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Rieko AizawaPiano
Rieko Aizawa
Praised by the NY Times for an “impressive musicality, a crisp touch and expressive phrasing,” Japanese pianist Rieko Aizawa has performed throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, including at New York City’s Lincoln Center, Boston's Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, and London’s Wigmore Hall.
At the age of thirteen, Ms. Aizawa was brought to the attention of conductor Alexander Schneider on the recommendation of the pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Schneider engaged Ms. Aizawa as soloist with his Brandenburg Ensemble at the opening concerts of Tokyo's Casals Hall. Later that year, Schneider presented her in U.S. début concerts at the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall with his New York String Orchestra. She has since established her own unique musical voice.
Highlights have included acclaimed performances with the New Japan Philharmonic under Seiji Ozawa, the English Chamber Orchestra under Heinz Holliger, the Festival Strings Lucerne in Switzerland under Rudolf Baumgartner, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under Hugh Wolff, the Curtis Institute Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, the St. Louis Symphony under David Loebel and a wonderfully received performance with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Aizawa also has a great interest in exploring unusual repertoire. The St. Paul Pioneer Press described her performance with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hans Graf "the Salieri Piano Concerto in C was played so splendidly by Rieko Aizawa. Hers was a graceful reading. .... Aizawa's performance lent the work a respect it rarely receives." In the same year, she received the Washington Award.
As a recitalist, Ms. Aizawa has been heard in many North American cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, St. Louis, Seattle, Boulder, Los Angeles, Houston, and Toronto; at the Caramoor International Festival; at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival; Ravinia Festival, and the Gilmore Keyboard Festival. Following her all-Beethoven program recital in Dresden, Germany, a reviewer wrote: "Her listeners followed her playing -- full of details and delicate contrasts -- breathlessly." Ms. Aizawa gave her "Prism" series in Japan, with tributes to Beethoven, Brahms and Schumann, and specially commissioned works for each program by Akira Nishimura, Dan Coleman and Toshiro Saruya. She also had a project performing a Beethoven Piano Sonata cycle at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Ms. Aizawa performed a series of all- Mozart recitals, a project which was jointly presented by WFMT-Chicago and PianoForte Chicago. Ms. Aizawa’s solo debut recording of Scriabin’s and Shostakovich’s “24 Preludes” was released by Altus in Japan, and her second album of Messiaen's and Faure's preludes is coming out in the upcoming season.
Ms. Aizawa is also an active chamber musician. The youngest-ever participant at the Marlboro Music Festival, she has performed as a guest with string quartets such as the Guarneri Quartet and the Orion Quartet. She has appeared in numerous festivals, such as the Marlboro Music Festival; Bowdoin Festival; the Kammermusik Festival of Moritzburg, Germany; and the Evian Festival, France. She also has been a guest artist of Boston's, Philadelphia's and Seattle's Chamber Music Societies. She is a founding member of the prize-winning Duo Prism and of the Horszowski Trio, which honors the legacy of her teacher.
As a member of the Horszowski Trio, acclaimed as “the most compelling American group to come on the scene” by the New Yorker, Ms. Aizawa has recently made debuts at the 92nd St. Y in NYC, and at Wigmore Hall in London. The trio recorded the complete Robert Schumann piano trios on AVIE Records and the album was featured by Gramophone as an “exemplary performance.” Currently, they are celebrating their 10th Anniversary season with a project which takes inspiration from Schumann, commissioning three American composers from different generations: Paul Chihara, Derek Bermel and David Fulmer.
Ms. Aizawa was the last pupil of Mieczyslaw Horszowski at the Curtis Institute and she also studied with Seymour Lipkin and Peter Serkin at the Juilliard School. She lives in New York City, and she is on the faculty at the Longy School of Music of Bard College and at Brooklyn College. She became artistic director of the Alpenglow Chamber Music Festival in Colorado in 2010.
Ms. Aizawa is a Steinway Artist.
https://www.riekoaizawa.com/ -
Mariko AnrakuHarp
Mariko Anraku
Harpist Mariko Anraku is hailed as "a manifestation of grace and elegance" (Jerusalem Post) and has enchanted audiences through numerous appearances as soloist, as well as chamber and orchestral musician. The New York Times has hailed her as a "masterful artist of intelligence and wit".
Since 1995, she has held the position of Associate Principal Harpist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Since her debut as soloist with the Toronto Symphony led by Sir Andrew Davis, Ms. Anraku has appeared with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, among others. As a recitalist, she has performed in major concert halls on three continents, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall and Markin Concert Hall in New York, Jordan Hall in Boston, Bing Theater at the LA County Museum, The Opera Comique in Paris, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, the Casals, Kioi and Oji Halls in Tokyo, The Shanghai Oriental Arts Center among many others.
Ms. Anraku's impressive list of awards include First Prize at the First Nippon Harp Competition, First Prize, the Channel Classics Recording Prize and the ITT Corporation Prize at the Concert Artists Guild Competition in New York, and the Pro Musicis Foundation International Award. She was also awarded Third Prize and the Pearl Chertok Prize for the best performance of the required Israeli composition at the 11th International Harp Contest in Israel.
Ms. Anraku's strong commitment to contemporary music and the expansion of boundaries of the harp repertoire has included an invitation to premiere works by T oshio Hosokawa at the Donaueschingen Musiktage in Germany, the Wien Modern in Austria, and festivals in Tubinger and Cologne, Germany, collaborating with traditional Japanese musicians and monks. Ms. Anraku also gave the USA premiere of Jean-Michel Damase's Concerto "Ballade" with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra at the American Harp Society Conference. She has also collaborated in a ''Tribute to Takemitsu" performance at Markin Concert Hall in New York.
An active chamber musician, Ms. Anraku has performed at the Spoleto, Tanglewood, Newport and Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festivals in the USA, The Banff Centre and the Festival of Sound in Canada, the Spoleto Festival in Italy, and the Karuizawa and Takefu Music Festivals, among others in Japan. She has also performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Harvard Music Association, and Columbia University, and has collaborated with artists including clarinetist Richard Stoltzman and flutists Emmanuel Pahud, Carol Wincenc, Paula Robison, Emily Beynon, Michael Parloff, Marina Piccinini, Stefan Ragnar Hoskuldsson and Denis Bouriakov.
Ms. Anraku has recorded exclusively for EMI Classics, including three solo recordings and "Beau Soir" a collaboration with eminent flutist Emmanuel Pahud. "Music for Harp", a compilation from her solo CDs is also available.
Ms.Anraku is a faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music, Bard Conservatory, and The Pacific Music Festival (PMF). She is a devoted teacher, deeply committed to the mentoring and development of young musicians and has given masterclasses at The Curtis Institute of Music, The Juilliard School, Peabody Institute, The Glenn Gould School, Conservatorium Maastricht, The Central Conservatory and China Institute of Music in Beijing, The Shanghai Conservatory of Music etc. She is often invited to be a jury member at local and international competitions.
She holds Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from The Juilliard School and is a recipient of an Artist's Diploma from The Glenn Gould School in Toronto. Her teachers have included Judy Loman, Nancy Allen, Lanalee deKant and her aunt Kumiko Inoue. Ms. Anraku also studied Oriental Art History at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, and enjoys playing community service concerts at hospitals, drug rehabilitation centers, prisons and other venues. -
Adele AnthonyViolin
Adele Anthony
Since her triumph at Denmark’s 1996 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, Adele Anthony has enjoyed an acclaimed and expanding international career. Performing as a soloist with orchestra and in recital, as well as being active in chamber music, Ms. Anthony’s career spans the continents of North America, Europe, Australia, India and Asia.
In addition to appearances with all six symphonies of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Ms. Anthony’s highlights from recent seasons have included performances with the symphony orchestras of Houston, San Diego, Seattle, Ft. Worth, and Indianapolis, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Being an avid chamber music player, Ms. Anthony appears regularly at La Jolla SummerFest and Aspen Music Festival. Her wide-ranging repertoire extends from the Baroque of Bach and Vivaldi to contemporary works of Ross Edwards, Arvo Pärt and Phillip Glass.
An active recording artist, Ms. Anthony’s work iincludes releases with Sejong Soloists, Eric Ewazen, Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra (Albany), a recording of the Philip Glass Violin Concerto with Takuo Yuasa and the Ulster Orchestra (Naxos), Arvo Pärt’s ‘Tabula rasa’ with Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon), and her latest recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Ross Edwards “Maninyas” with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (Canary Classics/ABC Classics).
Adele Anthony performs on an Antonio Stradivarius violin, crafted in 1728. -
Demian AustinTrombone
Demian Austin
Demian Austin is principal trombonist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He is also a member of the MET Chamber Ensemble, which performs regularly at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel halls. He has performed with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and in the Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center. Mr. Austin has played on numerous recordings including the Metropolitan Opera Brass CDs, several movie soundtracks, Dialogues with Double Bass with Jeremy McCoy on Bridge Records, the GM Recordings issue of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Brahms’ First Symphony conducted by Gunther Schuller, and many recordings with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, including Strauss’ Tod und Verklarung. He can also be heard regularly on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Live at the Met Broadcasts, the Saturday Matinee Broadcasts of the Met, and on The Met: Live in HD worldwide movie simulcasts. Mr. Austin is also on the faculty of Juilliard’s precollege division. He received his Bachelor of Music degree in 1992 from Oberlin College, where he studied with Raymond Premru, and his Masters of Music degree in 1995 from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Per Brevig. Aside from his career in music, Mr. Austin has a keen interest in film and has attended several intensive seminars on screenwriting. -
Mark BaechleFilm Composition
Mark Baechle
Mark Baechle is a Swiss-born, New York based composer and music producer. He primarily works in film and television.
Throughout his 20-year career in the industry, he has collaborated with some of the most acclaimed filmmakers and musicians of our time.
At the outset of his career he was an assistant to the luminary composers Elliot Goldenthal and John Corigliano.
Under the aegis of composer Marcelo Zarvos, he provided arrangements and additional music to the acclaimed TV series “Ray Donovan”, “The Affair”, “Extant” and “The Big C”.
He also arranged, recorded and mixed all the music for “Disney’s Little Einsteins”, a cartoon series introducing art and classical music to children, the soundtrack of which was nominated for a Grammy Award (2007).
Besides composing his own scores, he’s in demand as an orchestrator for films and, as such, has contributed to the scores of David Newman, Clint Mansell, Nicholas Britell and many more.
Mark is also active as a composer of vocal, chamber and orchestral music. His work has been performed by notable artists and ensembles (New York Festival of Song, the Ahn Trio, Basel Sinfonietta).
He studied at the pre-college division of the Academy of Music and Schola Cantorum Basel (Switzerland) and graduated from Berklee College of Music with a BA in Film Scoring.
Mark is represented by Rochelle Sharpe at Incite Management -
James BagwellCodirector, Graduate Conducting Program; Professor of Music; Director, Orchestral and Choral Music; Director, Music Program
James Bagwell
James Bagwell maintains an active international schedule as a conductor of choral, operatic, and orchestral music. He was most recently named associate conductor of The Orchestra Now (TON) and in 2009 was appointed principal guest conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra. From 2009-2015 he served as music director of The Collegiate Chorale. Some of the highlights of his tenure with them include conducting a number of operas-in-concert at Carnegie Hall, including Bellini’s Beatrice di Tenda, Rossini’s Möise et Pharaon, and Boito’s Mefistofele. He conducted the New York premiere of Philip Glass’s Toltec Symphony and Golijov’s Oceana, both at Carnegie Hall. Since 2011 he has collaborated with singer and composer Natalie Merchant, conducting a number of major orchestras across the country, including the San Francisco and Seattle Symphonies. He has trained choruses for a numerous American and international orchestras, including the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra and the American Symphony Orchestra. He has worked numerous conductors including Charles Dutoit, Andris Nelsons, Gustavo Dudamel, Alan Gilbert, Gianandrea Noseda, Valery Gergiev, Yannik Nézet-Séguin, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Lorin Maazel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Louis Langrée, Leon Botstein, Ivan Fischer, Jesús López-Cobos, and Robert Shaw. Mr. Bagwell prepared The Collegiate Chorale for concerts at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland; in 2012 the Chorale traveled to Israel and the Salzburg Festival for four programs with The Israel Philharmonic. Since 2003 he has been director of choruses for the Bard Music Festival, conducting and preparing choral works during the summer festival at The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. He frequently appears as guest conductor for orchestras around the country and abroad, including the Cincinnati Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, and the Interlochen Music Festival. He is Professor of Music at Bard College, and Director of Performance Studies and the Graduate Conducting Program at the Bard College Conservatory. -
Edith BersGraduate Voice
Edith Bers
Edith Bers received bachelor's and master's degrees from Columbia University and studied voice with Tourel, Callas, Popper, Berl, Guth, Faull, B. P. Johnson, Cuenod, Brown, Hotter, and Stader; and acting with Stella Adler. Among her performance credits are the United States premiere of Schumann's Des Sangers Fluch and the television production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw. She has presented master classes and served on juries throughout the world, including: Symposium on the Care of the Professional Voice, Aspen Music Festival, Metropolitan Opera Auditions, Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition (Brussels), Korean Broadcasting System, and the Bel Canto Institute (Florence). In addition to teaching at Bard, Edith Bers teaches at the Juilliard School (where she served as chair of the voice department from 1991 to 1995), Manhattan School of Music, and New York University. -
Stephanie BlytheArtistic Director, Graduate Vocal Arts Program
Stephanie Blythe
A renowned opera singer and recitalist, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is considered one of the most highly respected and critically acclaimed artists of her generation. Her repertoire ranges from Handel to Wagner, German lieder to contemporary and classic American song. Ms. Blythe has performed on many of the world's great stages, such as Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Paris National Opera and San Francisco, Chicago Lyric and Seattle Operas. Ms. Blythe was named Musical America's Vocalist of the Year in 2009, received an Opera News Award in 2007 and won the Tucker Award in 1999. Ms. Blythe recently released her first crossover recording on the Innova label with pianist Craig Terry. Ms. Blythe has sung in many of the renowned opera houses in the US and Europe including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the Opera National de Paris. Her many roles include the title roles in Carmen, Samson et Dalila , Orfeo ed Euridice, La Grande Duchesse, Tancredi, Mignon, and Giulio Cesare; Frugola, Principessa, and Zita in Il Trittico, Fricka in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Azucena in Il Trovatore, Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera, Baba the Turk in The Rake's Progress, Ježibaba in Rusalka, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, Mere Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites; Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, and Ino/Juno in Semele. She also created the role of Gertrude Stein in Ricky Ian Gordon's 27 at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Ms. Blythe has also appeared with many of the world's finest orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Orchestra of New York, Minnesota Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Ensemble Orchestre de Paris, and the Concertgerbouworkest. She has also appeared at the Tanglewood, Cincinnati May, and Ravinia festivals, and at the BBC Proms. The many conductors with whom she has worked include Harry Bicket, James Conlon, Charles Dutoit, Mark Elder, Christoph Eschenbach, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Alan Gilbert, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Nicola Luisotti, Sir Charles Mackerras, John Nelson, Antonio Pappano, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Robert Spano, Patrick Summers, and Michael Tilson Thomas. A frequent recitalist, Ms. Blythe has been presented in recital in New York by Carnegie Hall in Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, Lincoln Center in both its Great Performers Series at Alice Tully Hall and its American Songbook Series at the Allen Room, Town Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also been presenter by the Vocal Arts Society and at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC; the Cleveland Art Song Festival, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Shriver Hall in Baltimore, and San Francisco Performances. A champion of American song, Ms. Blythe has premiered several song cycles written for her including Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson by the late James Legg, Covered Wagon Woman by Alan Smith which was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and recorded with the ensemble (CMS Studio Recordings); and Vignettes: Ellis Island, also by Alan Smith and featured in a special television program entitled Vignettes: An Evening with Stephanie Blythe and Warren Jones. Ms Blythe starred in the Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcasts of Orfeo ed Euridice, Il Trittico, Rodelinda, and the complete Ring Cycle. She also appeared in PBS's Live From Lincoln Center broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic's performance of Carousel and her acclaimed show, We'll Meet Again: The Songs of Kate Smith. Her recordings include her solo album, as long as there are songs (Innova), and works by Mahler, Brahms, Wagner, Handel and Bach (Virgin Classics). Ms. Blythe's many engagements have also included her return to the Metropolitan Opera for The Rake's Progress, the Lyric Opera of Chicago for Il Trovatore, the Seattle Opera for Semele, Samson et Dalilah with the Atlanta Symphony and Carnegie Hall for a recital in Stern Auditorium. Last season she performed with the San Francisco Opera as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and the Houston Grand Opera as Nettie Fowler in Carousel. She also performed her new program, Sing, America! at Carnegie Hall. Next season she returns to Opera Philadelphia for the title role in Tancredi, brings her acclaimed performance of Gertrude Stein in Ricky Ian Gordon's 27 to New York's City Center, and returns to Palm Beach as Ruth in performances of The Pirates of Penzance. Ms. Blythe was named Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year for 2009. Her other awards include the 2007 Opera News Award and the 1999 Richard Tucker Award. She is also the Artistic Director of the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar at the Crane School of Music. -
Leon BotsteinCodirector, Graduate Conducting Program; Music Director, Bard Conservatory; President, Bard College
Leon Botstein
Leon Botstein has been music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992. This year he becomes conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he had served as music director since 2003. He is also the founder and co-artistic director of the Bard Music Festival, now in its 21st year. He has been president of Bard College in New York since 1975. Upcoming engagements include the Russian National Philharmonic, the Odessa Symphony, and the Budapest Opera Orchestra. Recent engagements have included the BBC Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony; the Budapest Festival Orchestra; Düsseldorf Symphony; the London Philharmonic; NDR-Hamburg and Hannover; the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; the St. Petersburg Philharmonic; and Teatro Real Madrid, among others. Among Leon Botstein’s recordings are operas by Strauss, Dukas, and Chausson, as well as works of Shostakovich, Dohnanyi, Liszt, Bruckner, Bartók, Hartmann, Reger, Glière, Szymanowski, Brahms, Copland, Sessions, Perle, and Rands. Many live recordings with the American Symphony Orchestra are now available to download on the Internet. Mr. Botstein is the editor of The Musical Quarterly and the author of numerous articles and books. 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 earlier this year he was inducted into the American Philosophical Society. -
Teresa BuchholzUndergraduate Voice, Undergraduate Opera Workshop
Teresa Buchholz
Versatile mezzo-soprano Teresa Buchholz enjoys success in the realms of opera, art song and oratorio. Verdi’s Requiem is quickly becoming a staple of her repertoire, and she has recently performed the work with True Concord Chorus and Orchestra (Tucson, AZ), the Helena Symphony (Helena, MT), the New Jersey Choral Society, the Lake Como Music Festival (Italy), and will perform the work with Long Beach Symphony (CA) in 2021. Some recent performances include Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall with Distinguished Concerts International New York, several Holiday concerts with The Greenwich Choral Society and a guest recital at her alma mater, The University of Northern Iowa. In March 2019 she performed Alexander Nevsky with the Anchorage Symphony, and 2018/19 marked the debut of a newly formed collaboration with Bard colleagues Erika Switzer and Marka Gustavsson, The Blithewood Ensemble, which has performed a program of chamber music as part of the Downtown Music at Grace series (White Plains, NY) at the Hudson Hall (Hudson, NY) and Bitò Hall at Bard College. She recently soloed with the New Jersey Choral Society on a concert featuring Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 and Choral Fantasy, and performed the role of Domna Ivanovna Sobyrova in a staged production of “The Tsar’s Bride” by Rimsky-Korsakov as part of the Bard Music Festival. In December 2018 she soloed in Handel’s Messiah at the Bardavon Theatre in Poughkeepsie, and the previous Fall she was heard as Anne in Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All in a highly acclaimed production that took place in Hudson NY, in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with The Orchestra Now at Bard College and in the role of Berta in a New York City concert version of the rarely heard opera Il Grillo del Focolare by Riccardo Zandonai. In past years she has been heard in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at Lincoln Center with the National Chorale, a staged version of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Gulfshore Opera, Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Berkshire Bach Society and the Stamford Symphony, and Bach’s Magnificat with Voices of Ascension. Other recent performances have included the role of Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd with Opera Roanoke; Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus with the Asheville Lyric Opera; the title role in Giulio Cesare in Egitto with Opera Roanoke; Mozart’s Requiem with the Tulsa Symphony, the Stamford Symphony, and Voices of Ascension; Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody at the Bard Music Festival; Berio’s Folk Songs at the Gateway Chamber Orchestra, where she had previously performed Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde; and Handel’s Messiah at Lincoln Center with Distinguished Concerts International New York. In 2013 she was the winner of the female division in the Nico Castel International Master Singer Competition. Buchholz holds a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Northern Iowa, a master’s degree in vocal performance from Indiana University, and an Artist Diploma from Yale University. She has taught at Bard since 2012 where she teaches private voice lessons and is one of the producers and vocal coaches for Bard’s undergraduate Opera Workshop. -
Jindong CaiDirector, US-China Music Institute; Graduate Conducting Program, faculty
Jindong Cai
Conductor Jindong Cai is the director of the US-China Music Institute and professor of music and arts at Bard College. He is also an associate conductor of The Orchestra Now (TON). Prior to joining Bard he was a professor of performance at Stanford University. Over the 30 years of his career in the United States, Cai has established himself as an active and dynamic conductor, scholar of Western classical music in China, and leading advocate of music from across Asia. Cai started his professional conducting career with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, where he held assistant conducting positions and worked closely with Music Director Jesús López-Cobos, Conductor Keith Lockhart, and Cincinnati Pops Conductor Erich Kunzel. He has worked with numerous orchestras throughout North America and Asia. Cai maintains strong ties to his homeland and has conducted most of the top orchestras in China. He has served as the principal guest conductor of the China Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra since 2012. In 2015, he led the Shenzhen Symphony on its first tour to the American West Coast, performing in Palo Alto, San Jose, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The concerts included collaboration with the San Francisco Opera on the premiere of a scene from Bright Sheng’s much anticipated new opera, Dream of the Red Chamber. Cai is a three-time recipient of the ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. He has recorded for the Centaur, Innova, and Vienna Modern Masters labels. He has close relationships with many Chinese composers and has premiered or performed new works by Tan Dun, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Bright Sheng, Ye Xiaogang, and Wang Xilin, among others. In recent years, a number of professional orchestras have approached him to create special programs of works by Chinese and other Asian composers, including the “Celebration of Asia” concert with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in 2016. Cai has received much critical acclaim for his opera performances. In 1992, his operatic conducting debut took place at Lincoln Center’s Mozart Bicentennial Festival in New York, when he appeared as a last-minute substitute for his mentor Gerhard Samuel in the world premiere of a new production of Mozart’s Zaide. The New York Times described the performance as “one of the more compelling theatrical experiences so far offered in the festival.” Cai serves as the principal guest conductor of the Mongolia State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet in Ulaan Baatar. Since 2011, he has visited Mongolia a dozen times to conduct opera and ballet performances, and led the theater’s historical first tour to China in 2013. Cai joined the Stanford University faculty in 2004 as director of orchestral studies and conducted the Stanford Symphony Orchestra for 11 years. He led the Stanford Symphony Orchestra on three international tours—to Australia and New Zealand in 2005; China in 2008, as part of the Beijing Olympic Cultural Festival; and Europe in 2013. In 2013, Cai launched “The Beethoven Project,” for which the Stanford Symphony Orchestra performed all nine Beethoven symphonies and all five of the composer’s piano concerti—featuring Van Cliburn Gold Medal–winning pianist and Stanford alumnus Jon Nakamatsu—in one season. Cai is also the founder of the Stanford Pan-Asian Music Festival. Over its 11-year history, the festival—which is dedicated to promoting an appreciation of music in contemporary Asia through an annual series of concerts and academic activities—has become one of the most important platforms for the performance of Asian music in the United States. As a scholar and expert on music in contemporary China and Asia, Cai is frequently interviewed by news media around the world, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, and NPR. Together with his wife Sheila Melvin, Cai has coauthored several New York Times articles on the performing arts in China and the book Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese. Their latest book, Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic, was published by Penguin in September 2015. Born in Beijing, Cai received his early musical training in China, where he learned to play violin and piano. He came to the United States for his graduate studies at the New England Conservatory and the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. In 1989, he was selected to study with famed conductor Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Center, and won the Conducting Fellowship Award at the Aspen Music Festival in 1990 and 1992. -
Edward CarrollTrumpet
Edward Carroll
Edward Carroll’s long and distinguished career has taken many twists and turns. It began as an orchestral musician at age 21 with his appointment to the Houston Symphony, detoured back to Juilliard (BM, MM) and New York City as a trumpet soloist making over 20 recordings on the Sony, Vox, MHS, and Newport Classic labels and performing with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, matured as he conducted his first concerts, detoured once again as he fulfilled a lifelong dream of moving to Europe assuming the position of principal trumpet of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, eventually embarked on what has become a distinguished teaching career and now, in the final quarter of his musical journey, returned to his life-long passion of conducting. Mr. Carroll has served on the faculties of the Rotterdam Conservatory, London’s Royal Academy of Music, McGill University, the Bard Conservatory, and the California Institute of the Arts. He has performed with conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Bernard Haitink, Valery Gergiev, James Conlon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Simon Rattle in concert halls around the world, listing Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Grosser Musikvereinsaal, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall amongst his favorites. He has appeared as a soloist with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, Virtuosi di Roma, the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and a variety of North American orchestras. Edward Carroll’s recordings conducting the Metamorphosis Ensemble of London (Cantoris) and Chamber Soloists of Washington (Sony) have received critical acclaim, as have his many performances conducting the Peruvian National Symphony and National Youth Orchestras. In addition to teaching and conducting, Edward Carroll is currently the director of the Center for Advanced Musical Studies (www.chosenvalemusic.org) where he presents the annual Chosen Vale International Seminars with friends such as Hakan Hardenberger, John Wallace, Markus Stockhausen, Mark Gould, Colin Currie, and Steve Reich. Author Alexander McGrattan states in his book THE TRUMPET (Yale University Press) that “the work of Ed Carroll has been seminal to the creation of a new generation of adventurous young trumpet players since his work at the Rotterdam Conservatory and the establishment of the Lake Placid Music Seminars in the mid-1990s in New York State.” Mr. Carroll feels otherwise but perhaps that can be left for another biography. -
Eric Cha-BeachPercussion
Eric Cha-Beach
A member of the ensemble Sō Percussion (called "brilliant" and "consistently impressive" by the New York Times) since 2007, Eric has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Lincoln Center Festival, Stanford Lively Arts, The Walker Center and dozens of other venues in the United States. In that time, Sō Percussion has toured Russia, Australia, Colombia and throughout Europe. They have performed on The Late Show with Steven Colbert, at the TED Conference and Bonnaroo Festival, and with Radiolab Live. Eric has had the opportunity to work closely with Steve Reich, Caroline Shaw, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Bryce Dessner, Steve Mackey, Dan Trueman, Fred Frith, Suzanne Farrin, Glenn Kotche, Paul Lansky, Donnacha Dennehy, Vijay Iyer, Dawn Upshaw, Shara Nova, Matmos, The National, Dan Deacon, Buke and Gase, Dave Douglas, Angelica Negron, and many others. And he has performed on eighteen of So Percussion’s albums.
