Internationally acclaimed, award-winning composer and Bard professor George Tsontakis talks about why continuing to play the viola is important to his work as a composer.
Sō Percussion's Gun Show dissects America's obsession with firearms. The group's members make up the faculty of the Bard Conservatory's percussion program.
The Fisher Center presents the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra in concert at the Sosnoff Theater on Saturday, November 5 at 7 p.m. Music director Leon Botstein will lead the orchestra in a performance of a selection of classic pieces, including Ludwig van Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 2, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony 5 in D minor, op. 47, and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.
Sō Percussion, made up of Bard faculty members Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting, has won a Bessie Award for outstanding musical composition and sound design.
The Place of Music: Essays from the First Decade of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates 10 years since the Conservatory's founding and marks the importance of Bard as the only conservatory requiring completion of a bachelor of arts degree in a field other than music concurrently with the awarding of the bachelor of music degree. The collection includes essays by Bard faculty members Robert Martin, Dawn Upshaw, and Robert Kelly, as well as alumni/ae Rylan Gajek-Leonard '16 and Allegra Chapman '10.
August 2016
08-31-2016
The Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates its 10th Anniversary with one of America’s foremost pianists. Jeremy Denk, whose playing was lauded by the New York Times as “bracing, effortlessly virtuosic and utterly joyous,” will create a time-lapse through seven centuries of Western music, from the 1300s to the present day. Denk describes the program saying, “In a series of 25 short pieces, it will trace the evolution of the musical language, the soundscape—an epic story of human thought and ideals, of what we have found important to express in tones.” The matinee program will be held on Sunday, September 11 at 3 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater of the Richard B. Fisher Center of the Performing Arts at Bard College.
The work-in-progress Stranger Love will appear in The Industry's FIRST TAKE series in Los Angeles, a biennial West Coast workshop for new American operas.
Professor Tower on the newest in her Fanfare series, and why she embraces the term "woman composer" after joining Nancy B. Reich's Women in Music course at Bard.
From June 3 to 10, The Bard Conservatory Orchestra will embark on a one-week visit to Cuba to foster cultural exchange. The project includes formal concerts conducted by Leon Botstein in Cienfuegos (June 4), Santa Clara (June 6), and Havana (June 7-9), with pianist Peter Serkin as soloist in Havana (June 9). Collaborations with Cuban artists, in the form of shared concerts, side-by-side performances, and chamber music workshops, are another important component of this concert tour.
The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents a Mother’s Day side-by-side performance with Bard Conservatory Orchestra and The Orchestra Now (TŌN). Conducted by Leon Botstein, the concert includes Alban Berg’s Seven Early Songs featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6. The concert will be held on Sunday, May 8 at 3 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Tickets are a $15–$20 suggested donation and free to the Bard community. Ticket sales benefit the Bard Conservatory of Music’s Scholarship Fund. For tickets, call the box office at 845-758-7900, or go to fishercenter.bard.edu.
Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts Joan Tower has released new recordings on the Naxos label. Performed by the Nashville Symphony, her third album with Naxos presents a concerto and two orchestral works—one of which, "Stroke," was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award. Last week, a fourth Naxos recording was released, featured three string quartets and a piano quintet with Bard professor Blair McMillen on piano, performed by the Daedalus and Miami quartets. The fifth Naxos recording will be released next year, with the Albany Symphony presenting concertos, and solos performed by percussionist Evelyn Glennie and pianist Blair McMillen.
February 2016
02-12-2016
George Tsontakis, distinguished composer in residence at Bard, was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to compose multiple sonnet-themed tone poems for a concert series commemorating the 400thanniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Sonnets was "a complete success" at last week's premiere, writes Susan Miron, adding that Tsontakis, "has written a piece that is not just eloquent for the English horn, but also for the whole orchestra." Read more below.
The Success of "Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra" is owed largely to Upshaw’s fealty to the work and her way with a narrative line, composer Osvaldo Golijov said recently.
Founded at Bard in 2010 and led by alumni/ae, Contemporaneous now makes its home in New York City. The ensemble plays Murray's in Tivoli on February 2.
