Music, like all art, engages the mind and the heart.
The mission of the Bard College Conservatory of Music is to provide the best possible preparation for a person dedicated to a life immersed in the creation and performance of music.
Bagwell was recognized by both organizations for the role he has played over the past two decades in creating a consistent record of excellence in choral performance.
The three-day program brought together renowned guzheng masters from China, musicians from across North America, and young student performers for a gathering of artistic exchange, collaboration, and performance.
Since her acclaimed New York debut recital at Carnegie’s Weill Hall in 2002, pianist Isabelle O’Connell has developed a thriving international career that has taken her across four continents. As soloist and chamber musician she has performed around the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, at venues such as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Chicago Cultural Center, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Art, Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Time:Spans Festival, MATA Festival, Belfast Festival, St David’s Hall, Cardiff and the National Concert Hall, Ireland.
Isabelle has a reputation for being a dynamic interpreter and energetic advocate of music by 20th and 21st century composers, regularly commissioning and premiering new works. Some of the composers she has worked with include John Adams, John Luther Adams, Linda Buckley, Donnacha Dennehy, Michael Gordon, Missy Mazzoli, Morton Subotnick, Joan Tower, Kevin Volans and Julia Wolfe. In 2010 her debut solo album RESERVOIR featuring solo piano music by contemporary Irish composers was released to critical acclaim and the New Yorker called her “the young Irish piano phenom”.
As concerto soloist Isabelle has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland under conductors William Eddins, Gerhard Markson and Gavin Maloney. Most recently she premiered Kevin Volans’ piano concerto 4b with the RTE Concert Orchestra at the 2023 New Music Dublin festival.
Isabelle is co-founder of Grand Band, New York’s new music piano sextet, described by the New York Times as: "six of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York's contemporary-classical scene”. Making their debut at the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York in 2012, they have since performed around the United States and U.K., at the Gilmore Piano Festival, Peak Performances Series at Montclair University, the Rite of Summer Music Festival, Liquid Music Festival, Vale of Glamorgan Festival, Sheffield University and Cornerstone Festival, Liverpool.
As chamber musician, Isabelle has performed with John Adams at Carnegie's Zankel Hall, with Meredith Monk at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival and with the New Zealand String Quartet at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. She has also performed with Crash ensemble at the Canberra International Chamber Music Festival, Sydney Conservatoire, Galway International Arts Festival, Irish Museum of Modern Art and Reich Effect Festival. Isabelle has also played with ensembles Alarm Will Sound, the Da Capo Chamber Players, American Symphony Orchestra, the New Zealand and ConTempo String Quartets.
Isabelle has recorded for the Diatribe, Innova, NMC, Pyroclastic and Lyric fm labels. She has appeared on television and radio on both sides of the Atlantic, with regular broadcasts on ALL ARTS TV, WNYC, WQXR, WFMT Chicago, BBC3, RTE and Lyric FM radio.
Isabelle is currently serving on the piano faculty as Artist-in-Residence at Bard College and Conservatory of Music in New York. She is often invited to give masterclasses and workshops around the world, including at Princeton University, Queen's University Belfast, Montclair University, New Zealand School of Music and the European Piano Teachers' Association. Isabelle was previously Artist-in-Residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.
Howard Watkins
Opera Studies
Howard Watkins
American pianist Howard Watkins is a frequent associate of some of the world’s leading musicians both on the concert stage and as an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. He has performed in numerous recitals and concerts throughout the Americas, Europe, Russia, Israel, and the Far East. In past seasons, he has appeared in concert and on television with Joyce DiDonato, Kathleen Battle, Grace Bumbry, Mariusz Kwiecien, Matthew Polenzani, Michelle De Young, Marcello Giordani, Diana Damrau, Ben Heppner, Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Alexandra Deshorties, Lawrence Brownlee, Anthony Dean Griffey, and violinists Xiang Gao and Sarah Chang. Under the aegis of the Marilyn Horne Foundation, Mr. Watkins has performed in recitals and educational residencies in the United States, and he has also appeared in the Horne Foundation gala New York recital.