As a composer, he has written works for JACK Quartet, Modern Medieval, Buke and Gase, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, Sirius String Quartet, and This Is How We Fly. Eric's pieces written for Sō Percussion are featured in ‘A Gun Show’ (BAM Next Wave 2016); ‘From Out a Darker Sea’ (Forma Arts UK commission 2016); 'Where (we) Live'; (BAM Next Wave 2012); 'Five Songs, Dances, and Meditations'; written to accompany Martin Kersels 'Five Songs' (Whitney Biennial 2010); 'Imaginary City' (BAM Next Wave 2009); and 'Music for Trains' - a site-specific performance on the train and at train stations in Brattleboro and Bellows Falls, VT (2008). With Jason Treuting and Josh Quillen, he co-composed music for Shen Wei Dance's 'Undivided/Divided' (Park Avenue Armory 2011), the 2wice 'Fifth Wall' app for iPad with dancer Jonah Bokaer, and the sound installation 'On/Off' as part of Bring to Light/Nuit Blanche New York 2011. He has composed the music for the dance film 'Parts Don't Work' (2011) by choreographer KT Niehoff and Lingo Dance, and the transition music for the internet radio station Q2 (2010 and 2013). His compositions have also been featured in the 'Bell by Bell' parade as part of Make Music Winter in 2011 and 2012. And his electronic music has been featured during the 2012 Look and Listen Festival and on the album 'Amid the Noise Remixes' (2011).
Outside of Sō Percussion, Eric has premiered new works from Lukas Ligeti, Caroline Shaw, Frank Nuyts and Jacob Cooper. Upcoming solo commissions are in development with Andrea Mazzariello and Dan Trueman. And he has performed and collaborated with pianist Peter Serkin, rock band The National, electronic artist Nicolas Jaar, composer Tristan Perich, the St. Louis Symphony Chamber Ensemble with David Robertson, bass player Evan Lipson, composer Daniel Wohl and many others.
Together with the other members of Sō Percussion, Eric serves as Edward T. Cone Performer-in-Residence at the Princeton University Music Department. He is also Co-Director of the Sō Percussion Summer Institute at Princeton University, an annual intensive course for college-aged percussionists started in 2009. And he is co-director of the percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Studying with Robert van Sice, Eric received his Bachelor of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma at the Peabody Conservatory, where he won the Yale Gordon Concerto Competition, and his Master of Music at the Yale School of Music. He also received a Fulbright fellowship and pursued additional study with Bernhard Wulff in Freiburg, Germany. -
Yan ChenErhu
Yan Chen
Chen Yan is a young professor of erhu in the Central Conservatory of Music’s Traditional Instruments Department. A performer in the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra, she graduated from Shanghai Conservatory of Music with a bachelor’s degree, and received her master’s degree at the Central Conservatory of Music. Chen Yan has won many awards, such as the Silver Award of the Youth Group in National Erhu Competition; the Silver Award of the Youth Group in the Second CCTV National Instrumental Music Competition; Second Prize of the Youth Group in the “Wenhua Cup”; and the Excellent Professional Prize from Shanghai Art Talents. She has performed as an Erhu soloist in the Opening Ceremony of the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival many times. In 2009, she premiered a Carmen Fantasia adaptation arranged for Chen by Franz Waxman. In 2011, she premiered Zhang Chao’s concerto Tribute to the Sun at the Beijing Concert Hall, winning “Best New Artist Prize” of the Fourth Ethnic Art Exhibition and the “Best New Artist Performance Prize” of the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival. In recent years she has visited the United States, Germany, and Australia on tour with the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra. -
Frank CorlissDirector and Faculty, Bard College Conservatory of Music
Frank Corliss
Frank Corliss is the director of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Prior to coming to Bard he was for many years a staff pianist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the director of music at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts. He was a frequent performer on the Boston Symphony Prelude Concert series and he has also performed throughout the United States as a chamber musician and collaborative pianist. Corliss has worked as a musical assistant for Yo-Yo Ma and has assisted Ma in the musical preparation of many new works for performance and recording, including concertos by Elliot Carter, Richard Danielpour, Tan Dun, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Peter Lieberson, Christopher Rouse, and John Williams.
A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he received his Master of Music from SUNY at Stony Brook, where he studied with Gilbert Kalish. While at Oberlin he received the Rudolf Serkin Award for Outstanding Pianist and was a member of the Music from Oberlin Ensemble, which toured throughout the U.S. He has also studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and the Cracow Academy of Music in Cracow, Poland. Mr. Corliss has participated in several summer festivals, including the Tanglewood Music Festival and the Taos Chamber Music Festival and the Aspen Music Festival.
He was appointed as an Artistic Ambassador for the United States Information Agency and in that capacity went on a three-week concert tour of Eastern Europe. He was also the recipient of a Rockefeller grant from the Cultural Contact US-Mexico Fund for Culture to commission works for flute and piano by American and Mexican composers and premiered in Boston and in Mexico City.
Mr. Corliss can be heard in recording on Yo Yo Ma’s Grammy-winning SONY disc “Soul of the Tango”, as well as the Koch International disc of music by Elliot Carter for chorus and piano with the John Oliver Chorale. -
Richard CoxGraduate Voice
Richard Cox
American tenor Richard Cox possesses a remarkable voice that combines lyric and heroic qualities, and is equally suited to opera, concert, and recitals.
His recent opera engagements have included Captain Ahab in Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's Moby Dick with the Chicago Opera Theater and Opera San José; the title role of Siegfried in concert with the North Carolina Opera; Loge in Das Rheingold (Minnesota Opera and North Carolina Opera); Mitch in Andre Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire (Hawaii Opera Theatre); Laca in Jenůfa for Des Moines Metro Opera; Peter Grimes (Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra); his debut with the Washington National Opera for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (Das Rheingold and Die Walküre); Prinz Kalaf in Ferruccio Busoni's Turandot for the Bard SummerScape Festival, Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos, Sergei in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Tichon in Káta Kabanová at the Teatro Municipal de Santiago de Chile; Froh in Das Rheingold, Malcom in Macbeth, First Armored Man in Die Zauberflöte (Live in HD) and the Celebrant in Nico Muhly's Two Boys at the Metropolitan Opera; Don José in Carmen at the Lyric Opera of Chicago; the title role in Samson et Dalila at the New Orleans Opera; Ruprecht in Viktor Ulmann's Der zerbrochene Krug at the Los Angeles Opera (released on DVD by Arthaus Musik); Larry Renault for the European Premiere of William Bolcom and Mark Campbell's Dinner at Eight at the Wexford Festival Opera; Adolar in Weber's Euryanthe at the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden; and Claudio in the first fully-staged North American production of Wagner's Das Liebesverbot at the Glimmerglass Festival. A former ensemble member at Oper Frankfurt, Mr. Cox appeared in several new productions there, including The Tempest, Arabella, Owen Wingrave, and Das Rheingold (releaed on CD and DVD by Oehms Classics). He was also seen as Florestan in Fidelio, Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, the Bishop of Budoja in Palestrina (released on CD by Oehms Classics), and Aegisth in Elektra.
An accomplished concert singer and recitalist, Mr. Cox has appeared as the tenor soloist in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, I Musici de Montréal Chamber Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, the Britt Festival, Colorado Music Festival, and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra; in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Corpus Christi Symphony, and Laredo Philharmonic; with the Collegiate Chorale and Orchestra of St. Luke's at Carnegie Hall; Mark in the America premiere of Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers, and Siegmund in a concert version of Act One of Die Walküre with the American Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Cox was on the roster of the Marilyn Horne Foundation and made his New York rectial debut in the On Wings of Song rectial series, and recently sang Schumann's Dichterliebe as part of the West End Collegiate Church Concert Series in New York.
The recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, Richard Cox has earned grants from the George London Foundation, Sullivan Foundation, Opera Index Inc., the Olga Forrai Foundation, Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, and the Shoshana Foundation. He has been honored with a Lucrezia Bori Grant for foreign study, the Juilliard School Vocal Arts Honors Recital at Alice Tully Hall, and the Campbell Watcher Memorial Award for singers from Santa Fe Opera.
Mr. Cox holds degrees from Tennessee Technological University, Florida State University, and The Juilliard School. He is a member of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), Opera America, and the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS). -
Junzhi CuiKonghou
Junzhi Cui
Cui Junzhi is a leading pioneer of the modern art of konghou (Chinese harp) performance. With her incomparable style, she continues to shine on the world's musical stage.
A recipient of many prestigious accolades, she has been honored with a medal from UNESCO and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the United Nations. She was awarded first prize in the World Broadcasting Competition, garnered a Gold Award at the Philadelphia International Music Festival for Chinese Composition Performance, and earned the title of "Outstanding Artist" at the inaugural International Harp Competition in the United States. Moreover, she consistently excels in national competitions for instrumental music and composition competitions sponsored by the Ministry of Culture in China.
Cui serves as a leader in numerous konghou-related arenas, from performance and education to international outreach and multimedia recordings. With the endorsement of several major music schools, she pioneered the establishment of the konghou performance major. Invitations to perform and lecture have taken her to dozens of countries, where she has broken new ground with her konghou concertos. She wrote the book The World of Konghou and edited the inaugural "Central Conservatory of Music Examination Syllabus," for konghou performance. These works have served as milestones in the developing landscape of modern konghou artistry.
Currently, she holds the titles of National First-Class Performer, professor of konghou, and Master's Degree supervisor. Additionally, she serves as the president of the Konghou Research Association, which operates under the auspices of the China Musicians Association. She joined the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music in 2023, where she serves as master teacher to majors in konghou performance in the US-China Music Institute. -
Robert J. CulpProfessor of History
Robert J. Culp
B.A., Swarthmore College; M.A., University of Michigan; M.A., Ph.D., Cornell University. Grants from National Endowment for the Humanities, Spencer Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, Committee for Scholarly Communication with China. Articles and reviews in Modern China, Twentieth-Century China, and Journal of Asian Studies. At Bard since 1999. -
Sara CutlerHarp
Sara Cutler
Sara Cutler, whose playing was called “dazzling” by the Washington Post, is Principal Harp of both the American Symphony Orchestra and the New York City Ballet Orchestra and has appeared as concerto soloist at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland and the Festival of Two Worlds in Italy. In addition to performing the standard concerto repertoire, she has premiered many contemporary works, including concertos by composers Elizabeth Larsen and Gian-Carlo Menotti. In 2012, she premiered composer Michael Torke’s concerto Wild Grass which was written for her. With flutist Linda Chesis in the Chesis/Cutler Duo, Ms. Cutler has appeared in recital at Tokyo’s Asahiseimei Hall, London’s Southbank Centre, Paris’ Comedie des Champs-Elysées, and New York’s Town Hall. She has recorded extensively; the Concertino for Harp and Chamber Orchestra by Ernö Dohnányi with the American Symphony Orchestra (Bridge Records); with Ms. Chesis, an all-Debussy CD (Masters/Carlton Classics, London); with soprano Jessye Norman, a Christmas CD (Phillips), with the Smithsonian Chamber Players (BMG Classics), and in the orchestra on recordings with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Metropolitan Opera, and the American Symphony. She has recorded with many non-classical artists as well, including Pat Metheny, Paul Simon and Bjork. In 2012, Ms. Cutler’s method book, written as an homage to her late teacher, Lucile Lawrence, was published by Lyon and Healy. She was a founding member of the Carnegie Hall Solti Orchestral Project and has performed chamber music at the Tanglewood, Ravinia, Artpark, Cooperstown and Costa Rica music festivals, among others. She appears every summer at the Bard Music Festival. A Yale College graduate, Ms. Cutler is on the faculty of the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music as well as the Bard College Conservatory of Music. -
Da Capo Chamber PlayersEnsemble In Residence
Da Capo Chamber Players
Winners of the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the internationally acclaimed Da Capo Chamber Players has worked closely with countless distinguished composers, representing an enormous spectrum of compositional styles. Da Capo's virtuoso artists bring years of creative insight, involvement and artistic leadership to performances of today's repertoire, including well over 150 works written especially for the group, from composers such as Joan Tower, John Harbison, Shulamit Ran, Valerie Coleman, Philip Glass, George Perle, Shirish Korde, Tania León, and Milton Babbitt, among many others.
In tour concerts and mini-residencies across the country, Da Capo works with young composers everywhere, giving them opportunities to try out things with highly experienced virtuoso performers as well as recordings (often award-winning!) of their works. The ensemble has been in residence at Bard College for over three decades, and since 2006 has been Ensemble in Residence with the Bard College Conservatory of Music. In May 2012, the Naumburg Foundation invited Da Capo to premiere works by their first ever composition winners. National Public Radio named Da Capo’s CD, Chamber Music of Chinary Ung on Bridge Records, as one of the 5 Best Contemporary Classical CDs of the year in 2010.
In May 2016, a 45th Anniversary Program offered several themes tied to Da Capo’s identity: “rhythmnation”, long-standing collaborations with gifted composers, honoring black history. The Da Capo Chamber Players’ history includes a number of exemplary programs highlighting superb works by minority composers, including African-American, Latino, and Asian. Further, these works are routinely included in Da Capo’s “normal” programming (which we of course think is “supra-normal”).
The members of the Da Capo Chamber Players are Curtis Macomber, violin; Chris Gross, cello; Patricia Spencer, flute; Marianne Gythfeldt, clarinet; and Steven Beck, piano. -
Sebastian DanilaHistory Seminar
Sebastian Danila
Sebastian Danila is a composer and musicologist, and holds a Ph.D. in composition from New York University’s Steinhardt School, where he was part of the adjunct faculty. He is also manager of the libraries for The Orchestra Now, the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and the American Symphony Orchestra. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States. He has written extensively on the Romanian composer Anatol Vieru. -
Elaine DouvasOboe
Elaine Douvas
Elaine Douvas, oboe, has been principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera since 1977 and is on the oboe faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Since 1982 she has also served as oboe instructor at The Juilliard School and Woodwind Department Chairman there since 1997. Her career highlights include the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the MET Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, James Levine conducting, and Dutilleux's Les Citations with the MET Chamber Ensemble. Her three CDs include a solo recital and her quartet project "Pleasure is the Law", issued by Boston Records, and "Oboe Divas" on the Oboe Classics label. One of the most influential teachers in the USA, her students hold important positions in more than a dozen major orchestras and university faculties. In the summers, Ms. Douvas is an artist faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School, and she teaches three intensive, one-week oboe seminars: Le Domaine Forget Academy in Quebec, Interlochen (MI) Arts Camp, and the Hidden Valley Music Seminars in Carmel, California. She has given master classes at the Curtis and Cleveland Institutes of Music, the Manhattan and Eastman Schools of Music, the New World Symphony, and the Conservatories of Beijing and Shanghai. Her three albums of demonstration and written commentary for Music Minus One are used by teachers and students across the country. Originally from Port Huron, Michigan, Ms. Douvas trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with John Mack, at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Her first job was principal oboe of the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Shaw. For many years she has devoted her spare time to figure skating and earned her Gold Medal for Adult "Moves in the Field" in 2006. Photo by John Abbott. -
Tan DunDean of Bard Conservatory
Tan Dun
The world-renowned artist and UNESCO Global Goodwill Ambassador Tan Dun, has made an indelible mark on the world’s music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical music, multimedia performance, and Eastern and Western traditions. A winner of today’s most prestigious honors including the Grammy Award, Oscar/Academy Award, Grawemeyer Award, Bach Prize, Shostakovich Award, and most recently Italy’s Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, Tan Dun’s music has been played throughout the world by leading orchestras, opera houses, international festivals, and on radio and television. Most recently, Tan Dun was named as Dean of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. As dean, Tan Dun will further demonstrate music’s extraordinary ability to transform lives and guide the Conservatory in fulfilling its mission of understanding music’s connection to history, art, culture, and society.
As a conductor of innovative programs around the world, Tan Dun has led the China tours of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra. His current season includes leading the Orchestre National de Lyon in a six-city China tour, the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra in a four-city tour of Switzerland and Belgium as well as engagements with the Rai National Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra where he was recently named Artistic Ambassador. Tan Dun currently serves as the Principle Guest Conductor of the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. In 2016, Tan Dun conducted the grand opening celebration of Disneyland Shanghai which was broadcast to a record-breaking audience worldwide. Tan Dun has led the world’s most esteemed orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Münchner Philharmoniker, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, among others.
Tan Dun’s individual voice has been heard widely by international audiences. His first Internet Symphony, which was commissioned by Google/YouTube, has reached over 23 million people online. His Organic Music Trilogy of Water, Paper and Ceramic has frequented major concert halls and festivals. Paper Concerto was premiered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the opening of the Walt Disney Hall. His multimedia work, The Map, premiered by YoYo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has toured more than 30 countries worldwide. Its manuscript has been collected by the Carnegie Hall Composers Gallery. His Orchestral Theatre IV: The Gate was premiered by Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra and crosses the cultural boundaries of Peking Opera, Western Opera and puppet theatre traditions. Other important premieres include Four Secret Roads of Marco Polo for the Berlin Philharmonic, Piano Concerto “The Fire” for Lang Lang and the New York Philharmonic. In recent seasons, his percussion concerto, The Tears of Nature, for soloist Martin Grubinger premiered in 2012 with the NDR Symphony Orchestra and Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women Symphony for 13 Microfilms, Harp and Orchestra was co-commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam. Most recently, Tan Dun conducted the premiere of his new oratorio epic Buddha Passion at the Dresden Festival with the Münchner Philharmoniker, the piece was co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Dresden Festival and will go on to have performances in Melbourne, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Rome, Hamburg, Paris, Singapore and London in the coming seasons.
