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Bard College Conservatory Orchestra Presents Semi-Staged Performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome April 3 And 5

The Bard Conservatory Orchestra joins an exciting principal cast of singers in a semi-staged performance of Richard Strauss’s once infamous, now famous opera, Salome—a biblical story, with a twist. The program, directed by R. B. Schlather and performed by the Bard Conservatory Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor, features leading opera singers Melody Moore, Jay Hunter Morris, Nathan Berg, Betsy Bishop, Robert Stahley, and others, including students of the Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program. Salome takes place Friday, April 3, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 5, at 2 p.m. in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. Tickets start at $15 and can be ordered online at fishercenter.bard.edu or by calling the box office at 845-758-7900. $5 student tickets are available to Bard undergraduate students through the Passloff Pass.

Adapted from Oscar Wilde’s one-act play, Richard Strauss’s opera Salome depicts the biblical story of Salome, the Judean princess who demanded, and obtained, the head of St. John the Baptist. Bard Visiting Associate Professor of Music Peter Laki writes that the first performance of Salome, given in Dresden on December 9, 1905, caught even the most progressive critics off guard. “There was little doubt that the opera was a masterpiece, that its music was radically innovative, even ‘revolutionary,’ but many were profoundly disturbed by the image of Salome kissing the severed head of John the Baptist on the mouth,” writes Laki, stressing that, despite its early notoriety, Salome was Strauss’s first successful opera and went on to become part of the standard repertoire of every house that can meet the almost superhuman demands it places on the singers and the enormous orchestra alike. “The opera certainly stands with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which followed eight years later, at the threshold of a new era. It did away with many old taboos and presented human situations and emotions in a way they had never been presented before.  Strauss made an old story breathtakingly new, boldly confronting the dark sides of the human psyche.”

Salome (1905)
libretto:  Hedwig Lachmann (1865-1918) after Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
music:  Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Cast:

Melody Moore, Salome
Jay Hunter Morris, Herod
Nathan Berg, Jochanaan
Betsy Bishop, Herodias
Robert Stahley, Narraboth

Hailey MacEvoy ’20, Page of Herodias 
Ricardo Lugo, First Nazarene 
Ben Wager, First Soldier 
Andrew Potter, Second Soldier 
Marc Molomet, First Jew
Vincent Festa, Second Jew
Cody Ray Caho ’21,Third Jew
Chauncey Parker, Fourth Jew
Paul An, Fifth Jew
Paul LaRosa, Second Nazarene 
Lighting Designer: Jax Messenger
Projection Designer: S. Katy Tucker

To purchase tickets, call the Fisher Center box office at 845-758-7900 or go to fishercenter.bard.edu.
 

Post Date: 03-04-2020

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Bard Conservatory Students Perform in Master Class with Renowned Hornist Radovan Vlatković at New York’s Lincoln Center

On Wednesday, February 26, three collegiate wind chamber ensembles performed in a master class with world-renowned French horn player Radovan Vlatković through the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. First up, a quintet of undergrads from the Bard College Conservatory’s five-year double-degree program in music and the liberal arts: Jillian Reed ’21, on flute; Kira Shiner ’21, oboe; Collin Lewis ’21, clarinet; Tim Woerner ’20, bassoon; and Eleni Georgiadis ’21, horn. The group performed Samuel Barber’s Summer Music for wind quintet for a full house in the Center’s Rose Studio. Watch their outstanding performance, and stay tuned for Vlatković’s praise of their “beautiful playing” during his critique.

Post Date: 02-26-2020

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Stephanie Blythe Directs Rest in Pieces: In Memory of Opera

Fourteen singers. Five operas. An extraordinary undertaking. Mark your calendars for Rest in Pieces: In Memory of Opera on March 6, directed by Stephanie Blythe, renowned mezzo-soprano and Bard Vocal Arts Program director.

Post Date: 02-18-2020

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Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program Alumna Sun-Ly Pierce '19 Wins First Prize in 2020 Houston Grand Opera Concert of Arias Competition

Sun-Ly Pierce MM '19 has won the first prize of $10,000 in the Houston Grand Opera's prestigious competition for young singers. The 32nd annual Eleanor McCollum Competition culminated in the Concert of Arias on Friday, February 7, in which eight finalists performed in the Cullen Theater of the Wortham Theater Center in Houston. The concert was the final event in a process that began with initial auditions in November. This year's competition received over 650 applications from singers around the world.  

Concert of Arias supporters raised more than $600,000, with proceeds benefiting the Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers and Houston Grand Opera Studio’s ongoing outreach efforts to identify, attract, and nurture young artists who have the potential for major careers in opera.

Originally from Clinton, New York, Chinese American mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce recently completed the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music and holds a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from the Eastman School of Music. As a winner of the Marilyn Horne Song Competition, Pierce will perform on an international recital tour with pianist Chien-Lin Lu. The tour includes appearances in Santa Barbara, Chicago, New York City, and London and will feature the premiere of a new song cycle written by two-time Grammy Award winning composer, Jennifer Higdon. This past fall, Pierce joined the Broad Street Orchestra as Dorinda in Handel’s Acis and Galatea. She returns to the Music Academy of the West this summer as a 2020 Vocal Fellow, performing the role of L’enfant in Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges and covering Hänsel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel.

Post Date: 02-07-2020

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Joan Tower, the Bard Professor Who Was Named Composer of the Year

In 2019, the eminent composer and Bard professor Joan Tower was named Composer of the Year by Musical America, was recognized for her lifetime of work by Chamber Music of America, received the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton, and became one of the first women composers to have her collected works archived in the Library of Congress. Tower joined the faculty at Bard College in 1972, at the age of 33, where she now serves as Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts. Today, she teaches a variety of composition courses, coaches players, and puts on concerts of contemporary composers. “I always learn something every day,” she says. “I always learn from my students.”

Post Date: 01-26-2020

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The Sound of Spring: A Chinese Music Concert with The Orchestra Now

The US-China Music Institute presents its first annual Chinese New Year Concert featuring Bard College’s The Orchestra Now performing a lively collection of Chinese symphonic works. Conductor and director of the US-China Music Institute Jindong Cai will share the stage with guest conductor Chen Bing and Chinese instrument masters from the world-renowned faculty of the Central Conservatory of Music, China. The concert will be performed on Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 7 p.m. in Bard’s Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. Admission is $20. For tickets and more information go to fishercenter.bard.edu, or call the Fisher Center box office at 845-758-7900.

Special guest soloists from the Central Conservatory of Music include Wang Jianhua, percussion; Wang Lei, sheng; Yu Hongmei, erhu; Zhang Hongyan, pipa; Zhang Weiwei, suona; and Shaanxi Folk singer Ji Tian.

The program features HongMei (Red Plum) Capriccio for Erhu, by Wu Houyuan;  Yun Xiang Hua Xiang Pipa Concerto, by Wang Danhong; Long Teng Hu Yue Percussion Concerto, by Li Minxiong; YanAn YanAn for Tenor, Suona and Orchestra, by Li Shaosheng;  Wan Li Xing Sheng Concertino for Sheng and Orchestra, by Hao Weiya;  and The Spring Festival Overture by Li Huanzhi. Special Chinese New Year public reception before the concert, starting at 6 p.m.

The program will be repeated on Sunday, January 26, 2020 at 3 p.m. at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, New York, NY.

Visit barduschinamusic.org/new-year-2020 for more details.

This concert is co-presented by the Central Conservatory of Music, China, with the participation of China Institute in New York.

Post Date: 01-17-2020