Mr. Watkins made his Carnegie Hall performing debut in 2002 as the harpsichord recitative accompanist in Haydn's Die Schöpfung with James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus. He has given recitals and concerts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Spivey Hall, Kennedy Center, the Pierpont Morgan Library, the United States Supreme Court, Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the three stages of Carnegie Hall, and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia. In addition, he has performed with the MET Chamber Ensemble in Weill and Zankel Halls under the baton of James Levine. He has accompanied the classes of such legendary artists as Marilyn Horne, Renata Scotto, Regina Resnik, Regine Crespin, Frederica von Stade, Birgit Nilsson, Shirley Verrett, Håkan Hagegård, Elisabeth Soderstrom, and Josef Gingold among others. A number of his performances have been broadcast on WQXR in New York as part of George Jellinek’s “The Vocal Scene” and the “Young Artist Showcase”, and he has recorded for the Centaur and Prestant labels.
As an educator, Mr. Watkins was formerly the Vocal Arts Program Co Coordinator of the Tanglewood Music Center, and he has taught at the Aspen Music Festival; the Banff Centre; Meadowmount School of Music; the International Vocal Arts Institute in Virginia, Israel, Japan, and China; VOICExperience in Florida and Savannah, Georgia with Sherrill Milnes and Maria Zouves; and the International Institute of Vocal Arts in Chiari, Italy. In 2015, he was a founding member of the Tokyo International Vocal Arts Academy. Currently on the faculties of The Juilliard School and the Washington National Opera Cafritz Young Artist Program, he was formerly a faculty member of the Mannes College of Music and the North Carolina School of the Arts in the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute. He has worked on the music staffs of the Los Angeles Opera, the Washington National Opera, and Palm Beach Opera.
A native of Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Watkins received his undergraduate degree from the University of Dayton, and he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in 1998 at the University of Michigan. In 2004, Mr. Watkins was honored as the recipient of both the Paul C. Boylan award from the University of Michigan for his outstanding contributions to the field of music, and a Special Achievement Award from the National Alumni Association of the University of Dayton. He is the 2019 recipient of the “Lift Every Voice” Legacy Award from the National Opera Association. He is currently a resident of New York City.
Mr. Watkins appears courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.
Jenny Q Chai
Piano Masterclasses; Chinese Admissions Ambassador
Jenny Q Chai
An artist of singular vision, pianist Jenny Q Chai is widely renowned for her
ability to illuminate musical connections throughout the centuries. With radical
joie de vivre and razor-sharp intention, Chai creates layered multimedia
programs which explore and unite elements of science, nature, fashion, and art.
The New Yorker describes Chai as “a pianist whose dazzling facility is matched
by her deep musicality.”
Chai’s instinctive understanding of new music is complemented by a deep
grounding in core repertoire, with special affinity for Schumann, Scarlatt
Beethoven, Bach, Debussy, and Ravel. She is a noted interpreter of 20th-century
masters Cage, Messiaen, and Ligeti, and her career is threaded through with
strong relationships and close collaborations with a range of notable contemporary
composers, including Tan Dun, Jarosław Kapuściński, Andy Akiho, Pamela Z,
Lukas Ligeti, Cindy Cox, Annie Gosfield and György Kurtág. With a deft poeti
touch, Chai weaves this wide-ranging repertoire into a gorgeous and lucid
musical tapestry. Chai is also a vital champion and early tester of the groundbreaking
synchronous score following software program, Antescofo. Developed at IRCAM by
scientist Arshia Cont, the software offers a real time computer and animation respons
to live performance elements, enabling performers to create multimedia presentations
of AI sophisticated and expressive fluency. Chai explored and helped hone Antescof
in residence at IRCAM alongside frequent collaborator Jarosław Kapuściński, and has
since toured internationally with the software offering multimedia performances i
Shanghai, New York, Havana, and elsewhere. In September 2019, Chai gave a TEDx
Talk titled When Classical Music Meets Technology.