As a visual artist, Tan Dun’s work has been featured at the opening of the China Pavilion at the 56th Venice Art Biennale. Other solo exhibitions include the New York’s Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Beijing’s Chambers Fine Art Gallery, and Shanghai Gallery of Art. Most recently, Tan Dun conducted The Juilliard Orchestra in the world premiere of his Symphony of Colors: Terracotta for the opening of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s epic exhibition The Age of Empires.
As a global cultural leader, Tan Dun uses his creativity to raise awareness of environmental issues and to protect cultural diversity. In 2010, as “Cultural Ambassador to the World” for the World EXPO Shanghai, Tan Dun envisioned, curated and composed two special site-specific performances that perform year-round and have since become cultural representations of Shanghai: Peony Pavilion, a Chinese opera set in a Ming Dynasty garden and his Water Heavens string quartet which promotes water conservation and environmental awareness. Tan Dun was also commissioned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to write the Logo Music and Award Ceremony Music for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Tan Dun currently serves as Honorary Chair of Carnegie Hall’s China Advisory Council, and has previously served as Creative Chair of the 2014 Philadelphia Orchestra China Tour, Associate Composer/Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony, and Artistic Director of the Festival Water Crossing Fire held at the Barbican Centre.
Tan Dun records for Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Opus Arte, BIS and Naxos. His recordings have garnered many accolades, including a Grammy Award (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and nomination (The First Emperor; Marco Polo; Pipa Concerto), Japan’s Recording Academy Awards for Best Contemporary Music CD (Water Passion after St. Matthew) and the BBC’s Best Orchestral Album (Death and Fire). Tan Dun’s music is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. and represented worldwide by the Music Sales Group of Classical Companies. -
Raymond EricksonHarpsichord, Piano
Raymond Erickson
Raymond Erickson, harpsichordist, pianist, and music historian, graduated with high honors from Whittier College and holds the Ph.D. in musicology from Yale. He is one of America’s most experienced teachers of historical performance practice, having taught the subject since the mid-1970s at Queens College’s Aaron Copland School of Music and the CUNY Graduate Center (DMA program), as well as Rutgers University. In his performances all over the US and Europe, on both harpsichord and piano, he has revived once-standard practices now largely forgotten, such as improvised preludizing and embellishments. In recent years, he has focused on Bach, and has given master classes and lectures on Bach interpretation at major conservatories and universities both here and abroad. He has published non-traditional but historically-based interpretive approaches to the Bach Ciaccona for solo violin and to the classic repertory, as well as on improvisation for classical musicians. His four books include Schubert’s Vienna (Yale, 1997) and The Worlds of Johann Sebastian Bach (Amadeus, 2009), both of which are outgrowths of the Aston Magna Academy program he directed, sponsored by the Aston Magna Foundation with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Erickson’s principal keyboard teachers were pianists Margaretha Lohmann and Nadia Reisenberg and harpsichordists Ralph Kirkpatrick and Albert Fuller. -
Luosha FangViolin, Viola
Luosha Fang
Violinist and violist Luosha Fang brings her adventurous spirit to music ranging from canonical repertoire to world premieres. As a violinist, she has performed as soloist with the Albany Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, and the West Virginia Symphony, and she was a winner of Astral Artists’ 2013 National Auditions and the S&R Foundation’s 2015 Washington Award. As a violist, she won 1st Prize in the 2019 Classic Strings International Competition in Vienna, performing Bartok’s Viola Concerto with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. She also won 1st Prize in the 2018 Tokyo International Viola Competition, performing Paul Hindemith's "Der Schwanendreher" concerto with the New Japan Philharmonic and subsequently touring in Japan with Antoine Tamestit and Nobuko Imai. She will return in 2019 for Bartok’s Viola Concerto with the Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, in 2020 for Toshio Hosokawa’s Viola Concerto with the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, and will perform at the Tokyo "Viola Space" festivals in 2019 and 2020. In 2020, she will present a Violin/Viola recital at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art Concert Series followed by performances of the Bruch Double Concerto for Clarinet and Viola with the Israel Camerata Orchestra Jerusalem. Other recent performance highlights include Bartok’s Viola Concerto with the Atlantic Symphony, Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Bay-Atlantic Symphony and appearances in the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante with the Suzhou Royal Chamber Orchestra in China (violin soloist) and at the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid (viola soloist). She is a frequent performer at Bard Music West (San Francisco) and Krzy?owa-Music (Poland), and she worked most recently with Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff and Steven Isserlis at the Kronberg Academy's "Chamber Music Connects the World" project. In 2019, she appeared with the "Musicians from Marlboro" tour as both violinist and violist. Ms. Fang has a strong interest in championing contemporary works. She recorded George Tsontakis’s double violin concerto "Unforgettable" with the Albany Symphony Orchestra for release on NAXOS Records, and she worked closely with composer Krzysztof Penderecki in preparation for a 2014 Carnegie Hall performance of his Sextet. She premiered Chinese composer Shen Yiwen’s violin concerto "Mulan" with the American Symphony Orchestra and has commissioned a solo violin work by Michael Djupstrom, "Lautar." As a chamber musician, Ms. Fang was awarded the Silver Medal at the 2010 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition as the first violinist of the Chimeng Quartet, of which she was a founding member. She has appeared in leading venues including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress, and her festival appearances include Marlboro, Ravinia, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Caramoor Evnin Rising Stars, Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, Norfolk, Aspen, Kneisel Hall, Music from Angel Fire, Incontri in Terra di Siena, and Bard. She has worked with such musicians as Mitsuko Uchida, Nobuko Imai, Viviane Hagner, Claudio Bohórquez, Matthias Kirschnereit, Pamela Frank, Timothy Eddy, Gilbert Kalish, Bruno Canino, Benita Valente, Marina Piccinini, Peter Wiley, Ida Kavafian, Steven Tenenbom, Paul Katz, Hsin-Yun Huang and members of the Guarneri and Juilliard string quartets. In addition, she has been a guest artist with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Ms. Fang made her debut at age eight in her native China with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, and at sixteen moved to the USA on a scholarship to the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Ida Kavafian and Arnold Steinhardt. After graduating from Bard with degrees in violin and Russian Studies, she attended the Curtis Institute of Music as a violin student of Ida Kavafian and Shmuel Ashkenasi. At this time, she began viola studies with Steven Tenenbom, and in 2016, she entered the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid as a viola student of Nobuko Imai. Starting in Fall 2019, she will be teaching at the Bard College Consevatory of Music as instructor of violin/viola. Always in pursuit of new artistic frontiers, Ms. Fang has also collaborated with the Almanac Dance Circus Theatre and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. She studied acting and theater at Bard College and the University of Pennsylvania. Fang plays on a Pietro Guarneri violin made in 1734 and a Dominique Peccatte bow kindly loaned by Dr. Ryuji Ueno. She will be lent the 'Josefowitz' 1690 Andrea Guarneri viola. -
Alexander FarkasAlexander Technique
Alexander Farkas
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 Bard Conservatory of Music since 2005. His new book, The Alexander Technique; Arising from Quiet, was published in London last fall and contains articles dealing with the many challenges that face all players. -
Derek FenstermacherTuba
Derek Fenstermacher
Currently principal tubist with both the New Jersey and Chattanooga Symphony Orchestras, Derek Fenstermacher received his B.M. from the University of Alabama, an M.M. from the Cincinnati College/Conservatory of Music. His primary instructors have included Mark Barton, Timothy Northcut, Demondrae Thurman, Mike Dunn, and Philip Moore, with additional tutelage from Andrew Miller, Warren Deck, Gene Pokorny, Dan Perantoni, Dave Kirk, Cristian Ganicenco, Gil Long, Sam Pilafian, and Pat Sheridan. Mr. Fenstermacher won his first orchestral position at the age of 20 and has since performed with the Nashville Symphony, New World Symphony, Houston Ballet, Alabama Symphony, Cincinnati Chamber, Huntsville Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, West Virginia Symphony, Mobile Symphony, Tuscaloosa Symphony, and Meridian Symphony Orchestras. As a soloist, he has won many prestigious music competitions, including 1st place at the Leonard Falcone Artist Tuba Competition, and three 1st place awards at the 2008 International Tuba/Euphonium Conference. An avid chamber musician, he currently performs with the Boreas Tuba Quartet, and will be joining the New York Tuba Quartet in 2012. With over 10 years teaching experience, Mr. Fenstermacher has given masterclasses at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Montclair State University, as well as numerous other schools in Alabama, Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, and New Jersey. -
Jack FerverAssistant Professor of Theater and Performance
Jack Ferver
Jack Ferver is a New York–based writer, choreographer, and director. Their genre defying performances, which have been called “so extreme that they sometimes look and feel like exorcisms” (New Yorker), explore the tragicomedy of the human psyche. Ferver’s “darkly humorous” (New York Times) works interrogate and indict an array of psychological and sociopolitical issues, particularly in the realms of gender, sexual orientation, and power struggles. Their visionary direction blurs boundaries between fantastic theatrics and stark naturalism, character and self, humor and horror.
Ferver’s works have been presented in New York City at the New Museum; New York Live Arts; The Kitchen; The French Institute Alliance Française, as part of Crossing the Line; Abrons Arts Center; Gibney Dance; Performance Space 122; the Museum of Arts and Design, as part of Performa 11; Danspace Project; and Dixon Place. Domestically and internationally, Ferver has been presented by the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College; American Dance Institute (Maryland); Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (Illinois); Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (Oregon); Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA (Maine); Institute of Contemporary Art (Massachussets); Diverse Works in collaboration with the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston; and Théâtre de Vanves (France).
Ferver’s work has been critically acclaimed in the New York Times, La Monde, Artforum, New Yorker, Time Out NY, Modern Painters, Financial Times, Village Voice, and ArtsJournal. Ferver has received residencies and fellowships from the Maggie Allesee National Center of Choreography at Florida State (2012); Baryshnikov Arts Center (2013); Watermill Center (2014); Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art (2014); and Live Arts Bard, the commissioning and residency program of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College (2014); and Abrons Art Center (2014-2015). They are a 2016 recipient of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant.
Ferver teaches at Bard College in the Theater and Performance Program and for the graduate Vocal Arts Program. They have also taught at NYU Tisch, SUNY Purchase, and have set choreography at The Juilliard School. As an actor they have appeared in numerous films and television series and plays. They are currently working on a solo work to be presented in collaboration with the visual artist Marc Swanson at Mass MoCA and a new play with the playwright Jeremy O Harris. -
Elaine Fitz GibbonGerman Language and Translation
Elaine Fitz Gibbon
Elaine Fitz Gibbon is a doctoral candidate in Historical Musicology at Harvard University. She received her MA in German Studies from Princeton, and her BA in Musicology and German Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. She also holds a Diploma of Advanced Studies in music journalism from the Musik Akademie Basel and has been active as a journalist in the field of new music in the German speaking realm. Her dissertation, which focuses on the music-conceptual work of the Argentine German composer Mauricio Kagel, explores trends and relations of opera, music theater and electro-acoustic music of the avant-garde from 1945 to today from the perspective of circum-Atlantic migration and mobility. Fitz Gibbon has published translations of texts by Bernd Alois Zimmermann for The Opera Quarterly (2014) and Hans Merian for Princeton University Press (Puccini and His World, 2015). Her article, “Beethoven Returns to Bonn: Origins, Belonging and Misuse in Mauricio Kagel’s Ludwig van (1969),” was published in Current Musicology (107) in 2021 and her chapter on the music notational practices of conceptual artist Hanne Darboven recently appeared in the volume Material Cultures of Music Notation (Routledge, 2022). An interview with the Irish composer Jennifer Walshe (b. 1974) is forthcoming in The Opera Quarterly. In her free time, Fitz Gibbon enjoys playing chamber music on modern and Baroque cellos. -
Lucy Fitz GibbonUndergraduate and Graduate Voice, Undergraduate and Graduate Seminars
Lucy Fitz Gibbon
Noted for her “dazzling, virtuoso singing” (Boston Globe), Lucy Fitz Gibbon is a dynamic musician whose repertoire spans the Renaissance to the present. She believes that creating new works and recreating those lost in centuries past makes room for the multiplicity and diversity of voices integral to classical music’s future. As such, Ms. Fitz Gibbon has given U.S. premieres of rediscovered works by Baroque composers Francesco Sacrati, Barbara Strozzi, and Agostino Agazzari, as well by 20 th century composers including Tadeusz Kassern, Roman Palester, and Jean Barraqué. She has also worked closely with numerous others, premiering works by John Harbison, Kate Soper, Sheila Silver, David Hertzberg, Reena Esmail, Roberto Sierra, Anna Lindemann, and Pauline Oliveros. In helping to realize the complexities of music beyond written notes, the experience of working with these composers translates to all music: the commitment to faithfully communicate not only the score, but also the underlying intentions of its creator.
As a recitalist Ms. Fitz Gibbon has appeared with her collaborative partner, pianist Ryan McCullough, in such venues as London’s Wigmore Hall; New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Park Avenue Armory, and Merkin Hall; and Toronto’s Koerner Hall. They have three forthcoming CDs: Descent/Return, featuring works by James Primosch and John Harbison on Albany Records (May 2020); one alongside Dawn Upshaw and Stephanie Blythe of Sheila Silver’s complete Art Song repertoire; and one featuring mid-20 th century Polish works on Acte Préalable. In concert, Lucy has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra; the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra; the Albany, Richmond, Tulsa, and Eureka Symphonies, and the American Symphony Orchestra in her Carnegie Hall debut. She has also premiered two major works by John Harbison and Shirish Korde with Boston Musica Viva, appeared in concert with the Aizuri Quartet, and will appear on tour with Musicians from Marlboro in such venues as Carnegie Hall and the Kimmel Center through 2022. Debuts with the Seattle Opera and Lexington and Kalamazoo Symphonies, as well an appearance with the Doric Quartet at the West Cork Festival in Ireland and a guest recital at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, were all delayed because of COVID-19.
A graduate of Yale University, Ms. Fitz Gibbon is the recipient of numerous awards for her musicaland academic achievements. She holds an artist diploma from The Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory and a master’s degree from Bard College-Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program; her principal teachers include Monica Whicher, Edith Bers, and Dawn Upshaw. She has spent summers at the Tanglewood Music Center (2014-2015) and Marlboro Music Festival (2016-2019). She is currently Interim Director of the Vocal Program at Cornell University and on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, and will serve as voice faculty for Kneisel Hall’s 2020 season, occurring online. For more information, see www.lucyfitzgibbon.com. -
Claire GallowayUndergraduate Voice, Artist-in-Residence
Claire Galloway
Claire Galloway is a soprano with performance experience in recitals, ensembles, and concerts at venues including Opera Baltimore, Market Square Concert Series, Mid-Atlantic Symphony, Opera NexGen, Lidal North Oslo, Savannah Voice Festival, Bel Cantanti Opera, Prototype Festival, and Bach in Baltimore. She has presented roles by Mozart, Poulenc, Massenet, and Bernstein; and premiered roles by Steven Crino, Jonathan Dove, and Frances Pollock. She was awarded second prize at 2023’s songSLAM and the 2022 International Clara Schumann Competition; and was a semifinalist at the Jensen Foundation Vocal Competition, James Toland Vocal Arts Competition, and NYIOPS/Premiere Opera Vocal Competition, among others.
As an educator at Bard College, the Peabody Conservatory, and in private voice and diction instruction through Claire Galloway, Soprano LLC, she has taught a large spectrum of vocal students as well as a range of courses, including the courses Advanced French Airs et Mélodies, Building a Brand and Portfolio, Pitching Your Own Creative Idea, German and French Vocal Literature, French and Italian Diction, and has been a coach for the vocal ensembles run by Beth Willer.
She has training and certification in somatic body work, founding and running The Somatic Singer workshop series and was a co-founder of the Somatic Song Institute in Laguna Beach, CA. She was a Brown Loranger Fellow at Songfest as well as a Ravinia Steans Music Institute Fellow.
She has specialized in Nordic repertoire as a Fellow at the Nordic Song Festival, Trollhättan, Sweden for the past three years. Galloway is fluent or IPA proficient in French, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Russian, Czech, and Ukrainian. She honed her language skills at Bard College as a French double major, Boston University as an M.A.T. in French Secondary Education, Middlebury College Summer Language Institutes, Center for University Programs Abroad in Paris, and was a Teaching Assistant in Bouxwiller, France through TAPIF.
BA, Bard College; MAT, Boston University; MM, Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University. She has been at Bard since 2023 at Artist-in-Residence.
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Kyle GannTaylor Hawver and Frances Bortle Hawver Professor of Music
Kyle Gann
B.Mus., Oberlin Conservatory of Music; M.Mus., D.Mus., Northwestern University. Recipient, National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist’s Grant (1996); Peabody Award (2003); American Music Center Letter of Distinction (2003). Music critic for the Village Voice, 1986–2005. Taught at Bucknell University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, Brooklyn College, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Books include The Arithmetic of Listening: Tuning Theory and History for the Impractical Musician (2018); Charles Ives’s Concord: Essays after a Sonata (2017); Robert Ashley (2012); No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33” (2010); Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice (2006); American Music in the 20th Century (1997); The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (1995); and, as coeditor, The Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music (2013). Vice president of the Charles Ives Society. Music on the Other Minds, New World, New Albion, Mode, Cold Blue, Lovely Music, and other record labels. At Bard since 1997. -
Christopher H. GibbsJames H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Music; Faculty, Bard College Conservatory of Music; Artistic Codirector, Bard Music Festival
Christopher H. Gibbs
Christopher H. Gibbs is executive editor of The Musical Quarterly; editor of The Cambridge Companion to Schubert (1997); author of The Life of Schubert (2000), which has been translated into five languages; coeditor of Franz Liszt and His World (2006) and Franz Schubert and His World (2014); and coauthor of The Oxford History of Western Music, College Edition (2013; 2nd ed., 2018). He is a contributor to New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 19th-Century Music, Schubert durch die Brille, Current Musicology, Opera Quarterly, and Chronicle of Higher Education. Additionally, he has served as program annotator and musicological consultant to the Philadelphia Orchestra (2000– ); musicological director of the Schubertiade at the 92nd Street Y in New York City; musicological adviser for the Schubert Festival at Carnegie Hall (1997); and artistic codirector of the Bard Music Festival (2003– ). Gibbs is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Dissertation Prize of the Austrian Cultural Institute (1992), ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award (1998), and American Council of Learned Societies fellowship (1999–2000). He previously taught at SUNY Buffalo (1993–2003). BA, Haverford College; MA, MPhil, PhD, Columbia University. At Bard since 2002. -
Marc GoldbergBassoon
Marc Goldberg
Marc Goldberg is a member of the NY Woodwind Quintet, the St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, principal bassoonist of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, The American Ballet Theater, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, NYC Opera, and a member of the American Symphony. Formerly associate principal bassoonist of the NY Philharmonic, he has also toured and recorded with the Metropolitan Opera, Boston Symphony, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He received his BM and MM degrees from The Juilliard School, and teaches at Bard College Conservatory, Juilliard Pre College, Mannes College, New England Conservatory, The Hartt School, and NYU. -
Yazhi GuoSuona, Master Classes
Yazhi Guo
Guo, who resides in Boston with his wife and two daughters, is regarded by many as the finest suona player in the world, and his expressive performances and unique style have created many opportunities in the world of modern music for the instrument. He is a visiting artist and teaches master classes at Philadelphia University of the Arts and Berklee College of Music, as well as at the Bard Conservatory of Music.
Guo graduated with distinction from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 1990 and for nine years lectured on suona there. He has won many international awards, including the grand prize at New York’s International ProMusicis Award (1998). Named as one of China’s most outstanding musicians by its Ministry of Culture, he was invited to give a solo performance with suona and saxophone for the heads of states during President Clinton’s visit to Beijing in 1998. In the 1990s, he recorded the original songs for more than 100 films and popular TV series, and drew a huge following of fans. Guo was appointed as principal suona by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in 1999. Since then, he has performed with many orchestras around the world, including Orchestra de la Suisse Romande (Switzerland), South Korea Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra, Belgium’s Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Malaysia Chinese Orchestra, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, and National Chinese Orchestra of Taiwan. He also lectured at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and led the Hong Kong Suona Association as its first executive director.
Guo received the Hong Kong Award for Best Artist in 2012 and that same year, at age 46, said farewell to the highly competitive position of principal suona in the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and relocated to Boston to explore jazz at Berklee College of Music. While studying at Berklee, he actively showcased the uniqueness of suona on various occasions and made the traditional suona more fashionable and popular. After graduating from Berklee with an artist diploma in 2015, he led Berklee’s jazz band during its visits to China and Singapore; he also performed in many other cities and gave college lectures. His fusion-style jazz performances were highly received by Chinese and American audiences.
