Each entrant may submit one original, unpublished composition in any genre, for up to four instruments, up to five minutes long. A panel of judges, including musicians from outside Bard College, will review the submissions and announce winners by
May 15, 2020. The winning works will be premiered as part of a public event in
September 2020 to raise restoration funds for the Garden. In addition, the winning composition will be recorded for use as part of promotional materials for the garden. Credit will be given to composer and musicians. All compositions must include the words “Blithewood Garden” in the title. The competition will carry an award of $500 for the winning composition, and awards of $250 each for up to two runners-up. Compositions should evoke the beauty of Blithewood Garden and its unique acoustic potential. Contestants can find images of the garden and information about its history at
www.bard.edu/arboretum/gardens/blithewood/.
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Blithewood Garden. The Italianate garden at Blithewood (now the Levy Economics Institute) displays several remarkable and evocative features. It provides an enclosed, inward-looking refuge within a vast, open, active vista. At the heart of a Romantic landscape, it introduces Classical structures and design. It establishes a mid-point between the social, dominant, static, man-made world, epitomized by the house on the hill, and the unconstrained but rhythmic, natural flow of the river below. Within the garden there is tension between permanent, planar abstractions, such as symmetry, centrality and axial organization, and the cyclical, centrifugal trajectory of plantings. While the Classical features within the garden inspire memories of the early 20
th century Gilded Age and represent the enduring contribution of a far more remote classical era to our contemporary world, the decay of the architectural fabric provokes doubt that such echoes can be sustained.
About the Friends of Blithewood Garden. Formed in 2016, under the auspices of the Bard Arboretum and The Garden Conservancy, the Friends of Blithewood Garden is a volunteer working group whose mission is to rehabilitate and preserve Blithewood Garden for public education and enjoyment. The Friends are currently engaged in a campaign to raise awareness and funding for comprehensive restoration of the garden’s architectural elements, such as the pavilion, the pergola, the balustrades and the stucco walls.
Composition Requirements:Composers must be current Bard College students or alumni/ae.
Length must be less than five minutes, in any genre, for up to four musicians.
The submitted work must be a new work, never previously published or performed in public.
Deadline for receipt of materials is 5 p.m. on February 15, 2020.
Materials for Submission to blithewoodgarden@bard.edu: - Composers must submit a PDF file of the score with a corresponding recording.
- A summary of instrumentation and timing should be included, as well as a brief program note about the connection of the piece to Blithewood Garden.
- Create a MIDI-generated audio file of the composition in MP3 format. It should have a maximum bitrate of 192Kbps, and be labeled with your name and the composition title. Alternatively, an audio recording played on piano, or a live recording may be submitted as an MP3 file. Use the application form linked HERE to submit your materials
Judging:A panel of judges including performing musicians, conductors, and composers will evaluate the entries and choose up to three winning compositions.
For more information email:
blithewoodgarden@bard.edu
Modern view of Blithewood Garden overlooking
Hudson and Catskill Mountains
Plantings
Blithewood’s formal garden, lawn, and woodlands contain remnants of vegetation that once existed around much of the estate. Historically, Frances Hunter Zabriskie would have included clipped evergreens, tree peonies, tulips, irises, hyacinths, gladiola, daodils, phlox, delphiniums, lavender, forget-me-nots, ivy, buttery bush, rhododendrons, lilacs, wisteria, and rugosa and climbing roses, as well as maintained turf. Potted oleander and orange trees, geraniums, nasturtiums, cosmos, snapdragons, and zinnias also graced the garden each year. There was no singular color scheme.