Other notable highlights include her 2024 Shanghai Symphony Hall Audiovisual AI
Concert, 2012 Carnegie Hall recital debut; many
performances at (le) Poisson Rouge, including a 2016 Antescofo-supported
program, Where’s Chopin?; her 2018 Wigmore Hall debut with a program
exploring the relation between color and sound; lectures and recitals at Shanghai
Symphony Hall, Shanghai Concert Hall, and Shanghai Mercedes Benz Arena; a
featured performance at Tan Dun’s International Music Medicine Festival in Qingdao;
the Leo Brouwer Festival in Havana, Cuba; Philippe Manoury’s double-piano concerto,
Zones de turbulences, at the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary
Music with duo partner, pianist Adam Kośmieja and the Polish National Radio
Symphony Orchestra; and much more.
Her immersive approach to music is also channeled into her work with FaceArt Institute
of Music, the Shanghai-based organization she founded and runs, offering musi
education and an international exchange of music and musicians in China and beyond.
In summer 2019, Chai oversees FaceArt’s first ever month-long Co-Creation Summe
Festival, which invites International piano and composition faculty. Additionally, Chai
served on the Board of Directors of the New York City-based contemporary music
organization Ear to Mind, and has published a doctoral dissertation on Marco Stroppa’s
Miniature Estrose which is collected by many schools including Stanford and Harvard
University.
Chai has recorded for labels such as Divine Art, Deutschlandfunk, Naxos, ArpaViva and
MSR. In 2010, she released her debut recording, New York Love Songs, featuring
interpretations of works by Cage and Ives among others, and her most recent
recording, (S)yn(e)sth(e)te, was released by MSR Records in 2017. She can also be
heard on Michael Vincent Waller’s Five Easy Pieces and Cindy Cox’s Hierosgamos. In
2021, her newest album on Bach, Ives and Schumann Kreisleriana received positive
reviews globally. The album was featured by Apple Music as one of its selected best
Classical Music albums.
The recipient of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust’s 2011 Pianist/Composer Commissionin
Project, the DAAD Arts and Performance award in 2010, Chamber Music America
commissioning award and first prize winner of the Keys to the Future Contemporar
Solo Piano Festival, Jenny Q Chai studied at the Shanghai Music Conservatory, the
Curtis Institute of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and in Cologne University of
Music and Dance. Her teachers include Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Seymour Lipkin,
Solomon Mikowsky, Marilyn Nonken, and Anthony de Mare.
Academically, Chai has given lecture recitals at universities such as Stanford, Harvard,
University of California Berkeley, NYU, Shanghai Conservatory and more.
Chai is a former piano faculty member of the University of California Berkeley, an
alumni mentor at Curtis Institute of Music and an official career mentor at Manhatt
School of Music. In 2022, Chai became Fazioli Global Piano Ambassador.
Chai is a social activist who works passionately on environmental causes through her
music and runs a personal animal shelter. She has rescued over one hundred small
animals in China since the pandemic and is an active donor to many animal rescue
organizations.
Jessie Montgomery
Composition Masterclasses
Jessie Montgomery
Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of 21st-century American sound and experience. Her works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful, and exploding with life” (The Washington Post). Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn (2019), commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Coincident Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta; and Banner (2014)—written to mark the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—which was presented in its United Kingdom premiere at the BBC Proms on August 7, 2021. Summer 2021 brought a varied slate of premiere performances, including Five Freedom Songs, a song cycle conceived with and written for soprano Julia Bullock, for Sun Valley and Grand Teton Music Festivals, San Francisco and Kansas City Symphonies, Boston and New Haven Symphony Orchestras, and the Virginia Arts Festival (August 7); a site-specific collaboration with Bard SummerScape Festival and Pam Tanowitz Dance, I was waiting for the echo of a better day (July 8); and Passacaglia, a flute quartet for the National Flute Association’s 49th annual convention (August 13). Since 1999, she has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization, which supports young African American and Latinx string players, and has served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Montgomery holds degrees from The Juilliard School and New York University, and is currently a PhD candidate in music composition at Princeton University. She has served as a professor of violin and composition at the New School, and in May 2021, she began her three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
BM, The Juilliard School; MM, New York University; graduate fellow in music composition, Princeton University. (2022– ) Composer in Residence.