Guo is not only a multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwinds, but also an innovator. He has obtained several patents for changes to instruments such as the suona, hulusi, and guzheng and received a scientific progress award from the Ministry of Culture in China for a movable reed and flexible core of the suona. This significant breakthrough allows the traditional suona to alter modes and change sounds at any time during a live performance. It also makes the suona more expressive, allowing for a deeper integration with Western music. -
Marka GustavssonChamber Music Director, Bard Conservatory; Viola
Marka Gustavsson
A dedicated chamber musician and current member of the Manhattan String Quartet, violist Marka Gustavsson enjoys a rich and varied performance life both in the US and abroad. She has been a guest artist at festivals including Bard Music Festival, Mostly Mozart, Vancouver’s Music in the Morning, the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, WQXR’s Showcase Concerts, Yale Faculty Artists’ Series. Marka has premiered and recorded solo works and chamber music of composers John Halle, Joan Tower, Kyle Gann, Harold Farberman, George Tsontakis, Martin Bresnick, Richard Wernick, Laura Kaminsky, Tania Leon, and Tan Dun. From 1999 through 2014, Marka belonged to the Colorado Quartet with whom she performed cycles of Beethoven, Bartok and Schubert. As a teacher, Marka holds a faculty position at Bard College and Conservatory, and serves as Associate Director and Coordinator of Chamber Music. In the summer, she coaches chamber music for the Young Artists’ Program of Yellow Barn in Putney, VT. At home in Red Hook, NY, she loves gardening, cooking, reading, and hiking with her husband, pianist and composer John Halle, 16 year old son Ben, and Russell—the dog. -
Jason HaaheimTimpani
Jason Haaheim
Jason Haaheim was appointed a Principal Timpanist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2013. In addition to performances at New York's Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Mr. Haaheim can be seen and heard performing with the MET Orchestra on television, international radio, and Live in HD movie theater broadcasts. Guest principal timpanist engagements have included the Seoul Philharmonic, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the Milwaukee Symphony. Mr. Haaheim has also been principal timpanist of the Lakes Area Music Festival, and a resident artist of the Twickenham Festival. A sought-after clinician, Mr. Haaheim gives masterclasses both nationally and internationally, and is a founder of the multi-day Northland Timpani Summit. He is an adjunct faculty member of the NYU Steinhardt School of Music, and a frequent coach for the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) and the New York Youth Symphonies (NYYS). Prior to the Met, Mr. Haaheim was principal timpanist of the Southwest Michigan Symphony and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and he performed regularly as timpanist with the Madison Symphony, Illinois Symphony, Peoria Symphony, and the Illinois Philharmonic. Mr. Haaheim has also been invited to perform as guest principal timpanist with the Chicago Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Glimmerglass Festival, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Mr. Haaheim began studying piano in 4th grade, adding percussion studies in 5th grade. He holds a bachelor of arts degree with a double major in honors-music-performance and physics from Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN); he also holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from UC-Santa Barbara. Influential teachers have included John Tafoya (Indiana University, National Symphony), Dean Borghesani (Milwaukee Symphony), Jonathan Haas (Aspen Music Festival, NYU), and Robert Adney (Gustavus Adolphus College, MacPhail Music School). While auditioning and freelancing, Mr. Haaheim worked as “Senior Research and Development Engineer” at NanoInk, a Chicago-area tech company. In this capacity, he gave invited talks on nanotechnology, authored multiple peer-reviewed publications, and was granted numerous patents. In 2017, this dual-career path was highlighted in an interview with Melissa Block on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Active in all musical areas, Mr. Haaheim has also performed extensively as a chamber musician and jazz drummer. He collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma in a Civic Orchestra / Silk Road Ensemble performance, and recorded the premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s “Terpsichore’s Dream” with members of the Chicago Symphony. Mr. Haaheim has performed with Chicago’s ensemble dal niente, and premiered Ryosuke Yagi’s “Mirrors…for timpani” with the UCSB Ensemble of Contemporary Music. Other projects have included drumming for the jazz-fusion quartet “The J3 Intent” and the alt-country band “The Lost Cartographers.” At Gustavus, Mr. Haaheim was selected for the honors recital and won first place in the orchestra’s concerto competition. Extra-musical interests include backpacking and hiking, rock climbing, and both downhill and cross-country skiing. -
Benjamin HochmanPiano Masterclasses
Benjamin Hochman
Winner of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2011, Benjamin Hochman’s eloquent and virtuosic performances blend colorful artistry with poetic interpretation to the delight of audiences and critics alike. He performs in major cities around the world as an orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician, working with an array of renowned musicians. Possessed of an intellectual and heartfelt musical inquisitiveness, his playing was described by the Vancouver Sun as “stylish and lucid, with patrician authority and touches of elegant wit.” Hochman frequently juxtaposes familiar and unfamiliar works in his concert programs, a talent that also extends to his thoughtful recorded repertoire, from Bach and Mozart to Kurtág and Peter Lieberson. The New York Times wrote of pianist Benjamin Hochman “classical music doesn’t get better than this.”
Hochman has performed at major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, 92nd Street Y, Konzerthaus Wien, Berlin Konzerthaus, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Louvre in Paris, Liszt Academy in Budapest, Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Tivoli Theatre in Copenhagen, l'Auditori de Barcelona, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, and Kumho Art Hall in Seoul. Festival highlights include Marlboro, Ravinia, Santa Fe, Bard, Gilmore, Caramoor, Strings Music Festival, and Vail in North America, as well as European festivals including Lucerne, Spoleto, Verbier, Ruhr, Prussia Cove, and Israel Festival.
Hochman has performed as soloist with the New York, Los Angeles, Israel and Prague Philharmonics; the Chicago, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Houston, Seattle, American, New Jersey, Portland, Vancouver, and Jerusalem Symphonies; the New York String Orchestra, IRIS Orchestra in Memphis, National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Tel Aviv Soloists, and Istanbul State Orchestra. He has played under eminent conductors such as Gianandrea Noseda, David Robertson, John Storgårds, Pinchas Zukerman, Trevor Pinnock, Jun Märkl, Leon Botstein, Bramwell Tovey, Jaime Laredo, Joshua Weilerstein, Michael Stern, Jahja Ling, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, and Kaspar Zehnder.
In the 2019-2020 season, Mr. Hochman presents the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas at the Israel Conservatory in Tel Aviv and continues his traversal of the cycle at the Bard College Conservatory. He performs Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lucas Richman and Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Greenwich Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Gilbert. He presents two programs on the subject of “Words and Music” at the 92nd Street Y in New York: a solo piano recital with works by Brahms, Adés, and Schumann, and a vocal program of Janáček Diary of One Who Vanished and Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire. Recitals at Coastal Concerts in Delaware and the Performing Arts Center at Western Washington University, and chamber concerts at Boston Chamber Music Society, Schubert Club in Minnesota, Charlottesville Chamber Music Festival, and Linton Chamber Music in Cincinnati round out the season. He serves as assistant conductor to Rafael Payare and Bramwell Tovey at San Diego Symphony.
Hochman made his New York recital debut in 2006 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and went on to establish a vibrant musical presence in New York City through concerts with the New York Philharmonic and the American Symphony Orchestra and a succession of prominent recital and chamber performances at 92nd Street Y. He made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Israel Philharmonic and his debut with the Chicago Symphony in a Mozart Piano Concerto project with Pinchas Zukerman and Hubbard Street Dance. He has appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl and been engaged for three subscription series with the Pittsburgh Symphony.
In recent years, Hochman’s admiration for the rich orchestral repertoire has led him to pursue conducting. He was appointed musical assistant to Louis Langrée as well as to guest conductors at the 2016 Mostly Mozart Festival, including Thierry Fischer, Paavo Järvi and Jeffrey Kahane. He has served as assistant conductor to Leon Botstein for American Symphony Orchestra’s concerts at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, and to Emmanuel Villaume at Juilliard. Recent and forthcoming conducting engagements include Santa Fe Pro Musica, Orlando Philharmonic, and The Orchestra Now. A graduate of the prestigious Juilliard conducting program, where he received the Bruno Walter Scholarship and Charles Schiff Award, Hochman trained under Alan Gilbert and James Ross. He has also worked in masterclasses with Fabio Luisi, David Zinman, Stefan Asbury, Johannes Schläfli, and James Gaffigan. In the summer of 2018, he participated in the Tanglewood Conducting Seminar. Hochman is founder and music director of the Roosevelt Island Symphony, an ensemble consisting of New York’s top orchestral and chamber musicians which presents its fourth season in 2019-2020.
In October 2019, Hochman’s debut album as conductor and concerto soloist will be released on Avie Records: Mozart Piano Concerti No. 17 and No. 24 with the English Chamber Orchestra. His 2015 album for Avie was titled Variations and included worksbyLuciano Berio, Oliver Knussen, Peter Lieberson, George Benjamin, and Brahms. His second solo album, Homage to Schubert, recorded for Avie Records in 2013, features Schubert’s Sonata in A Major, D. 664 and Sonata in D Major, D. 850, alongside contemporary tributes to Schubert, Jörg Widmann’s Idyll und Abgrund: Six Schubert Reminiscences and Kurtág’s Homage to Schubert. Hochman’s debut solo recording of works by Bach, Berg and Webern was released by Artek in 2009. He has also recorded chamber music by Lawrence Dillon with the Daedalus Quartet for Bridge Records and by Lisa Bielawa for Innova Recordings.
An enthusiastic collaborator, Hochman has worked with the Tokyo, Shanghai, Mendelssohn, Casals, Pražák, Daedalus, Escher, Jerusalem, and Borromeo Quartets; Zukerman ChamberPlayers; and members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, and Orion String Quartets, as well as pianists Jonathan Biss, Orion Weiss, and Shai Wosner, violinists Lisa Batishvili and Ani Kavafian, and cellists Miklós Perényi, Efe Baltacigil, and Ralph Kirshbaum.
A dedicated advocate for contemporary music, Hochman has worked closely with composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Brett Dean, Philippe Hurel, Joan Tower, William Bolcom, Yehudy Wyner, Tamar Muskal, David Ludwig, Menachem Wiesenberg, Jesse Brault, Gilad Cohen and Max Grafe.
Benjamin Hochman has been selected to participate in prestigious residencies around the world such as The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Isaac Stern's International Chamber Music Encounters in Israel, and Carnegie Hall's Professional Training Workshop. Hochman received the "Outstanding Pianist" citation at the Verbier Academy, the Festorazzi Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, second prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, and the "Partosh Prize" awarded by the Israeli Minister of Culture. His performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio's Young Artist Showcase and Performance Today, WNET’s Sunday Arts, WQXR, CBC (Canada), ABC (Australia), Radio France and Israel's Voice of Music radio station, as well as on the European television network Mezzo.
Born in Jerusalem, Hochman began his piano studies with Esther Narkiss at the Conservatory of the Rubin Academy, and Emanuel Krasovsky in Tel Aviv. He is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Claude Frank, and the Mannes College of Music, where he studied with Richard Goode. His studies were supported by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. He serves on the piano faculty of Bard College Conservatory of Music. Hochman is a Steinway Artist and lives in New York City. His website is www.benjaminhochman.com. -
Brian HongViola
Brian Hong
Korean-American violist and violinist Brian Hong has forged a notable career as a chamber musician and educator. Known for his commanding stage presence, Mr. Hong joined the Grammy-nominated Aizuri String Quartet as their violist in 2023. He has performed concertos with such orchestras as the Juilliard Orchestra, New York Classical Players, Fairfax Symphony, American Youth Philharmonic, Chesapeake Orchestra, US Army Orchestra, National Philharmonic, and the Springfield Symphony. A dedicated chamber musician, Mr. Hong has served on the faculty of the Manchester Music Festival and as guest artist at the Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival and Kneisel Hall. Other festival credits include Marlboro, Yellow Barn, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, the Taos School of Music, and the Perlman Music Program.
Mr. Hong joined the esteemed viola faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music in Fall 2022. He has taught private lessons, public masterclasses, and chamber coachings on both violin and viola at George Mason University’s Reva and Sid Dewberry Family School of Music, Missouri State University, and the Juilliard School. He has also taught live virtual masterclasses for the Joven Camerata de El Salvador as well as the Edward Said National Conservatory of Palestine. Mr. Hong’s mission as a teacher is to provide thoughtful and well-rounded instruction to students that maximizes their musical inspiration while illuminating the technical steps needed to achieve repeatable results. Mr. Hong believes in bringing the unique qualities of each student to life, and in the right of every student to have a high-quality musical education regardless of socio-economic status.
Mr. Hong is a graduate of Juilliard’s Artist Diploma program under the guidance of Laurie Smukler and Catherine Cho. As a Fellow of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, he performed and taught in a variety of venues in New York City and abroad, as well as maintaining a two-year teaching-artist partnership with Celia Cruz High School for Music in the Bronx. Mr. Hong also holds a Master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with Laurie Smukler and Li Lin and was awarded a prestigious Kovner Fellowship. Mr. Hong earned his Bachelor’s degree under Donald Weilerstein from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he was a member of three different honors ensembles and studied both classic and contemporary quartet repertoire with mentors including Laurence Lesser, Kim Kashkashian, Donald Weilerstein, and Lucy Chapman.
Mr. Hong is the Programming Director of Project: Music Heals Us, a nonprofit dedicated to providing musical education, access, and healing to marginalized populations with limited ability to access it themselves. He is also a Co-Artistic Director of NEXUS Chamber Music Chicago in llinois, an artist-driven collective of musicians whose mission is to make classical music culturally relevant through live concerts and multimedia content. In his spare time, Mr. Hong can be found brewing espresso or single origin pour-overs at his home coffee bar. -
Keisuke IkumaChamber Music Instructor
Keisuke Ikuma
Keisuke Ikuma is a highly sought-after oboe and english horn player in the New York metropolitan area. He is currently a member of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and the Stamford Symphony. He also performs regularly with the New York Philharmonic, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and numerous Broadway shows such as “The King and I,” “Wicked,” and “Phantom of the Opera”. Mr. Ikuma received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he was a full-scholarship student of Joseph Robinson, former principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Ikuma studied conducting with Constantine Kitsopoulos and David Gilbert, and made his Broadway conducting debut in the 2015 Tony Award-winning production “The King and I” at Lincoln Center Theater. He recently served as interim Chorus Director of the Keio High School in Westchester. -
Kayo IwamaAssociate Director, Graduate Vocal Arts Program
Kayo Iwama
American pianist Kayo Iwama has concertized extensively with singers such as Stephanie Blythe, Kendra Colton, William Hite, Rufus Müller, Christòpheren Nomura, Lucy Shelton and Dawn Upshaw throughout North America, Europe and Japan, and has performed in many prestigous venues including the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, The DiMenna Center, Merkin Hall, The Morgan Library, Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the Kennedy Center, Tokyo’s Yamaha Hall and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The Washington Post has called her a pianist “with unusual skill and sensitivty to the music and the singer” and the Boston Globe has praised her “virtuoso accompaniment…super-saturated with gorgeous colors”.
Miss Iwama is the associate director of the innovative Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, where she works alongside Stephanie Blythe, the Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano and recently appointed artistic director of the program. Miss Iwama has been with the program since its inception in 2006, working in tandem with the founding artistic director, the acclaimed soprano Dawn Upshaw. Other collaborations with Dawn Upshaw include master classes and a recital at the Britten-Pears Young Artist Program at the Aldeburgh Music Festival, and appearances at the International Vocal Arts Institute in Virginia, the University of Wyoming, Edward Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music and the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Ms. Iwama has been a faculty member of Songfest, and for over two decades taught at the Tanglewood Music Center, where she also served as the coordinator of the Vocal Studies Program. There she worked with some of today’s most promising young singers and collaborative pianists, and assisted Maestros James Levine, Seiji Ozawa and Robert Spano in major operatic and concert productions. In addition her teaching has also taken her to some of the foremost universities of the United States and Asia to give master classes and performance/demonstrations. A former resident of the Boston, Massachusetts area, she was a frequent performer on WGBH radio, and performed with such groups as the Florestan Recital Project, the Handel and Haydn Society and Emmanuel Music. In addition she was the founder, music director and pianist of the critically acclaimed Cantata Singers Chamber Series, creating programs devoted to rarely-heard works of art song and vocal chamber music. She was formerly on the faculties of the Hartt School of Music, Boston Conservatory and the New England Conservatory of Music.
Miss Iwama earned a bachelor of music degree at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and her master of music at Stony Brook University where she studied with Gilbert Kalish. She also attended the Salzburg Music Festival, the Banff Music Center, the Music Academy of the West and the Tanglewood Music Center, where she worked with such artists as Margo Garrett, Martin Isepp, Graham Johnson, Martin Katz and Erik Werba. She has served previously on the music staffs of the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Miss Iwama can be heard on CD on the Well-Tempered label, with baritone Christópheren Nomura in Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, two ISMM discs devoted to French mélodies and the songs of Schumann with tenor Ingul Ivan Oak, and on the The Reckless Heart with soprano Kendra Colton, a collection of 20th century American and British song. She will also be heard on a newly released CD with Miss Colton in the vocal music of John Harbison, honoring the composer’s 80th birthday -
Yi-Wen JiangViolin
Yi-Wen Jiang
Violinist Yi-Wen Jiang was born into a musical family in Beijing where both parents were professional musicians – his father a Concertmaster for over 35 years and his mother a soprano soloist. After hearing Beethoven's violin concerto at the age of three, Jiang understood his life’s path: to become a professional violinist.
His rise in the musical world was meteoric. Jiang made his concerto debut at the age of 17 in Beijing. He won the top prize at the first China Youth Violin Competition, paving the way for him to study with Professor Han Li at the Central Conservatory of Music. Afterward, he received a full scholarship from McDonnell-Douglas at the St. Louis Conservatory, and moved to the U.S. in 1985 to study with Taras Gabora and Michael Tree. After St. Louis, he enrolled in the graduate programme of Rutgers University, where he studied four years with Arnold Steinhardt. Jiang credits Steinhardt with having the most influence on his playing, followed by highly influential master classes with Pinchas Zuckerman. After his prize-winning performance at the Montreal International Competition, he appeared as a soloist with the Victoria Symphony and Montreal Symphony, and was featured at many international music festivals by the age of 22.
In 1994 Jiang joined the Shanghai Quartet and over the next 26 years performed over 3000 concerts in 37 countries. Innumerable collaborations with eminent artists included the Tokyo, Juilliard, and Guarneri Quartets; cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell; pianists Menahem Pressler, Peter Serkin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Yuja Wang – many of whom became lifelong friends. The ensemble featured at many of Europe’s and North America’s most prominent music festivals.
Active as a composer, Jiang has arranged dozens of pieces for string quartet and other instruments, many of which marry Eastern repertoire with Western influence. The most famous of these arrangements is a collection of Chinese folk songs called Chinasong, featuring music arranged by Jiang reflecting on his childhood memories of the Cultural Revolution in China. The set of 24 pieces was recorded by the Shanghai Quartet with Eugenia Zuckerman and released on the Delos International label in 2002. In 2018, 38 of these arrangements were published by Flower City Publisher in Guangzhou.
Jiang is Artist-in-Residence at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University and also teaches on the faculty at The Bard College Conservatory of Music. -
Barbara Jöstlein CurrieHorn
Barbara Jöstlein Currie
Barbara Jöstlein Currie joined the Met Orchestra in 1998, as assistant horn. A year later, she won the 4th horn position which she has held since. Growing up in Chicago and studying with former Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians Phil Farkas and Nancy Fako, she left for New York to study with former Met principal horn, Julie Landsman at the Juilliard school with a full scholarship. During her studies, she took a year off to play third and associate horn with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Israel. She has performed frequently at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and with the San Diego Symphony during the summer. Along with teaching at the Bard Conservatory, she also teaches at Manhattan School of Music pre-college, and has given master classes at many universities such as Colburn and Cincinnati Conservatory, as well as in Japan. Barbara is also active in the recording industry, playing on movies such as True Grit and Contagion, and with musicians such as Tony Bennett and Sting, and has also recorded soundtracks in Los Angeles during her time off. During her summers, Barbara lives in Southern California with her husband and three children, and make frequent trips to Disneyland and the beach. Barbara's brother Thomas is the associate principal horn of the St. Louis Symphony and played for two years with the NY Philharmonic. -
Patricia KaretzkyOskar Munsterberg Lecturer in Art History
Patricia Karetzky
B.A., New York University; M.A., Hunter College; Ph.D., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Adjunct professor, Lehman College, CUNY. Publications include The Life of the Buddha; Court Art of the Tang; Early Buddhist Narratives (2000); contributions to Artibus Asiae, Tang Studies, Oriental Art, others. Editor, Journal of Chinese Religions. Curator, Art of the Twentieth Century and Traditional Chinese Literary Culture (1998), Lehman College Art Gallery and Bard College; Confessions: The Contemporary Art of Asian Women (2001), Hammond Art Gallery. At Bard since 1988. -
Erica KiesewetterDirector of Orchestral Studies, Professor of Orchestral Practice
Erica Kiesewetter
Former Concertmaster, American Symphony Orchestra, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Opera Orchestra of New York, New York Pops, Stamford Symphony, Long Island Philharmonic, and Amici New York. Former first violinist, Colorado Quartet, former member, Leonardo Trio; toured internationally and recorded with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra Studies at the The Juilliard School, where she studied with Ivan Galamian; also studied with Charles Castleman, Joyce Robbins, Emanuel Vardi, and Robert Mann... Faculty, Bard College Conservatory of Music. Continuing Associate Professor of Music and Director of Orchestral Studies since 2010.
https://www.ericakiesewetter.com/ -
Alexandra KnollOboe
Alexandra Knoll
Alexandra is much in demand as an oboist in New York City. She is Principal Oboist of the American Symphony Orchestra and a member of New York City Opera. As well as frequently playing with the Metropolitan Opera, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and New York City Ballet, she is also active on the Broadway scene. She was the oboist for “Mary Poppins”, “Fiddler on the Roof” and most recently, “Miss Saigon”. An alumna of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, Alexandra is now on the oboe faculty at Bard College Conservatory of Music. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Maxim Moston, and their daughter, Vera. -
David KrakauerClarinet
David Krakauer
Internationally acclaimed clarinetist David Krakauer redefines the notion of a concert artist. Known for his mastery of myriad styles, he occupies the unique position of being one of the world’s leading exponents of Eastern European Jewish klezmer music, and at the same time is a major voice in classical music. As one of the foremost musicians of the vital new wave of klezmer, David Krakauer tours the globe with his celebrated Klezmer Madness! ensemble. While firmly rooted in traditional klezmer folk tunes, the band “hurls the tradition of klezmer music into the rock era” (Jon Pareles, The New York Times). In addition to his annual European tours to major international festivals and jazz clubs, recent seasons brought Krakauer and his band to the Library of Congress, Stanford Lively Arts, San Francisco Performances, the Krannert Center, Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the Venice Biennale, Krakow Jewish Culture Festival, BBC Proms, Saalfelden Jazz Festival, Transmusicales de Rennes, La Cigale, New Morning in Paris, and many others. His newest project, The Big Picture, re-imagines familiar themes by such renowned film music composers as John Williams, Marvin Hamlisch, Randy Newman, Wojciech Kilar and Vangelis, and interprets melodic gems by the likes of Sidney Bechet, Sergei Prokofiev, Mel Brooks, Ralph Burns, John Kander & Fred Ebb and Jerry Bock that have appeared in popular films. In addition, Krakauer is in demand worldwide as a guest soloist with the finest ensembles including the Emerson, Orion and Kronos String Quartets, as well as orchestras including the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Detroit Symphony, the Weimar Staatskapelle, the Phoenix Symphony, the Dresdener Philharmonie, and the Seattle Symphony. Krakauer’s discography contains some of the most important klezmer recordings of the past decade including six CDs under his own name: two on John Zorn's Tzadik Label and four on Label Bleu; plus collaborations with the Klezmatics, Itzak Perlman, the Kronos Quartet/Osvaldo Golijov and Socalled. Abraham Inc’s "Tweet-Tweet" on his own label, Table Pounding Records (and Label Bleu in Europe) was released in early 2010. Composers who have written major pieces for him include David del Tredici, Paul Moravec, Ofer Ben-Amots, Jean Philippe Calvin, George Tsontakis, Anthony Coleman and Wlad Marhulets. David Krakauer is on the clarinet and chamber music faculties of Mannes College of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, NYU and the Bard College Conservatory of Music. His unique sound can be heard as soloist in Danny Elfman's score for the film "Taking Woodstock" and throughout "The Tango Lesson". -
Yelena KurdinaRussian Diction
Yelena Kurdina
Extraordinary pianist, recitalist, coach, prompter and assistant conductor, Yelena Kurdina is among the most sought after collaborators in the opera world today.
A specialist in Russian repertoire at The Metropolitan Opera for over 25 years, Ms. Kurdina became Placido Domingo’s private coach for his preparation of “one of the most important roles of his career,” Ghermann in Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades”. Ms. Kurdina joined Mr. Domingo for the productions in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and the Vienna Staatsoper, and also accompanied him in concert on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in a program of Spanish music. Indeed, Ms. Kurdina has partnered with many of the most outstanding singers of our time. Yelena was the coach and consultant for Renee Fleming’s recordings of “Night Songs” and “Homage: The Age of the Diva”, as well as her televised appearance as Tatiana in “Eugene Onegin” with the New York Philharmonic on PBS’ Great Performances and later on the Met HD telecast. Ms. Kurdina’s recitals with the remarkable Dmitri Hvorostovsky, have been called “rich and haunting collaborations, beautifully judged and impeccably ardent”.
No stranger to the leading international opera houses, Ms. Kurdina has brought her distinguished musicianship to such renowned festivals and opera houses as the Opéra national de Paris, Houston Grand Opera, Saito Kinen Festival in Japan, Summerscape in the Frank Gehry theater at Bard College, Cincinnati May Festival, Teatro de la Maestranza in Sevilla, Spain, the National Symphony Orchestra and Washington National Opera in Washington, DC. and recently San Francisco Symphony. Ms. Kurdina has been the assistant to a host of extraordinary conductors - Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Seiji Ozawa, Vladimir Jurowski, Antonio Pappano, James Conlon, Valery Gergiev, Jiří Bělohlávek, Fabio Luisi, Michael Tilson Thomas among others - with whom she has worked not only on Russian operas, but also on many Italian operas, as well. Among the highlights of her operatic career are Verdi’s “Otello” and “Don Carlo”, Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades”, Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” and Prokofiev’s “Gambler” and “War and Peace”.
Hailing originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, Ms. Kurdina is a protégé of John Wustman - the “Dean of American accompanists” - with whom she studied at the University of Illinois. Like her illustrious mentor, an important part of Ms. Kurdina’s career has centered on working with young artists. Ms. Kurdina has been on the faculty of the International Vocal Arts Institute in Tel Aviv for many years, she has been a regular guest of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program at the Washington Opera and Domingo
Colburn-Stein Young Artist Program at the Los Angeles Opera, SIVAM in Mexico City, and maintains a vibrant private studio in New York City, where she has coached innumerable singers who have gone on to major operatic careers.
Ms. Kurdina has also developed an outstanding system of transliteration for Russian opera that has been lauded by houses across the country. Ms. Kurdina’s transliterations of such scores as “Eugene Onegin”, “The Queen of Spades”, “Khovanshina”, “Boris Godunov”, “The Gambler”, “Mazepa”, “The Nose” and “The Maid of Orleans”, as well as many others, are currently in use by such companies as the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera and the American Symphony Orchestra.
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Garry KvistadPercussion Advisor
Garry Kvistad
Garry Kvistad joins the Bard Conservatory faculty in the fall of 2011 as an advisor to its newly founded percussion program. Garry attended the Interlochen Arts Academy where he studied with Jack McKenzie and Michael Ranta. He earned his BM from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied with Cloyd Duff and Richard Weiner and his MM from Northern Illinois University, where he studied music, art and physics in the pursuit of musical instrument building. In 1993 Northern Illinois University honored him with its Distinguished Alumni Award. In the 1970s, Garry worked with composer/conductor Lucas Foss as a Creative Associate in Buffalo, New York, after which he joined the faculties of Northern Illinois University and the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. During that time he co-founded the Blackearth Percussion Group which recorded and toured in the US, Canada, and Europe. Kvistad has served as the timpanist and percussionist with the Chicago Grant Park Symphony, was a summer Tanglewood Fellow, and a percussionist with the Cabrillo Music Festival Orchestra, California. He joined the percussion ensemble Nexus in the Fall of 2002 when John Wyre, one of the group's original members, retired. He has been performing and recording with Nexus co-founders Bob Becker and Russell Hartenberger since joining Steve Reich and Musicians in 1980. Garry is one of 18 musicians to win a Grammy award for the 1998 recording of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. He has been featured in performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, as well as many others in North America and Europe. The Balinese Gong Kebyar Gamelan ensemble, Giri Mekar, which he formed in 1987, is currently in residence at Bard College. Garry is the founder and CEO of Woodstock Percussion, Inc., makers of Woodstock Chimes® and musical instruments for children. He is a 1995 winner of Ernst & Young/Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Southern New England Region and served as a New York state delegate to the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business. Garry served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Woodstock Guild, Woodstock, NY until 2008; and as a member of the Board of Advisors of The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, Arkville, NY. Garry lives in beautiful upstate New York with his wife Diane, lots of pets and houseplants. They have two daughters, Tasa and Maya, both following artistic paths. -
Peter LakiVisiting Associate Professor of Music
Peter Laki
Diploma in Musicology, Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania. Program annotator, Cleveland Orchestra (1990–2007 ); editor, Bartók and His World (Princeton University Press, 1995); contributor, Cambridge Companion to the Orchestra and Cambridge Companion to Bartók; articles in The Cambridge Companion to Bartók, the Cambridge Companion to the Orchestra, The Musical Quarterly, Orbis Musicae, International Journal of Musicology, Hungarian Quarterly, and program notes for major orchestras and arts organizations. Has taught at Oberlin College, Case Western Reserve University, Franz Liszt Academy of Music, John Carroll University, Kent State University. At Bard since 2007. -
Julie LandsmanHorn Masterclasses
Julie Landsman
Recently retired from the Principal Horn chair with the Metropolitan Opera, a position she held for 25 years, Julie Landsman is now enjoying playing chamber music and chamber orchestra repertoire. Prior to her appointment with the MET Orchestra, Ms. Landsman was co-principal horn with the Houston Symphony. She has toured throughout the world with the New York Philharmonic and Orpheus. Ms. Landsman's recording credits include the Ring Cycle with the Metropolitan Opera, conducted by James Levine, where she is the featured horn soloist. Julie's summers have included The Marlboro Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, Mainly Mozart Orchestra, La Jolla Summerfest, Chamber Music Northwest, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. In addition to being on the faculty at Bard Conservatory she teaches at The Juilliard School. Many of her students are in prominent positions throughout the United States. A graduate of Juilliard, her teachers have included James Chambers, Howard Howard, and Carmine Caruso. She currently resides in Nyack, New York. -
Nicholas Alton LewisChamber Music
Nicholas Alton Lewis
Nicholas Alton Lewis is the clarinetist and co-founder of the BLAK-New Blues Ensemble, an ensemble founded with composer-pianist Anthony Kelley and based at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The BLAK-New Blues Ensemble was created to explore an ensemble’s ability to circumnavigate, through improvisation, the codes and tropes of African-American, European, and music of other parts of the world in ways that produce a coherent and fresh musical product.
Mr. Lewis has been featured in performances of the Mozart Concerto for Clarinet and Sinfonia Concertante with the Williamsburg Symphony, and of the David Baker Jazz Suite for Clarinet and Orchestra with the Richmond (VA) Symphony and the Soulful Symphony in Baltimore, MD. An exponent of celebrating the music of our time, he has premiered works by Craig DeAlmedia, Anthony Kelley, Aristides Llaneza, Caroline Mallonee, John Mayrose, Gary Nash, Mike Worth, and Iannis Xenakis.
Mr. Lewis has held clarinet positions with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra and Williamsburg Symphony, for 18 and 12 years respectively. He has also performed with the Akron, Pittsburgh, Virginia, and Westmorland Symphonies, as well with the Baltimore Opera Orchestra, and Brevard, Gateways, and Pittsburgh New Music Festival Orchestras.
Prior to joining the faculty at Bard College, Mr. Lewis served as Senior Associate Dean and Special Advisor to the President at the Curtis Institute of Music, and also served on the music department faculties of Howard University and Virginia Union University. He holds the degrees of Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Music in clarinet performance from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as a Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School where he pursued studies in the Institute of Sacred Music. Additionally, Mr. Lewis is the current Associate Vice President for Academic Initiatives and Associate Dean of Bard College.
Photo credit: Joseph Brunjes -
Honggang LiViolin Masterclasses
Honggang Li
Honggang Li is the founding member of the Shanghai Quartet, now in it’s 30th season, has performed over two thousand concerts in 30 countries, and can be heard on more than 30 CD albums. Mr. Li began studying the violin with his parents at age seven. When the Central Conservatory of music in Beijing reopened in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Li was selected to attend from a group of over five hundred applicants. He continued his training at the Shanghai Conservatory and co- founded the Shanghai Quartet with his brother Weigang while in his senior year in the conservatory. The quartet soon became the first Chinese quartet to win a major international chamber music competition (the London International) and came to the US in 1985. He received MM of North Illinois University and served as a teaching assistant at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1987, he won the special prize (a 1757 DeCable violin) given by Elisa Pegreffi of Quartetto Italiano at the First Paolo Borciani International Competition in Italy. In addition to his work at the Bard Conservatory of Music Mr. Li is currently also an artist-in-residence and faculty at Montclair State University. He also held the title of artist in residence at University of Richmond in Virginia from 1989 to 2003. He has been the guest professor of both conservatories of Shanghai and Beijing. Mr. Li is also the guest principal violist of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since 2009. -
Weigang LiViolin Masterclasses
Weigang Li
Born into a family of well-known musicians in Shanghai, Weigang Li began studying the violin with his parents when he was 5 and went on to attend the Shanghai Conservatory Middle School at age 14. Three years later, in 1981, he was selected to go to study for one year at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music through the first cultural exchange program between the sister cities of Shanghai and San Francisco. in 1985, upon graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory, Weigang Li left China to continue his studies at Northern Illinois University and later studied and taught at the Juilliard School. Besides his parents, other important teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Robert Mann, Tan Shu-Chen and Isadore Tinkleman.
Mr. Li was featured in the 1980 Oscar winning documentary film From Mao to Mozart: IsaacStern in China. He made his solo debut at 17 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as soloist with Shanghai Symphony, China Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony and Asian Youth Orchestra.
Weigang Li is a founding member and first violinist of the world-renowned Shanghai Quartet since 1983. Now in its 37th season, the Shanghai Quartet has performed nearly 3000 concerts in 35 countries and recorded over 30 CD albums, including a highly acclaimed 7-disc set of complete Beethoven String Quartets.
Weigang Li is a violin professor at Bard College Conservatory of Music, Tianjin Juilliard School, and Montclair State University. He also holds the title of guest concert-master of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, guest professor at both Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.
Mr. Li plays on a Antonio Stradivari golden period violin the 'Kneisel, Grün' made in Cremona in 1714, which is on a generous loan from J. A. Beare International Violin Society. -
Xinyan LiChinese Music History
Xinyan Li
Born in Qiqihar, China, Dr. Xinyan Li received her doctoral degree in composition at University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at China Conservatory of Music in composition and music theory.
Dr. Li’s music works have been featured at Aspen Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, National Opera Center, Composers Now Festival, the 89th Music Mountain Festival, the 11th Beijing International Chamber Music Festival, the 13th Thailand International Composition Festival, the 19th Nordic International Bassoon Symposium, the 44th and 45th IDRS Annual Conference, Seal Bay Festival, and China’s National Center for the Performing Arts. She was invited as a visiting composer by Aspen Music Festival in 2007 and 2015; her interview and six works have been broadcasted by Sweden’s national radio—Sveriges Radio in 2011; her wind quintet Mo Suo’s Burial Ceremony was released by Albany Records in 2019, performed by Pan Pacific Ensemble; her music composed for Laozi’s Dao De Jing, translated by Ken Liu, has been released by Audible in 2022; her three chamber works were published by TrevCo Music Publishing. Her music has been performed by Omaha Symphony, musicians of Eighth Blackbird, PRISM Quartet, American Composers Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, Bergen Woodwind Quintet, Cassatt String Quartet, Earplay, Quintet of the Americas, Donald Sinta Quartet, Music From China, as well as principal musicians of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, Montreal, Bergen Orchestras and Danish Chamber Orchestra. Her awards include ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, American Composers Orchestra New Music Readings, Tsang-Houei Hsu International Music Composition Award, IDRS Conference 2016 Schwob Prize in Composition, and LunArt Festival Call for Scores.
As a native Chinese, Dr. Li has conducted field research on folk songs, folk chorus and ethnic instrumental music of various minorities, such as Dong, Miao, Yi, and Zhuang in southwest China, as well as Mongolian and Daur in northeast China. She has also extensively studied roles, singing styles, and instrumental music of Beijing Opera and Kunqu. Rooted in Chinese music and culture, she composed a duet for qingyi and xiao, a chamber concerto for hualian and chamber orchestra, a septet for guqin, guanzi, and five western instruments, a trio for flute, pipa, and cello, and a quartet for flute, pipa, erhu, and percussion. These compositions have been performed by virtuosos Zhihou Hu, Zhang Qiang, Zhou Yi, Shenshen Zhang, Guowei Wang, Chen Yue, Huang Mei, as well as Beijing Opera actress Zhu Hong and actor Qingxian Liu.
Dr. Li has taught composition and music theory at New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s Very Young Composers Program, University of Missouri-Kansas City, and China Conservatory of Music. Her composition students have been accepted by the Pre-College Division of The Juilliard School, Mannes School of Music, and Berklee College of Music. She has given music lectures at Grieg Academy-University of Bergen in Norway and Adelphi University in New York. As a pianist, she is skilled in playing improvisation piano accompaniment. She has worked with Metropolitan Opera conductor Gregory Buchalter, New England Conservatory professor Karen Holvik, and Chinese singer Gong Linna. -
Renée Anne LoupretteBard Baroque Ensemble, director
Renée Anne Louprette
Renée Anne Louprette maintains an international career as organ recitalist, conductor, and teacher. She was appointed Bard College Organist, Assistant Professor of Music, and director of the Bard Baroque Ensemble in 2019. The ensemble takes a leading role in an annual series of Bach cantata presentations in the Chapel of the Holy Innocents on the Bard campus and in the local region and collaborates with other Bard ensembles and personnel (Chamber Singers, the Graduate Vocal Arts Program, the Preparatory Division Chorus, members of The Orchestra Now, and faculty from other branches of the College) in an effort to bring outstanding presentations of Baroque music to the wider community.
Renée Anne Louprette has been University Organist and Organ Area Coordinator at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University since 2013 and is a former member of the faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, The Hartt School of the University of Hartford, and the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University. She is associated with a number of distinguished music programs in the New York City area, having served as Associate Director of Music at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, Associate Director of Music and the Arts at Trinity Wall Street, Organist and Associate Director at the Unitarian Church of All Souls, and Director of Music at the Church of Notre Dame.
She was selected as a conducting fellow of the Mostly Modern Festival in 2019, premiering several new works with the New York-based American Modern Ensemble. In her over 20-year career as choral director, she has led performances by various professional choirs in the greater New York City area accompanied by members of Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, and the American Brass Quintet, among other ensembles.
As collaborative keyboardist, she has performed with the Los Angeles Dance Project, Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Voices of Ascension, American Brass Quintet, Clarion Music Society, American Symphony Orchestra, The Dessoff Choirs, Oratorio Society of New York, and Piffaro. She made her recital debut in 2018 at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles with Irish uilleann piper Ivan Goff, featuring the world premiere of “Were You at the Rock?” by Eve Beglarian, commissioned for the Louprette-Goff duo by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Renée Anne Louprette made her solo debuts at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris in 2018. Additional European festival appearances include Magadino, Switzerland; In Tempore Organi, Italy; Ghent and Hasselt, Belgium; Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Bordeaux Cathedral and Toulouse Les Orgues, France; and Dún Laoghaire, Ireland. She appeared as organ soloist with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia, in Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony broadcast live on ABC radio.
Ms. Louprette’s recording of the "Great Eighteen Chorales&" of J. S. Bach was named a Critics' Choice 2014 by The New York Times. Her recent recordings of 20th-century French organ masterworks, and a duo recording of original compositions and arrangements of traditional Irish music with uilleann piper Ivan Goff, were also released to critical acclaim.
Renée Anne Louprette holds a Master’s degree in conducting from Bard College Conservatory and degrees in piano and organ from The Hartt School, University of Hartford. She was awarded a Premier Prix from the Conservatoire National de Région de Toulouse, France and a Diplôme Supérieur in organ from the Centre d’Études Supérieures de Musique et de Danse de Toulouse. -
Ryan MacEvoy McCulloughVisiting Lecturer of Music Theory, Vocal Coach, Pianist
Ryan MacEvoy McCullough
Born in Boston and raised behind the “Redwood Curtain” of northern California, pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough has developed a variegated career as soloist, vocal and instrumental collaborator, composer, recording artist, and pedagogue. Ryan’s music-making encompasses work with historical keyboards, electro-acoustic tools and instruments, and close collaborations with some of today’s foremost composers. His longstanding collaborative (and life) partnership with soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon has yielded a substantial crop of new art song repertoire, as well as his work in contemporary ensemble and commissioning project HereNowHear, 2017 recipient of a Fromm Foundation award.
Ryan’s growing discography features many world premiere recordings, including solo piano works of Milosz Magin (Acte Prealable), Andrew McPherson (Secrets of Antikythera, Innova), John Liberatore (Line Drawings, Albany), Nicholas Vines (Hipster Zombies from Mars, Navona), art song and solo piano music of John Harbison and James Primosch with Ms. Fitz Gibbon (Descent/Return, Albany), and art song by Sheila Silver (Beauty Intolerable, Albany, also with Ms. Fitz Gibbon). He is also founder of False Azure Records, which released its inaugural album in 2022 featuring music by Katherine Balch and Dante De Silva (The Labor of Forgetting), and will be releasing a second album in 2023 featuring music by Christopher Stark, John Liberatore, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Ryan has also appeared on PBS’s Great Performances (Now Hear This, “The Schubert Generation”) and is an alumnus of NPR’s From the Top.
As concerto soloist Ryan has appeared frequently with orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Festival Orchestra, Colburn Conservatory Orchestra, Orange County Wind Symphony, and World Festival Orchestra, with such conductors as George Benjamin, Gisele Ben-Dur, Fabien Gabel, Leonid Grin, Anthony Parnther, Larry Rachleff, Mischa Santora, and Joshua Weilerstein. Ryan has collaborated frequently with the Mark Morris Dance Group, contemporary ensembles eighth blackbird and yarn/wire, Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, and has been a returning artist at the Tanglewood Music Center, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, and Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. He will join the roster of senior artists at the Marlboro Music Festival in summer 2023.
As a teacher, Dr. McCullough has worked to cultivate the kind of multidisciplinary training which will be critical for the next generation of musical artists. He has taught masterclasses in piano performance at Bucknell University, New England Conservatory, Notre Dame University, Cal State Northridge, Washington State University, and Humboldt State University, and has served as piano instructor and chamber music coach at Cornell University and Bard College Conservatory. Additionally, he has developed four unique intersectional courses: Musical Technologies and the Natural World (Cornell University), an upper division creative seminar exploring the relationships between culture and conceptions of place; The Active Listener (Bard College Conservatory), a course focused on field recording techniques and aesthetics; Technological Musicianship (Cornell University), a general-access course designed during the Covid-19 pandemic to train musicians with the skills needed to produce high-quality digital content in a changing professional landscape; and FutureSounds, a composition seminar and instrument building workshop designed to explore the fundamentals of musical syntax and creativity.
He holds his Bachelor of Music from Humboldt State University (studying with Deborah Clasquin), Artist Diplomas from the Colburn Conservatory and the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto (John Perry and David Louie), a Masters in Music from University of Southern California (John Perry), and Master of Fine Arts and Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University (Xak Bjerken). He currently teaches at Bard College Conservatory.
Ryan currently lives in Kingston, NY, with his wife, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon, and cat Coquille. -
Wu ManPipa, Master Classes
Wu Man
Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and leading ambassador of Chinese music, Wu Man has carved out a career as a soloist, educator, and composer, giving her lute-like instrument—which has a history of over 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. Through numerous concert tours Wu Man has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. -
Pascual Martínez-FortezaClarinet
Pascual Martínez-Forteza
A native of Mallorca, Spain, Acting Associate Principal and E-flat Clarinet Pascual Martínez Forteza joined the New York Philharmonic in 2001, the first and only Spanish musician in the Orchestra’s history. Prior to his appointment with the Philharmonic, he held tenure with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and at age 18 he was assistant principal and later acting principal of the Baleares Symphony Orchestra in Spain. He is regularly invited as guest principal clarinet or e-flat with some of the most important orchestras in USA including the MET, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Dallas, St Louis... He has performed as guest principal clarinet with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. Mr. Martínez Forteza appears regularly as a soloist, recitalist, and master-class teacher at international festivals and conservatories. Past and future engagements include solo performances of Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, Weber’s Clarinet Concertos, Krommer’s Concerto for Two Clarinets, Rossini’s Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra, and Luigi Bassi’s Fantasy on Themes from Verdi’s Rigoletto. He frequently collaborates with Philharmonic colleagues in New York City venues such as Avery Fisher Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and Carnegie Hall. Since 2003 Mr. Martínez Forteza and Spanish pianist Gema Nieto have played throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States as Duo Forteza-Nieto. Together they founded the Benifaio Music Festival in Spain, where Philharmonic colleagues have joined them for a week of master classes and concerts. The Duo Forteza-Nieto recently received the 2016 Sunshine Award for Outstanding Performing Arts Classical and Latin Music. Pascual Martínez Forteza started playing clarinet at age ten with his father, Pascual V. Martínez, principal clarinet of the Baleares Symphony Orchestra for 30 years and teacher at the Baleares Conservatory of Music in Spain. Mr. Martínez Forteza earned his master’s degree from the Baleares and Liceo de Barcelona Music Conservatories in Spain and pursued advanced studies with Yehuda Gilad at the University of Southern California, where he won first prize in the university’s 1998 Concerto Competition. Mr. Martínez Forteza is currently a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music, New York University and auxiliary teacher at Juilliard School. A Buffet Crampon Artist and Vandoren Artist, he plays Green Line Tosca Buffet clarinets and uses Vandoren reeds and M30D mouthpieces. -
Alec MawrenceTuba
Alec Mawrence
Alec Mawrence is the tuba player in the West Point Band’s ceremonial brass quintet, as well as an active freelancer and educator in the New York City area. Originally from Northbrook, Illinois, he earned a Bachelor of Music from Northwestern University and a Master of Music from the University of Michigan. He has performed and taught at renowned venues and conservatories around the world with the West Point Band, National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America and the Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra. For three summers he was awarded an orchestra tuba fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival. His teachers include David Zerkel, Warren Deck, Gene Pokorny, Matthew Gaunt and Rex Martin. -
Missy MazzoliComposer in Residence
Missy Mazzoli
Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (NY Times), “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out NY), and praised for her “apocalyptic imagination” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), Missy Mazzoli has had her music performed by the Kronos Quartet, LA Opera, eighth blackbird, the BBC Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Scottish Opera and many others. In 2018 she became, along with Jeanine Tesori, the first woman to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera, and was nominated for a Grammy award in the category of “Best Classical Composition". From 2018-2021 she was Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and from 2012-2015 was Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia. Her 2018 opera Proving Up, created with longtime collaborator librettist Royce Vavrek and based on a short story by Karen Russell, is a surreal commentary on the American dream. It was commissioned and premiered by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha and Miller Theatre, and was deemed “harrowing… a true opera for its time” by the Washington Post. Her 2016 opera Breaking the Waves, commissioned by Opera Philadelphia and Beth Morrison Projects, was called “one of the best 21st-century American operas yet” by Opera News. Breaking the Waves received its European premiere at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival; future performances are planned at LA Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and the Adelaide Festival. Her next opera, The Listeners, will premiere in 2022 at the Norwegian National Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera and Opera Philadelphia. Missy is also active in the orchestral and chamber music field, recently writing new works for the National Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, BBC Philharmonia, and the Bergen Symphony, among others. In 2016, Missy and composer Ellen Reid founded Luna Lab, a mentorship program for young female, non-binary and gender nonconforming composers created in partnership with the Kaufman Music Center. Her works are published by G. Schirmer. missymazzoli.com
Photo by Marylene May -
Anthony McGillClarinet
Anthony McGill
Anthony McGill, principal clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, has quickly earned the reputation of being one of classical music's finest solo, chamber and orchestral musicians. Before joining the MET Orchestra in 2004, he served as associate principal clarinet of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for four years. With the MET Orchestra, McGill frequently performs in Carnegie Hall's Isaac Stern Auditorium, as well as Zankel and Weill Halls with the MET Chamber Ensemble. He can also be seen and heard on the Live in HD broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera. In addition to his orchestral career, McGill was a winner of the highly prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2000 and has appeared as a soloist with orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Hilton Head Orchestra, Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, and The Curtis Orchestra. This season he will appear with the Peabody Orchestra, The New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra and the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra. As a distinguished chamber musician, McGill has performed at the Marlboro Music Festival, Sarasota Festival, La Musica, Tanglewood, Music @ Menlo, the Grand Teton Music Festival, Music from Angel Fire , Martha's Vineyard Chamber Music Festival, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Bridgehampton Chamber Festival and the Interlochen Music Festival. He is also a member of the newly formed Schumann Trio with violist Michael Tree and pianist Anna Polonsky. McGill has collaborated with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, Lang Lang, Yefim Bronfman and Gil Shaham, as well as world-renowned string quartets including the Guarneri, Tokyo, Shanghai, Miami, Miró and Daedalus quartets. He has performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia as a chamber and orchestral musician with artists including the Brentano String Quartet, Musicians from Marlboro, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mitsuko Uchida, Marina Piccinini and Barbara Sukova. McGill has appeared on Performance Today, NPR's St. Paul Sunday, Ravinia's Rising Star Series, on the Mr. Roger's Neighborhood television show and at Lincoln Center as a member of Chamber Music Society Two. McGill attended the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Curtis Institute of Music. His former teachers include Donald Montanaro, Richard Hawkins, Larry Combs, Julie DeRoche, David Tuttle and Sidney Forrest. In addition to being on the faculty of the Bard Conservatory of Music, McGill currently serves on the faculties of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Mannes College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music Precollege. In addition he has given masterclasses at the Curtis Institute of Music, University of Michigan, Stony Brook University, Temple University, UCLA, University of New Mexico and the Manhattan School of Music. McGill is a Leblanc and Rico Artist. Photo by David Finlayson. -
Blair McMillenArtist in Residence; Visiting Assistant Professor of Music; Piano
Blair McMillen
B.A., B.M., Oberlin College; M.M., The Juilliard School; D.M.A., Manhattan School of Music. Pianist, chamber musician, improviser, concert series curator. Appearances as soloist at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, le Poisson Rouge, Moscow Conservatory, Casals Hall (Tokyo), Miller Theatre. Has performed with American Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Albany Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra (Lincoln Center and tour of Japan). Profiled by New York Times, Washington Post, Accent, others. Member, Da Capo Chamber Players, American Modern Ensemble, Avian Orchestra. Pianist for St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (spring 2011). Solo recordings include Soundings (Midnight Productions), Concert Music of Fred Hersch (Naxos), Multiplicities '38 (Centaur). At Bard since 2006. -
Leigh MeshDouble Bass Masterclasses
Leigh Mesh
Leigh Mesh, associate principal double bass, joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 1993. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he began his professional career with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and later played with the Indianapolis and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. He has taught master classes at the New World Symphony in Miami, Cincinnati Conservatory, Juilliard School, and Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Mesh is the double bass coach of the UBS Verbier Festival Youth Orchestra in Verbier, Switzerland. He has been a guest artist with the Verbier Festival, Linton Chamber Music Series, Pensacola Classicfest, Chamber Music Society of Martha’s Vineyard,Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, and the Salt Bay Chamberfest. Mr. Mesh has performed with the MET Chamber Ensemble, the Caramoor Virtuosi, and the Brentano and Tokyo String Quartets. Mr. Mesh was a faculty member of the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles during the 2009–2010 school year. He joined the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2010. He lives with his wife, Nancy Wu, associate concertmaster of the MET Opera Orchestra, and their two children, Guinevere and Wolfram, in Pleasantville, New York. He pursues cycling and skiing whenever he can. Mr. Mesh is an exclusive artist for Thomastik-Infeld Strings. -
Jessie MontgomeryComposer in Residence
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.
[Photo by Jiyang Chen] -
Rufus MüllerUndergraduate Voice, Undergraduate Performance Workshop, Undergraduate Opera Workshop
Rufus Müller
Rufus Müller is a sought-after tenor who was acclaimed by the New York Times, following a performance at Carnegie Hall, as “easily the best tenor I have heard in a live Messiah.” He has performed internationally in operas, oratorios, and recitals. He performed the world premiere of Jonathan Miller’s acclaimed production of the St. Matthew Passion, which was broadcast on BBC TV and recorded for the United label; he repeated the role in three revivals of the production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Müller is also a leading recitalist, performing worldwide with pianist Maria João Pires, notably in an extended Schubertiade in London’s Wigmore Hall, and on tour in Spain, Germany, and Japan with Schubert’s Winterreise. Recent performances also include Bach’s Passions and Handel’s Messiah in New York, Princeton, Toronto, Montreal, Washington, D.C., Carmel Bach Festival, Royal Albert Hall, and Canterbury Cathedral; Monteverdi’s Vespers, Schubert’s Winterreise, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Ottavio) in Tokyo; Beethoven’s Choral Symphony in Pennsylvania; the title role in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Haydn’s Creation in London, as well as recitals and master classes in Japan, Germany, and the United States. Born in Kent, England, Müller was a choral scholar at New College, Oxford, and studied in New York with the late Thomas LoMonaco. In 1985 he won first prize in the English Song Award in Brighton and, in 1999, was a prize winner in the Oratorio Society of New York Singing Competition. A list of performances and recordings can be found at his website, rufusmuller.com. BA, MA, University of Oxford. At Bard since 2006. -
Lorraine NubarGraduate Voice
Lorraine Nubar
Vocalist. B.A., M.A., The Juilliard School. Studied with Jennie Tourel, William Vennard, Daniel Ferro, Martial Singher, Frank Corsaro, Gerard Souzay, Elly Ameling, Jeanine Reiss, and pianist Dalton Baldwin, with whom she conducts annual master classes at Vermont Opera Theater’s “Foliage Art Song” festival. First American to be appointed to the voice faculty of the Paris Conservatory; has prepared singers for the Paris and Lyon Operas and regularly conducts summer master classes at Foundation Royaumont in Val d’Oise, Centre International de Formation Musicale in Nice, and summer vocal chamber music program at Les Azuriales Opera. Has served as juror for Young Concert Artists International competition, Paris Concours, and Marseille Concours. Teaches at Bard College Conservatory, Juilliard, and New England Conservatory. -
Isabelle O'ConnellArtist-in-Residence
Isabelle O'Connell
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. -
Tara Helen O'ConnorFlute
Tara Helen O'Connor
Tara Helen O'Connor is a charismatic performer noted for her artistic depth, brilliant technique and colorful tone spanning every musical era. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and a two-time Grammy nominee, she was the first wind player chosen to participate in The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) and is now a Season Artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A Wm. S. Haynes flute artist, Tara is a regular participant in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, Spoleto Festival USA, Chamber Music Northwest, Mainly Mozart Festival, Music from Angel Fire, Rockport Music, Bay Chamber Concerts, Manchester Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the Great Mountains Music Festival, Chesapeake Music Festival and the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival. Along with her husband Daniel Phillips, she is the newly appointed Co-Artstic Director of the Music From Angel Fire Festival in New Mexico.
A much sought-after chamber musician and soloist, she has premiered hundreds of new works and has collaborated with the Orion String Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet, Emerson String Quartet, Jaime Laredo, Dawn Upshaw, Eliot Fisk, Jeremy Denk, Ida Kavafian, Peter Serkin and David Shifrin. Tara is a member of the woodwind quintet Windscape, the legendary Bach Aria Group and is a founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning New Millennium Ensemble. A passionate advocate of new music, she is a member of the Talea and Cygnus Ensembles. Tara has appeared on A&E's Breakfast with the Arts and PBS' Live from Lincoln Center. She has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, Koch International, CMS Studio Recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Bridge Records. She has just released a solo CD of American flute works entitled The Way Things Go on Bridge Records with pianist Margaret Kampmeier.
Tara holds a DMA from Stony Brook University where she studied with the late Samuel Baron. Her other teachers include Julius Levine, Thomas Nyfenger, Robert Dick and Keith Underwood. Her yearly summer flute master class at the Banff Centre in Canada was legendary. She is Associate Professor of Flute, Head of the Woodwinds Department and the Coordinator of Classical Music Studies at Purchase College School of the Arts Conservatory of Music. Additionally, Tara is on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory of Music, the Contemporary Performance Program at Manhattan School of Music and is a visiting artist, teacher and coach at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. She lives with her husband, violinist Daniel Phillips and their two miniature dachshunds, Chloé and Ava on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
For more information about the flute studio at Bard, please visit: https://bardconservatoryfl.wixsite.com/my-site. -
Satoshi OkamotoDouble Bass
Satoshi Okamoto
Satoshi Okamoto has been a member of New York Philharmonic since 2003. He served as an acting principal and assistant principal in 2013-16. Prior to the Philharmonic he was an assistant principal double bassist in the San Antonio Symphony for eight years and a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra for a year. As a soloist, he was a finalist of the International Society of Bassist Solo Competition and the Izuminomori International Double Bass Competition, also a twice winner of the Aspen bass competition. He was a faculty member at Stonybrook University from 2023-24. He has given master classes at institutions such as The Juilliard School Pre-College, Toho school of music, LSU at Baton Rouge, TCU, Aichi University of fine arts, and Pyongyang Conservatory. He received his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, and a bachelor’s degree from Tokyo University of Fine Arts. -
Joan Patenaude-YarnellGraduate Voice
Joan Patenaude-Yarnell
Following her debut with the Canadian Opera Company as Micaela in Carmen, this Canadian-born soprano joined both the New York City and San Francisco Operas. She has also sung with opera companies throughout North America and Europe. Her roles have included Violetta in La Traviata, Alice Ford in Falstaff, Gilda in Rigoletto, Nedda in I Pagliacci, the title role in Suor Angelica, Mimì in La Bohème, Juliette in Roméo et Juliette, Elle in La Voix Humaine, and Héro in Béatrice et Bénédict. As a recitalist she performed internationally under the auspices of the Canadian Government, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Les Jeunesses musicales, and the United States Department of State. With orchestra she sang under the batons of Sir Charles Mackerras, Charles Dutoit, Seiji Ozawa, Julius Rudel, and James De Preist. Her recordings include Songs of the Great Opera Composers with Mikael Eliasen, pianist, on the Musical Heritage Society label, as well as releases on the C.B.C. International Series and Vanguard labels. In addition to her position at Bard Conservatory, Miss Patenaude-Yarnell also serves on the voice faculties of Manhattan School of Music and the Curtis Institute of Music. Her students perform with the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Paris Opéra, Chicago Lyric Opera, and Stuttgart Opera and are participants in the young artists programs at Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Center (Zurich, Switzerland), and Volksoper (Vienna). Several of her students are current winners of the George London Foundation Awards, Marilyn Horne Foundation Awards, and Puccini Foundation Awards, as well as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions First Prize Winner, 2004. She has presented her master class “The Principals of Bel Canto” throughout the U.S. and Canada. In the 2014-15 season Miss Patenaude-Yarnell has given master classes in the Art of Bel Canto at the Royal Opera House (Covent Garden) Young Artists Program, Princeton University, and the University of Southern Ontario (Canada). She is presenting classes in spring 2015 at Guild Hall (London, England), the Royal Welsh College of Music/Drama (Cardiff, Wales), and Oberlin in Italy (Arezzo, Italy).
For more information about Ms. Patenaude-Yarnell and her teaching philosophy, please visit singingwithmanyvoices.com.
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Daniel PhillipsViolin
Daniel Phillips
Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. A graduate of Juilliard, his major teachers were his father, Eugene Phillips, Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Nathan Milstein, Sandor Vegh, and George Neikrug. He is a founding member of the 32-year-old Orion String Quartet, long time artist members of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Available on recording are the complete quartets of Beethoven and Leon Kirchner. Since winning the 1976 Young Concert Artists Competition, he has been an up and coming soloist , including engagements with many orchestras, like the Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Yakima symphonies. He appears regularly at the Spoleto USA Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Music Festival, Music@Menlo, and has participated in the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England since its inception. He also has served on the summer faculty of the Heifetz Institute , St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar at Stanford, the new Vivace online festival. He was a member of the renowned Bach Aria Group, and has toured and recorded in a string quartet for SONY with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-Yo Ma. A judge in the 2018 Seoul International Violin Competition, he is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Bard College Conservatory, and The Juilliard School. And his wife, flutist Tara Helen O'Connor, are newly appointed artistic directors of Music from Angel Fire in New Mexico, They live on Manhattan's upper west side with their two adorable dachshunds. -
Jia QiaoChinese percussion
Jia Qiao
When she was eleven years old Qiao Jia passed the audition to be a percussion student at The Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Years later she graduated and became a classical Chinese percussion teacher at the same institution, which she still holds today. She has devoted herself to the performance of contemporary music written for her by Asian and western composers. Her knowledge of both traditions and her enthusiasm for new challenges enables her to perform different aesthetics of today’s music with formidable ease, accuracy and passion. She is considered one of the best Asian percussionists of contemporary music. In September 2008, Qiao realized a long tour in Scandinavia, closing it with a concert at the New Opera House in Copenhagen. In this tour she world-premiered three pieces that the audience greatly acclaimed and led to a huge success of this tour. In the summer of 2017 she participated as a faculty member in the US-China Music Institute Summer Academy and joined the USCMI faculty in 2022. -
Raman RamakrishnanCello & Chamber Music, Bard Conservatory of Music; Artist in Residence, Bard College
Raman Ramakrishnan
As a member of the Horszowski Trio, cellist Raman Ramakrishnan has performed across North America, Europe, India, Japan, and in Hong Kong, and recorded for Bridge Records and Avie Records. For eleven seasons, as a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet, he performed around the world. Mr. Ramakrishnan is currently an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society. Mr. Ramakrishnan has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and has performed chamber music at Caramoor, at Bargemusic, with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and at the Aspen, Bard, Charlottesville, Four Seasons, Kingston, Lincolnshire (UK), Marlboro, Mehli Mehta (India), Oklahoma Mozart, and Vail Music Festivals. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in New Delhi and Agra, India and in Cairo, Egypt. He has served on the faculties of the Taconic and Norfolk Chamber Music Festivals, as well as at Columbia University.
Mr. Ramakrishnan was born in Athens, Ohio and grew up in East Patchogue, New York. His father is a molecular biologist and his mother is the children's book author and illustrator Vera Rosenberry. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a Master’s degree in music from The Juilliard School. His principal teachers have been Fred Sherry, Andrés Díaz, and André Emelianoff. He lives in New York City with his wife, the violist Melissa Reardon, and their young son. He plays a Neapolitan cello made by Vincenzo Jorio in 1837. -
Melissa ReardonViola; Artist in Residence, Bard College
Melissa Reardon
Grammy-nominated violist Melissa Reardon is the Artistic Director of the Portland Chamber Music Festival in Portland, ME, Artist in Residence at Bard College and Conservatory and a founding member and the Executive Director of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO). As a member of the Ensō String Quartet from 2006 until its final season in 2018, Melissa toured both nationally and internationally, with highlight performances in Sydney, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center to name a few. Melissa won first prize at the Washington International Competition, and is the only violist to win top prizes in consecutive HAMS International viola competitions. She has appeared in numerous festivals across the United States and around the world, including tours with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and with Musicians from Marlboro. She held the post of Associate Professor of Viola at East Carolina University from 2007 -2013, and earned degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the New England Conservatory. Melissa is married to the cellist Raman Ramakrishnan and they live in NYC with their seven-year-old son Linus. -
Elizabeth ReeseAlexander Technique
Elizabeth Reese
Elizabeth Reese (AmSAT, M.Ed, LMHC), began studying the Alexander Technique in 1981 and considered the work as a core part of her training as a choreographer/performer in NYC. She certified as an Alexander teacher in 1994 at the American Center for the Alexander Technique and, in 2006, as a teacher of Breathing Coordination with Jessica Wolf. Elizabeth was senior faculty for ten years at AT-NYC, a certification course for AT teachers, and is a founder and instructor at Postural Rehabilitation, a continuing education program for veterinarians. In 1999, she created and established The Warwick Summer Arts Festival, producing performance events at farms, parks and lakes around the town of Warwick, NY, which continues today. Her interest in the embodied experience of trauma led her to her masters work in mental health counseling and, in 2014, her work as a research associate on a study exploring the significance of posture in performance, injury, relationship and emotional regulation, using horses as models, funded by the American Holistic Veterinary Foundation. Elizabeth has presented workshops and seminars throughout the US as well as Ireland and Denmark and has presented at numerous national conferences for the American Society of the Alexander Technique. She is currently on faculty at Neighborhood Playhouse and maintains a private practice at her farm in Sugar Loaf, New York and in New York City. -
Ryan RobertsOboe
Ryan Roberts
Noted for his “beautiful”, “eloquent” and “exquisite” playing by the New York Times, RYAN ROBERTS is the newly appointed English horn/Oboe of the New York Philharmonic. Ryan has performed with many of the country's leading orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and the Ft. Worth Symphony. An award-winning oboist, Ryan received first prize at the International Double Reed Society's 2018 Young Artist Competition and the National Society of Arts and Letters' 2018 Woodwind Competition. Before joining the Philharmonic, Ryan spent one season as a member of the New World Symphony under the direction of Michael Tilson-Thomas. Ryan recently premiered Michael Torke’s Oboe Concertino with the Albany Symphony and recorded the work for Albany Records. An avid chamber musician, Ryan performs at the Marlboro Music Festival during the summer under artistic directors Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss; he has also collaborated in recitals with the Pacifica Quartet and Emanuel Ax. -
Marcus RojasTuba
Marcus Rojas
Tubist Marcus Rojas has performed with such diverse groups as The Metropolitan Opera, The American Ballet Theatre, American Symphony Orchestra, Radio City Music Hall, and ensembles led by Lionel Hampton, David Byrne and P.D.Q. Bach. An avid proponent of contemporary, improvised and classical music, he has performed the premieres of such notable composers as LaMonte Young, Gunther Schuller, and Peter Schickele. He has recorded with CBS Records, Sony Records, A&M Records and has been heard on countless film scores, including Interview With A Vampire and Sleepless in Seattle. -
Sasha RomeroTrombone
Sasha Romero
Sasha Romero was appointed principal trombone of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2018. Prior to her appointment at The MET, she held the position of principal trombone with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra from 2016-2018.
Hailing from Longview, Texas, Sasha grew up within the acclaimed and robust Texas band system and achieved great musical success at a young age. She went on to earn her Bachelor of Music degree at Baylor University, where she studied with Brent Phillips; and her Master of Music degree at Rice University, studying with Allen Barnhill.
In addition to a lengthy list of national and international solo and chamber music competition wins to her name, Sasha is honored to have been a semi-finalist in the first Brass Division of the 2019 XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Sasha is a passionate educator, and currently serves on the trombone faculties at Rutgers University, Mannes School of Music, and Bard College Conservatory of Music. A highly sought-after teacher, soloist, and clinician, she has presented solo recitals and masterclasses at numerous colleges, universities, music conservatories, and industry conventions across the United States.
When she is not at The MET, teaching, or screaming into the night at the shortcomings of NYC’s public transportation system (looking at you, weekend subway service), Sasha is occasionally invited to perform as a guest trombonist with the world’s major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, and others. She can be heard on Weezer’s OK Human album, as well as the film soundtracks to The Good Liar (2019) and Joker (2019).
Sasha currently makes her home in New York City, where she spends an embarrassing amount of time catering to the demands of her absurdly adorable cats and searching endlessly for decent Mexican food.
Sasha Romero is an S.E. Shires Performing Artist and she has a signature mouthpiece line with Long Island Brass Co. -
Nicholas SchwartzTrombone
Nicholas Schwartz
Nicholas Schwartz has a diverse career performing across North America, Europe, and Asia. After studying at The Juilliard School with then New York Philharmonic bass trombonist Don Harwood, he moved to San Francisco where he began freelancing throughout the Bay Area.
Since 2010, he has been the principal bass trombonist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra. He has also performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, The Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, St. Lukes Chamber Orchestra, the New York City Opera, Atlanta Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, The Malaysia Philharmonic, Mostly Mozart Festival, and Classical Tahoe. -
Zachary SchwartzmanEar Training & Score Reading, Graduate Conducting Program
Zachary Schwartzman
Zachary Schwartzman has conducted around the United States, in Brazil, England, Bosnia, and Mexico. His orchestral performances have been featured on NPR, including a national broadcast on “Performance Today.” A recipient of the career development grant from the Bruno Walter Memorial Foundation, he has served as assistant conductor for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opera Atelier (Toronto), Berkshire Opera Festival, Opéra Français de New York, L’Ensemble orchestral de Paris, Gotham Chamber Opera, Oakland East Bay Symphony, Connecticut Grand Opera, and Opera Omaha, among others. He was associate conductor for two seasons with New York City Opera, as well as conductor in their VOX series, and has been associate/assistant conductor for fifteen productions at Glimmerglass Opera, where he conducted performances of Carmen and the world premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck.
Mr. Schwartzman’s credits as assistant conductor include recordings for Albany Records, Bridge Records, Naxos Records, Hyperion Records, and a Grammy-nominated world-premiere recording for Chandos Records. He had a twelve-year tenure as music director of the Blue Hill Troupe and has been assistant conductor for the American Symphony Orchestra since 2012. He has appeared as both assistant conductor and conductor at Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival at The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. In addition to degrees in Piano Performance and Orchestral Conducting, he earned a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Oberlin College. -
Gil ShahamViolin
Gil Shaham
Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy Award-winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.
Highlights of recent years include the acclaimed recording and performances of J.S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin. In the coming seasons in addition to championing these solo works he will join his long time duo partner pianist, Akira Eguchi in recitals throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
Appearances with orchestra regularly include the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and San Francisco Symphony as well as multi-year residencies with the Orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart and Singapore. With orchestra, Mr. Shaham continues his exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930s,” including the works of Barber, Bartok, Berg, Korngold, Prokofiev, among many others.
Mr. Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Many of these recordings appear on Canary Classics, the label he founded in 2004. His CDs include 1930s Violin Concertos, Virtuoso Violin Works, Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Hebrew Melodies, The Butterfly Lovers and many more. His most recent recording in the series 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2, including Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto and Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2, was nominated for a Grammy Award. He will release a new recording of Beethoven and Brahms Concertos with The Knights in 2020.
Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel, where he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of 7, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, and the following year, took the first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition. He then became a scholarship student at Juilliard, and also studied at Columbia University.
Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. He performs on an Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona c1719, with the assistance of Rare Violins In Consortium Artists and Benefactors Collaborative, and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children. -
James SizemoreFilm Composition
James Sizemore
James is a composer and music producer working in the film and television industry. He has worked with composer Howard Shore on over 20 films, producing the score of the Oscar Winning Spotlight and Canadian Screen Award winning The Song of Names, as well as orchestrating the Blockbuster Trilogy The Hobbit.
He has also worked as an arranger, music editor, music mixer, and composer for many Hollywood films ranging from the additional music he composed for A Dogs Purpose to the additional dark string arrangements in Split.
In addition to his solo album releases, James’ music can be heard across a wide variety of network television and national ad campaigns.
He holds a B.A. from Colorado College and an M.M from NYU. In addition to Bard, James has served on the faculty of New York University and the City University of New York, teaching classes on film sound and music. He lives in the Hudson Valley, NY with his wife and daughters. -
Weston SprottTrombone
Weston Sprott
Weston Sprott enjoys an exciting career that includes orchestral, chamber, and solo performances, as well as numerous educational and outreach efforts. He is Dean of the Preparatory Division at The Juilliard School, leading Juilliard Pre-College and the Music Advancement Program, and a trombonist in New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, of which he has been a member since 2005. He has been recognized as “an excellent trombonist” with a “sense of style and phrasing [that] takes a backseat to no one”. He is a recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Atlanta Symphony Talent Development Program Aspire Award.
Sprott has performed frequently with the Philadelphia Orchestra, held a position with the Zurich Opera/Philharmonia, and has appeared with numerous other major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, and Oslo Philharmonic. He previously held principal positions with the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. His chamber music and festival engagements include the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Fesitval (SICMF), Classical Tahoe, Festival Napa Valley, Walla Chamber Music Festival, Chineke!, PRIZM Ensemble, and numerous others.
As a soloist, Sprott has been featured regularly throughout the United States, Europe, South Africa, and Asia. He made his Carnegie solo debut in 2007 and was a featured soloist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is 2017. Sprott’s debut album, Act I, was released in 2010 and hailed by the American Record Guide as “an outstanding recording” that “feels the emotion of every note and phrase”.
A dedicated and tireless teacher, Sprott holds faculty positions at Juilliard Pre-College and Bard College. He previously led the brass department at Mannes College and held faculty positions at Rutgers University, Purchase College, and the Juilliard Music Advancement Program. He also regularly serves on the faculties of SICMF, PRIZM, Curtis Institute of Music’s Summerfest, National Youth Orchestra-USA (NYO-USA) and NYO2.
He appeared in Ben Niles’ documentary film Some Kind of Spark, which highlights the impact of music education in the lives of students as they attend Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program. Other documentary film credits include A Wayfarer's Journey:Listening to Mahler, and Rittenhouse Square. His thoughts are also quoted in Rhythms of the Game, a book by former New York Yankees star Bernie Williams. He also works with organizations like Play On Philly and Music Kitchen, and has sponsored educational opportunities and solicited instrument donations for disadvantaged students. His philanthropic spirit was recognized in an article by the Wall Street Journal. He is the Board Chair of the Friends of SICMF, a member of the Bronx Arts Ensemble’s Artistsic Advisory Board, and a member of the Avery Fisher Artist Program's Recommendation Board. Weston is an active speaker, writer, and advisor for diversity and inclusion efforts in classical music.
Weston Sprott is an artist/clinician for the Antoine Courtois Instrument Company. He designed and performs exclusively on the Courtois Creation New York trombone. Performances and interviews with Mr. Sprott have been seen and heard on PBS' Great Performances, NPR's Performance Today, MSNBC, and Sirius Satellite Radio. -
Erika SwitzerAssistant Professor of Music, Bard College; Director, Postgraduate Collaborative Piano Fellowship, Undergraduate and Graduate Diction, Undergraduate and Graduate Vocal Coaching, Conservatory of Music
Erika Switzer
Erika Switzer is an internationally active pianist, teacher, and arts administrator. She has performed on the stages of New York’s Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall), David Geffen Hall (Lincoln Center), Frick Collection, and Bargemusic, and at the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Spoleto Festival, Mostly Mozart, Bard Music Festival, and Stanford Live. During a seven-year sojourn in Germany, she performed at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Munich Winners & Masters series, and won numerous awards, including best pianist prizes at the Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf, and Wigmore Hall International Song Competitions. European appearances also include recitals for Pro Musicis at the Salle Cortot in Paris, Académie Francis Poulenc at the L’Hôtel de ville de Tours, and Göppingen Meisterkonzerte. Recent premieres include the 5 Boroughs Music Festival Songbook II (Matthew Aucoin, Jonathan Dawe, Evan Fein, Whitney George, Laura Kaminsky, Missy Mazzoli, Paola Prestini, Kamala Sankaram); Brooklyn Art Song Society (Andrew Staniland); and Vancouver’s Music on Main (Jocelyn Morlock, Caroline Shaw, Jeffrey Ryan). Switzer has been recorded by the CBC, Dutch Radio (Radio 4), SWR and the Bayerische Rundfunk in Germany, WQXR New York, and WGBH Boston. A recent recording release, English Songs à la française, features her long-standing duo partnership with baritone Tyler Duncan. Together with soprano Martha Guth, she created Sparks & Wiry Cries (sparksandwirycries.org), which contributes to the future of art song performance through publication of The Art Song Magazine, presentation of the songSLAM festival in New York City, and the commission of new works. In addition to teaching in Bard’s undergraduate Music Program, Switzer works with the Graduate Vocal Arts Program on diction for singers, vocal coaching, and chamber music, and directs the Postgraduate Collaborative Piano Fellowship. BM, MM (solo piano), University of British Columbia; MM, Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, Germany; DM (collaborative piano), The Juilliard School. At Bard since 2010. -
David SytkowskiAural Skills, Undergraduate Vocal Coaching, Undergraduate Opera Workshop
David Sytkowski
David Sytkowski, pianist and vocal coach, is a Visiting Artist in Residence at Bard College, where he is Director of Music for Opera Workshop, coaches singers, teaches private piano, and teaches Aural Skills.
In September 2019, he made his Joe’s Pub debut in Under The Influence with legendary cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond. This led to Auntie Glam’s Happy Hour, a weekly livestream during the initial COVID-19 shut down that New York Times critic Zachary Woolf proclaimed one of “The Best of the Year’s At-Home Divas” in December 2020.
As principal music coach for the Bard SummerScape festival for six years, he has prepared Korngold’s Die tote Stadt and Das Wunder Der Heliane, Rubenstein’s Demon, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride, Dvorak’s Dimitrij, Mascagni’s Iris, Smyth’s The Wreckers, and Weber’s Euryanthe.
Other recent engagements include the New York premiere of Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers for the PROTOTYPE festival in January 2018, Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s The Mother of Us All for the reopening of the Hudson Opera House in Fall 2017 with R.B. Schlather, Berkshire Opera Festival’s inaugural production of Madama Butterfly, Hindemith's The Long Christmas Dinner and Von Schillings's Mona Lisa with American Symphony Orchestra. He frequently appears as a symphony pianist and collaborator at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. -
Joan TowerAsher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts; Composition, Bard College Conservatory of Music
Joan Tower
Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of the most important American composers living today. During a career spanning more than 50 years, she has made lasting contributions to musical life in the United States as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets; soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, and John Browning; and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., among others.
In 1990, Tower became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for her composition Silver Ladders. She was the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission of 65 orchestras. The Nashville Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin recorded that work, Made in America, with Tambor and Concerto for Orchestra for the Naxos label. The top-selling recording won three 2008 Grammy awards: Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance.
From 1969 to 1984, she was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her most popular works. Her first orchestral work, Sequoia, quickly entered the repertory. Tower's tremendously popular five Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been played by over 500 different ensembles. She is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972.
Her composer-residencies with orchestras and festivals include a decade with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Composer of the Year for their 2010-2011 season, as well as the St. Louis Symphony, the Deer Valley Music Festival, and the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.
Among her recent premieres: White Water (2012), commissioned by Chamber Music Monterey Bay and premiered by the Daedalus Quartet; Stroke (2011), commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; White Granite (2009), commissioned by St. Timothy's Summer Music Festival, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, and La Jolla Music Society for SummerFest; Angels(2008), her fourth string quartet, commissioned by Music for Angel Fire and premiered by the Miami String Quartet; Dumbarton Quintet (2008), a piano quintet commissioned by the Dumbarton Oaks Estate (their third commission after Stravinsky and Copland) and premiered by Tower and the Enso String Quartet; Chamber Dance (2006), commissioned, premiered, and toured by Orpheus; and Copperwave (2006), written for the American Brass Quintet and commissioned by The Juilliard School of Music. A Gift (2007), for winds and piano, was commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest and premiered by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS). Other CMS premieres included Trio Cavany (2007) and Simply Purple (2008) for viola, performed by Paul Neubauer.
Her compositions cross many genres: Can I (2007) for youth chorus and percussionist; Copperwave (2006), written for brass quintet; DNA (2003), a percussion quintet commissioned for Frank Epstein and the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble; Fascinating Ribbons (2001), her foray into the world of band music, premiered at the annual conference of College Band Directors; Vast Antique Cubes/Throbbing Still (2000), a solo piano piece for John Browning; Tambor (1998), for the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Mariss Jansons; and her ballet Stepping Stones (1993), commissioned by choreographer Kathryn Posin for the Milwaukee Ballet and revisited by Posin with the Bulgarian Ballet in June 2011.
Joan Tower's music is published by Associated Music Publishers.
Photo by Cynthia Del Conte.
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Jason TreutingPercussion
Jason Treuting
Jason Treuting has performed and recorded in venues as diverse as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, the Knitting Factory, the Andy Warhol Museum, Zankel Hall, Lincoln Center, DOM (Moscow) and Le National (Montreal). As a member of So Percussion, he has collaborated with artists and composers including Steve Reich, David Lang, John Zorn, Dan Trueman, tabla master Zakir Hussain, the electronic music duo Matmos and choreographer Eliot Feld. In addition to his work with So, Jason performs improvised music with Simpl, a group with laptop artist/composer Cenk Ergun; Alligator Eats Fish with guitarist Grey McMurray; Little Farm, with guitarist/composer Steve Mackey; QQQ (a quartet consisting of hardinger fiddle, viola, guitar and drums); and Big Farm (a foursome led by Rinde Eckert and Steve Mackey). Jason also composes music. His many compositions for So Percussion include So's third album Amid the Noise, and contributions to Imaginary City, an evening length work that appeared on the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 2009 Next Wave Festival. Recent commissions for other ensembles have included Oblique Music for 4 plus (blank), a concerto for So Percussion and string orchestra for the League of Composers Orchestra; Circus of One, music for a video installation in collaboration with Alison Crocetta; and Diorama, an evening length collaboration with the French choreographers in Project Situ. Jason received his Bachelors in Music and the Performer's Certificate at the Eastman School of Music where he studied percussion with John Beck and drum set and improvisation with Steve Gadd, Ralph Alessi and Michael Cain. He received his Masters in Music along with an Artist Diploma from Yale University where he studied percussion with Robert Van Sice. Jason has also traveled to Japan to study marimba with Keiko Abe and to Bali to study gamelan with Pac I Nyoman Suadin. He joins the Bard Conservatory faculty in the fall of 2011. -
George TsontakisDistinguished Composer in Residence; Composition, Bard College Conservatory of Music
George Tsontakis
George Tsontakis has been the recipient of the two richest prizes awarded in all of classical music; the international Grawemeyer Award, in 2005, for his Second Violin Concerto and the 2007 Ives Living, awarded every three years by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He studied with Roger Sessions at Juilliard and, in Rome, with Franco Donatoni. Born in Astoria, New York, into a strongly Cretan heritage, he has, in recent years, become an important figure in the music of Greece, and his music is increasingly performed abroad, with dozens of performances in Europe every season. Most of his music, including eleven major orchestral works and four concertos have been recorded by Hyperion and Koch, leading to two Grammy Nominations for Best Classical Composition, in 2009 and 1999. He is Distinguished Composer in Residence at Bard and artist-faculty emeritus with the Aspen Music Festival, where he was founding director of the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble from 1991 to 1999. He served three years as composer in residence with the Oxford (England) Philomusica; was the featured composer in residence with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for the 2008-09 season; and is continuing a six-year Music Alive residency with the Albany Symphony. He lives in New York State’s Catskill Mountains, in Shokan. -
Hugo ValverdeHorn
Hugo Valverde
Hugo Valverde carries a professional orchestral and solo career in the United States and his native Costa Rica as a French horn player, currently holding the full-time and tenured position of Second Horn with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2017.
As an orchestral player he has performed with the Costa Rican National Symphony Orchestra, the Classical Tahoe Festival Orchestra in Incline Village, Nevada, The Strings Music Festival Brass Ensemble in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, The Orchestra of the Americas on their Eastern Canada Tour, The Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, The New York City Ballet and The Philadelphia Orchestra.
In his role as a soloist he performed Richard Strauss’ Concerto No. 1 with the Lynn Philharmonia Orchestra under Guillermo Figueroa and he premiered the piece “Tributo al Ciudadano Pablo” by Marvin Camacho -who is a well renowned Costa Rican composer and pioneer in new contemporary music- with the “Heredia Symphony Orchestra” of Costa Rica under Josué Jiménez. The piece is written and dedicated to him by the composer and it reflects Hugo Valverde’s commitment to Latin American repertoire, having performed and premiered pieces by Manuel Matarrita -Costa Rican pianist and composer-, and other Latin American composers. He often performs chamber music concerts with his colleagues of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at the Carnegie Hall Concert Series at Weill Recital Hall and also with the woodwind quintet “Quinteto de Luz” in Costa Rica at the National Music Institute, Teatro Espressivo and the National Theatre of Costa Rica.
A dedicated educator, Mr. Valverde has been involved in pedagogical programs in the United States and Latin America, giving masterclasses for the Orchestra of the Americas, Yale University School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Bard College Conservatory of Music, National Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, The Blackburn Music Academy in Napa Valley, San Jose State University, Austin Peay University, New World School of the Arts, University of Panama School of Music and the University of Costa Rica, among others. During the pandemic he created the project “Lockdown Warmups”, which offered 40+ free masterclasses and professional online coaching from renown musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Seattle Symphony Orchestras, The Cleveland and The Philadelphia Orchestras, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Bavarian Radio, Frankfurt Radio, Hamburg, West Germany Radio Symphonies, and other remarkable ones, for young Latin American horn players. He currently teaches at the Precollege Division at Manhattan School of Music.
As a recording studio musician, Mr. Valverde has been part of two soundtracks for movies called “The Woman in the Window”, produced by Fox 2000 Pictures, released by Netflix and 20th Century Studios and music composed by Danny Elfman; and the other one is “Don’t Worry Darling”, produced by New Line Cinema, and music by John Powell. He was also part of the recording of Sir Paul McCartney’s song “My Valentine” with Michael Bublé in the solo voice and Mr. McCartney himself in the live recording session at the Manhattan Center Studios. The song was released in February 2022 in various music and video streaming platforms like YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, etc.
The live recording and broadcast made in 2019 of George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” was chosen as the recipient of the “Best Opera Recording” award in the “63rd Grammy Award Ceremony”. In March 14th, 2021, The Metropolitan Opera Company won the “The Recording Academy” Grammy, and Mr. Valverde was part of this broadcast and recording, who was also given a certificate of participation as a member of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in recognition of his effort put into the project.
Mr. Valverde studied at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, Texas, Lynn University Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Florida and the National Music Institute in San José, Costa Rica. His main teachers are Daniel León, Luis Murillo, Gregory Miller and William VerMeulen.
In his spare time, Hugo enjoys road biking around Central Park, New York City area, New Jersey and his native Costa Rica, and is an avid coffee aficionado, given the fact that Costa Rica is known worldwide for the top-quality coffee they produce.
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Gilles VonsattelPiano
Gilles Vonsattel
A "wanderer between worlds" (Lucerne Festival), "immensely talented" and "quietly powerful pianist" (New York Times), Swiss-born American Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. Comfortable with and seeking out an enormous range of repertoire, Vonsattel displays a musical curiosity and sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions as well as the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, he has in recent years made his Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, and San Francisco Symphony debuts, while performing recitals and chamber music at Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore festival, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His 2014 New York solo recital was hailed as “tightly conceived and passionately performed…a study in intensity” by The New York Times.
Reengaged by the San Francisco Symphony, he has also appeared with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Québec, Boston Pops, Nashville Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Staatskapelle Halle, and L’orchestre de chambre de Genève. Chamber partners include musicians such as James Ehnes, Frank Huang, Ilya Gringolts, Nicolas Altstaedt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Stefan Jackiw, Jörg Widmann, Gary Hoffman, Carter Brey, David Requiro, Paul Huang, Anthony Marwood, Paul Neubauer, Paul Watkins, Philip Setzer, Emmanuel Pahud, Karen Gomyo, David Jolley, Ida Kavafian, and the Swiss Chamber Soloists. He has appeared in concert with the Emerson, Pacifica, Orion, Ebène, Danish, Miró, Daedalus, Escher, and Borromeo Quartets. Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary works, he has premiered numerous works both in the United States and Europe and worked closely with notable composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. His 2011 recording for the Honens/Naxos label of music by Debussy, Honegger, Holliger, and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York’s classical albums of the year, while a 2014 release on GENUIN/Artist Consort received a 5/5 from FonoForum and international critical praise. His latest solo release (2015) for Honens of Scarlatti, Webern, Messiaen, Debussy, and George Benjamin’s Shadowlines received rave reviews in Gramophone, The New York Times, and the American Record Guide.
Recent projects include Berg’s Kammerkonzert with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, a tour with Jörg Widmann and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Mozart concerti with the Vancouver Symphony and Florida Orchestra, performances at Seoul’s LG Arts Centre and at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, collaborations with Kent Nagano with L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Munich Philharmonic (Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety) as well as numerous appearances internationally and throughout the United States with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. In addition to being on the Bard Conservatory faculty, he is on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and makes his home in New York City. Gilles Vonsattel is a Steinway Artist. -
Mira WangViolin, Artist in Residence
Mira Wang
Mira Wang has built a remarkable bridge from her time as a child prodigy in Beijing, China to an acclaimed soloist on the world stage today.
She has appeared as a soloist with many prestigious orchestras all over the world including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Saarbrücken Radio Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic and NDR Philharmonic Hannover.
An avid chamber musician, Mira’s partners include Hélène Grimaud , Oli Mustonen, Alice Sara Ott, Lise de la Salle, Louis Lortie, Jeremy Denk, Pamela Frank, Daniel Müller-Schott, Gautier Capucon, Jan Vogler, Lawrence Power and Lars Anders Tomter.
She is an enthusiastic exponent of contemporary music, premiering the violin concerto Spring in Dresden by Chinese-American composer Chen Yi with the Staatskapelle Dresden, conducted by Ivan Fischer and John Harbison’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Carlos Kalmar. In 2015 she premiered the double concerto by Wolfgang Rihm, with Jan Vogler and the Orpheus Chamber orchestra at Carnegie Hall. In 2018, She premiered a triple concerto “Alisma” by Swiss composer William Blank with Jan Vogler, Daniel Ottensamer and the Philharmonische Staatsorchester Hamburg, conducted by Kent Nagano at Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg.
Mira has recorded extensively for many labels including Sony Classical and Edel Classics. Her discography includes violin concerto No. 2 by Prokofieff with the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony, the violin concerto No. 3 by Saint-Saens with NDR Philharmonic Hannover, a duo album with cellist Jan Vogler and several chamber music recordings with Artists of the Moritzburg Festival.
Mira has been Artistic Director of the Model Room Musicales concert series in New York City since 2005 and in 2013, she became Director of the Moritzburg Festival Academy in Germany, a training program for young musicians that is part of the annual Moritzburg Chamber Music Festival.
Born in China, Ms. Wang studied at Central Conservatory in Beijing. She was sponsored by renowned violin teacher, the late Roman Totenberg to further her studies at Boston University, where she graduated summa cum laude and received the prestigious Kahn Award given to outstanding performers. She has won 1st prizes in several international violin competitions including the Geneva Competition.
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Zhou WangGuzheng
Zhou Wang
A respected performer of the Shanxi Zheng genre, Zhou Wang is a Professor of Guzheng at the China Central Conservatory of Music, and the Director of the Chinese Music Department of CCOM. She also serves as Vice President of the China Guzheng Society. Zhou Wang learned from her father, the world class musician in the Qin Zheng Shanxi genre Zhou Yanjia. She then studied with Maestros Zicheng Gao, Zheng Cao, Sihua Xiang, Xiuming Yang, Shange Fan, and Zhaoyuan Shi, combining north-south flavors and inheriting the true art of Zheng playing from different genres. Joining the Central Song and Dance Troupe in 1977, Zhou Wang has been an active performer in China and abroad. She was invited by the National Record Association to record The Tune of Qin Mulberry, a classical masterpiece of Shanxi genre. As a musical ambassador and a soloist, she has toured internationally on behalf of the Ministry of Culture on many occasions. As a scholar of musical exchange, she has given lectures at institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2014, she held a Zheng recital at Carnegie Hall. Zhou Wang has served as judge and chairperson for many national and international competitions: the Golden Bell Award, Mandarin Award, Central China Television, National Chinese Instrument Competition, and Hong Kong International Zheng Competition. In over forty years of teaching, she has been dedicated to fostering many outstanding young guzheng players, who have won prizes in major competitions around the world. Many of them continue careers as educators to teach the younger generations. In promoting Chinese music, Professor Zhou Wang has published recordings of many core classical repertoires such as High Mountain and Running River and albums featuring traditional guzheng solo works of several traditional genre classic pieces: Famous Melody of the North, Geniuses Traditional Zheng as well as many internal course teaching materials for the China Central Conservatory of Music. Her publication, Qin Zheng Qin Ren Qin Sheng, has been widely cited in Chinese musical journals. Zhou Wang also arranges and composes traditional and contemporary Zheng musical works. She arranged the Shanxi genre Zheng pieces Huan Music, Lao Long Cries the Sea and Ming Fei’s Resentment (a guzheng and erhu duet). Together with Professor Zhenyu Huang, she has composed the contemporary Zheng pieces Fantasia in the West, Reflection, and Slowly Voice ?? -
Howard WatkinsOpera 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. -
Eric WenMusic Theory
Eric Wen
Eric Wen is a specialist in the theory and analysis of tonal music. He has written a textbook on Schenkerian Analysis entitled Graphic Music Analysis (Rowman & Littlefield), as well as a compilation of seven in-depth analyses of works by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms entitled Structurally Sound (Dover). In addition to contributing numerous articles to scholarly journals and essay collections, he has presented papers at many universities and conferences.Wen has taught at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the doctoral program at the Graduate Center (CUNY) in New York, as well as the Juilliard School and Mannes College of Music. Before then he taught at the King’s College (University of London), the Guildhall School and Royal Academy of Music in London, where he also served as editor of The Musical Times and The Strad magazine.In addition to his work in academia, Wen is actively engaged in the practical application of theory and analysis to performance. He has been invited by Murray Perahia and András Schiff to present lectures alongside their master classes for pianists, and has edited numerous performing editions for Carl Fischer Music. Wen is also an independent record producer, and has produced recordings by many distinguished soloists, including Edward Aldwell, Benjamin Hochman, Ruggiero Ricci, Aaron Rosand, Gil Shaham, Hagai Shaham, Oscar Shumsky, Arnold Steinhardt, Maxim Vengerov, Pinchas Zukerman, and the Guarneri String Quartet. -
Peter WileyCello
Peter Wiley
Peter Wiley attended the Curtis Institute at just 13 years of age, under the tutelage of David Soyer. He continued his impressive youthful accomplishments with his appointment as principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony at age 20, after one year in the Pittsburgh Symphony. He has been awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was nominated with the Beaux Arts Trio for a Grammy Award in 1998. As a member of the Beaux Arts Trio, Wiley performed over a thousand concerts, including appearances with many of the world's greatest orchestras. He continues his association with the Marlboro Music Festival, dating from 1971. He has also been a faculty artist at Caramoor's "Rising Stars" program and has taught at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, Mannes College of Music, and Manhattan School of Music. He is also on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music and a member of the Guarneri String Quartet. -
Jan WilliamsPercussion Advisor
Jan Williams
Jan Williams is a percussion soloist and conductor, who has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. Composers such as Lukas Foss, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Joel Chadabe, Morton Feldman, Orlando Garcia, Gustavo Matamoros, Luis de Pablo, Frederic Rzewski, Nils Vigeland, and Iannis Xenakis have all written music expressly for Jan Williams. Born in Utica, New York on July 17, 1939, Williams later earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music at Manhattan School of Music, where he studied percussion with Paul Price and performed as a member of the American Symphony Orchestra from 1962-1964 under conductor Leopold Stokowski. He was invited to Buffalo as one of the first class of Creative Associates for the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in 1964 at the University at Buffalo. While at the University at Buffalo, he created the University at Buffalo Percussion Ensemble in 1964. Later, in 1967, he was appointed to the Music Faculty, and served as Chair of the Music Department from 1981-1984. Prior to his retirement in 1996, he also served as artistic director of the Center of the Creative and Performing arts from 1974-1979 and as resident conductor from 1979-1980. He is Professor emeritus at the University at Buffalo where he and John Bergamo founded the University at Buffalo Percussion Ensemble in 1964. He was the ensemble’s director until his retirement in 1996. He is Trustee of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music. He has recorded for Columbia, Vox/Turnabout, Desto, Lovely Music, Spectrum, Wergo, DGG, Orion, Hat-Art, OO, New World, Deep Listening, EMF Media, and Mode Records. With Yvar Mikhashoff, he was Co-Artistic Director of the North American New Music Festival from 1983-1993. -
Terrence WilsonPiano
Terrence Wilson
Acclaimed by the Baltimore Sun as “one of the biggest pianistic talents to have emerged in this country in the last 25 years” pianist Terrence Wilson has appeared as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Washington, DC (National Symphony), San Francisco, St. Louis, and with the orchestras of Cleveland, Minnesota, and Philadelphia and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Conductors with whom he has worked include Christoph Eschenbach, Alan Gilbert, Neeme Järvi, Jesús López-Cobos, Lawrence Renes, Robert Spano, Yuri Temirkanov, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Gunther Herbig.
Abroad, Terrence Wilson has played concerti with such ensembles as the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra in Switzerland, the Malaysian Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He has toured with orchestras in the US and abroad, including a tour of the US with the Sofia Festival Orchestra (Bulgaria) and in Europe with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yuri Temirkanov.
An active recitalist, Terrence Wilson made his New York City recital debut at the 92nd Street Y, and his Washington, DC recital debut at the Kennedy Center. In Europe he has given recitals at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, the Lourvre in Paris, and countless other major venues. In the US he has given recitals at Lincoln Center in New York City (both Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall), the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, NY, San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, and for the La Jolla Chamber Music Society. An avid chamber musician, he performs regularly with the Ritz Chamber Players. Festival appearances include the Blossom Festival, Tanglewood, Wolf Trap, with the San Francisco Symphony at Stern Grove Park, and an appearance with the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra on July 4, 2015 before an audience of over fifteen thousand.
During the 2017-2018 season, Terrence Wilson appeared as guest soloist with the Alabama Symphony and made his debut with the Portland Symphony Orchestra. He also made his debut with the Richmond Symphony in performances of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. Other highlights of the season included a return appearance with the New Jersey Symphony, and chamber music performances with the Ritz Chamber Players in Jacksonville, Florida.
In the 2018-2019 season, Wilson returns as guest soloist with the Omaha Symphony, gives his debut performance with the Hilton Head Symphony, and performs recitals of the complete sets of Rachmaninoff’s Études Tableaux Op. 33 and Op. 39 in advance of a recording of both sets. He will also appear with the Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia.
Also on the horizon for the coming seasons is the commission, premiere performance and recording of a new solo piano work by American composer Michael Daugherty.
Terrence Wilson has received numerous awards and prizes, including the SONY ES Award for Musical Excellence, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the Juilliard Petschek Award. He has also been featured on several radio and television broadcasts, including NPR’s “Performance Today,” WQXR radio in New York, and programs on the BRAVO Network, the Arts & Entertainment Network, public television, and as a guest on late night network television. In 2011, Wilson was nominated for a Grammy in the category of “Best Instrumental Soloist With an Orchestra” for his (world premiere) recording with the Nashville Symphony conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero of Michael Daugherty’s Deus ex Machina for piano and orchestra - written for Wilson in 2007.
Terrence Wilson is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he studied with Yoheved Kaplinsky. He has also enjoyed the invaluable mentorship of the Romanian pianist and teacher Zitta Zohar. A native of the Bronx, he resides in Montclair, New Jersey. -
Yang XuRuan
Yang Xu
Xu Yang, the leader of contemporary ruan scholars in China, performer, educator, professor and doctoral supervisor at Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. Ms. Xu is the associate director of ruan profession committee in China Nationalities Orchestra Society (CNOS), the committee of the national professional skill appraisal expert association, the executive director of Chinese Music Instrument Society, the committee of Chinese Music Instrument Qualification Exam Council, artist director of Ruan Family Orchestra at Central Conservatory of Music, the founder and executive director of Ruan Family at The Ocean of Music instrument company, the director of Xu Yang Ruan Family International Cultural Research Institute. She had studied with Pang Yuzhang, Lin Jiliang, Ning Yong. Yang has published few ruan text books and ruan recordings, such as "The best way to learn is learn from the best - Ruan Tutorial" Book 1 and 2, "Central Conservatory Ruan Qualification Exam Repertoire", "Chinese National Ruan Qualification Exam Repertoire", "Happy Learning Ruan - Study with Famous Teacher!", "The Rhythm of the mountain", etc. Over more than 40 Xu's students were winning in different national and international Chinese Music competitions, and many of the students have became ruan professor in different schools and also professional ruan players in the professional orchestras. In view of her outstanding artistic innovation ability and teaching achievements, Ms. Xu has won several awards, including selected into the ministry of education's program called "Outstanding Backbone Teacher Supporting Program" in 2009; the "Excellent Gardener Award" from the youth vanguard team of the central league and the foreign exchange center of the ministry of culture, the "Excellent Instructor Award" from "The Talented Musicians Raising Program" in 2016, central conservatory BOB excellent instructor, the title of "Outstanding Performer" in 2018. -
Mingmei YipChinese Music History
Mingmei Yip
Mingmei Yip received her PhD in musicology from the University of Paris (Sorbonne) on a full scholarship from the French Government. A master performer on the Qin, she has given lectures and performances at venues such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, the New York Philharmonic, Columbia University, Oxford University, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Beijing University, the University of Paris, Amsterdam University, Oberlin Conservatory, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the China Institute in New York. Dr. Yip has served as consultant for Beijing’s Chinese Qin Association 北京中国古琴会, director for Chinese Kun Opera and Guqin Research Association 中国古琴昆剧研究会理事, artistic consultant for New York Cultural Art Association, as well as on the academic board of the Chengdu International Qin Conference.
Also a writer, Dr. Yip has published fourteen books, with two on the qin. Her latest and 7th novel The Witch’s Market (Kensington Books) which received a glowing review from the New York Times. She wrote columns for seven major newspapers and has appeared on over 50 television and radio programs in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, and the United States.
She is also accomplished as a painter and calligrapher. A one-person show of her paintings of Guan Yin (the Chinese Goddess of Compassion) and calligraphy was held at the New York Open Center Gallery in SoHo in 2002. Dr. Yip was lecturer and senior lecturer (associate professor) of music at Chinese University of Hong Kong and Baptist University respectively, and in 2005, an International Institute of Asian Studies fellow in Holland researching on the qin. She has taught qin playing and calligraphy at two major Hong Kong Universities. -
Hongmei YuErhu
Hongmei Yu
A graduate of the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), Yu Hongmei is one of the most brilliant erhu virtuosos as well as the most influential erhu educator in contemporary China. She currently serves as the Dean of the Chinese Music Department in CCOM, and is the designated guest erhu soloist for the China National Traditional Orchestra. Yu Hongmei maintains an active solo career in erhu performing. She has toured Europe, America, Africa, and many regions in Asia, and has successfully held hundreds of recitals in the United States, France, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong and mainland China. Her album String Glamour won the Best Traditional World Music award by Indie Music in the United States. She was the first Chinese recipient honored for this award in its 30-year history. Yu Hongmei has premiered many classic erhu works and core repertoires, and has produced exemplary works embodying different times in Chinese history: Dreams of Jinghua, Eight Banners, Tianxiang, West Rhapsody. She has appeared in many world class concert halls: Musikverein (Golden Hall in Vienna), Carnegie Hall in New York, Avery Fisher Hall of Lincoln Center, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Lucerne Concert Hall at KKL Luzern. She participated in many major performance events such as American Culture in China, New Culture in Australia with Chinese Culture, Spring Prague in the Czech Republic, Chinese Arts Festival, Beijing International Music Festival, Shanghai International Arts Festival, German Music Festival, and the Macao Arts Festival. As an educator, Yu Hongmei recorded Erhu by Maestros, and edited and published Collections of Erhu Works presented by China Central Television, the most predominant state television broadcaster. Her publications, such as Dynamics in Erhu Performance and How to play A Flower (an erhu piece by Song Fei) are well recognized and widely cited in Chinese music journals. Yu Hongmei has been invited to lecture at various institutions including California Institute of the Arts and the City University of Hong Kong. New York Concert Journal complimented her on her exquisite touching sounds as she “represents the contemporary spirit of Chinese musical culture.” Joining the US-China Music Institute of Bard Conservatory of Music, Yu Hongmei continues committing herself to preserving cultural heritage, promoting and developing Chinese music in America. -
Hongyan ZhangPipa
Hongyan Zhang
Zhang Hongyan is an outstanding contemporary Chinese pipa performer and educator. She is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the Central Conservatory and serves as dean of the Department of Traditional Instruments and the Cultural Heritage Protection and Research
Center. She is a guest professor at the Art Institute of Beijing University, honorary academician of Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (UIC), and director of the Central Institute of Vocational and Technical Education in China. She has
also been a visiting scholar at Columbia University.
Zhang studied under Zhang Shijun, Sun Weixi, and Lin Shicheng, beginning her studies when she was seven years old. In 2011, she created a weeklong pipa festival, presenting four concerts of solo, chamber, ensemble, and concerto performances, essentially summarizing all of classical pipa music. In connection with the festival, Zhang also published a research paper, “Boat Against the Current: The Feeling of a Musician Today.” This festival and her paper were among
the most important musical events at the start of the 21st century in China. Zhang, also known as Pipa Walker, has performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Vienna’s Golden Hall, St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, and Suntory
Hall in Tokyo. As a soloist, she has played with world-class orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Brazilian Symphony, and Tokyo Philharmonic. In recognition of her contributions to traditional Chinese music, her album House of Flying Daggers is part of the permanent collection at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Zhang founded the national orchestra of the Central Conservatory of Music, and has won many awards in China and internationally for music education, including the Yang Xuelan Music Education Award, Baosteel Education Fund Outstanding Teacher Award, and more. -
Qiang ZhangPipa
Qiang Zhang
A world-famous pipa virtuoso, Professor Zhang Qiang is the Director of the String Instrument Division of the Chinese Music Department at the China Central Conservatory of Music (CCMO). After graduating from CCMO in 1987, Professor Zhang had devoted himself to teaching at CCMO as a pipa instructor for almost three decades. He has been a judge at major domestic and international instrumental music competitions and has been invited to give lectures at many educational institutions. In addition to his traditional approach in systematic technique training, Professor Zhang focuses on the cultivation of students' music awareness and strongly urges his students to explore and display personal character in performing. Many of his students stand out as national winners of China’s highest-level competitions. Professor Zhang is an active performer throughout China and abroad. He has regularly appeared in international music festivals: the Edinburgh International Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center Festival of Contemporary Music, Berlin Art Week, Torino Art Festival, and other festivals held in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. His musical collaborations also include the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra and China National Symphony Orchestra, Dutch New Orchestra, China Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, China Radio National Orchestra, Shanghai National Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Taipei National Orchestra, Guangdong National Orchestra, Macau Chinese Orchestra and Singapore Chinese Orchestra. He was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall, Musikverein (Golden Hall in Vienna), Lincoln Center in New York City. His work features solo pieces for pipa, concertos, traditional repertoires, and he actively engages in contemporary chamber music. Professor Zhang maintains a lifelong devotion to academic research. Together with three professors from CCMO, he has been working on a historical preservation project, Xian Suo Bei Kao, imparing, performing and eventually completing the full-scale (1814 manuscripts) music on the ancient spectrum of the Qing Dynasty. -
Jiazhen ZhaoGuqin
Jiazhen Zhao
Zhao Jiazhen is a professor of guqin in the Traditional Music Department at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China. She studied at the Central Conservatory, graduating in 1984. Zhao has performed with the Chinese Symphony Orchestra, Film Orchestra of China, Beijing Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Symphony Orchestra of Belgium, and National Orchestra of Taipei City. In 2001 and 2002 she performed in the “World Renowned Musicians and Instruments Concert” at Zhong Shan Hall inside the Forbidden City in Beijing, featuring three priceless guqins from the Tang Dynasty and five Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari violins. Zhao has performed in films such as The History of the Three Kingdoms, Dream of the Red Chamber, Swordsman, Fire on Yuanming Yuan, and Wu Ze Tian. She has also produced more than 10 albums of guqin music. At the 10th annual Independent Music Awards, her album Qin: Masterpieces of Chinese Qin from the Tang Dynasty to Today won best album in the World Traditional Music category. -
Carmit ZoriViolin
Carmit Zori
Violinist Carmit Zori is the recipient of a Leventritt Foundation Award, a Pro Musicis International Award, and the top prize in the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. She has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others, and has given solo recitals at Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Tel Aviv Museum and the Jerusalem Center for the Performing Arts. Her performances have taken her throughout Latin America and Europe, as well as Israel, Japan, Taiwan and Australia, where she premiered the Violin Concerto by Marc Neikrug.
Ms. Zori enjoys a prolific career as a chamber musician. After ten years as artistic director at Bargemusic, she founded the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society in 2002. In addition to her own series, she has appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has been a guest at chamber music festivals and concert series around the world, including the Chamber Music at the Y series in New York City; Festival Casals in Puerto Rico; Chesapeake Bay Music Festival; Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival; Bard Music Festival; Chamber Music Northwest; Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; La Jolla Chamber Music Festival; Seattle Chamber Music Festival; Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival; Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society in Wisconsin; Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival; Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival in the UK; Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; Sarasota Music Festival; and is a regular participant at the Marlboro Chamber Music Festival in Vermont.
Ms. Zori has played for Music for Food, a concert series that helps relieve food insecurity in cities all over the United States. She has also participated in Project: Music Heals Us, a nonprofit organization that aims to educate and heal marginalized communities through music. Carmit is also a member of the Israeli Chamber Project, an ensemble that performs chamber music and conducts educational outreach in the US, Israel, and various other countries throughout the world.
Ms. Zori can be heard on the Arabesque, Koch International, and Elektra-Nonesuch labels. In addition to teaching at the Bard Conservatory, she is professor of violin at Rutgers University and SUNY-Purchase.
At the behest of violinists Alexander Schneider and Isaac Stern, Ms. Zori came to the United States from her native Israel at the age of fifteen to study at the Curtis Institute of Music with Ivan Galamian, Jaime Laredo and Arnold Steinhardt.