Bard Conservatory of Music News Archive

The Global Search for Education interviews Kira Shiner, a 2021 recipient of a Graduate Certificate in Advanced Performance Studies (APS) from the Bard College Conservatory of Music, about her experience in pulling together an online musical performance during the pandemic. “I think music performance is on the brink of a big transition to something new. This pandemic has made every ensemble rethink how they interact with an audience,” says Shiner. Audiences can watch “Gypsy Song,” from Carmen, a lively performance from five Bard Conservatory and APS recipients on the Planet Classroom Network YouTube Channel. The five musicians in the woodwind quintet, APS recipients Collin Lewis, Kira Shiner, and Timothy Woerner; Conservatory alumna Jillian Reed ’21; and Eleni Georgiadis spread throughout the county, flawlessly mesh together their individual parts to create a perfect arrangement of the classic song from the Bizet opera.

The Bard College Conservatory of Music and Graduate Vocal Arts Program present Songs From The Real World: The French Cabaret, a benefit for the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Scholarship Fund. The concert features renowned mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe (artistic director), pianist Kayo Iwama (associate director), as well as members of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program and Conservatory Collaborative Piano Fellowship exploring the beginnings of the world of French cabaret, a musical movement that was born to explore an exotic and bohemian ideal, expressing social and political satire through song. The performance will be held on Saturday, November 6 at 8 pm in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. Tickets start at $25, with $5 tickets for Bard students made possible by the Passloff Pass. Virtual livestream tickets are pay what you wish. All ticket sales benefit the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Scholarship Fund. To purchase or reserve tickets visit fishercenter.bard.edu, call 845-758-7900 (Mon-Fri 10am-5pm), or email [email protected].

“One of the most important missions of the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program is to teach the art of communication and collaboration. So it makes perfect sense that on the heels of a worldwide pandemic that took us all out of the public world and cast us into very private and often solitary settings, that we would emerge through the world of French chanson,” writes Artistic Director Stephanie Blythe. “These extraordinarily popular songs began in the 1880’s with the appearance of the chanson realiste—unapologetically truthful statements about life on the streets of Paris and all the elements that defined those lives—working class poverty, debauchery, sex, crime, and much of it seen through the lens of romantic, smoky cafés and rain soaked, cobblestone streets. Here was found a healthy dose of nostalgia, peppered with wit and charm, as well as a deep sadness and longing, and not a little accordion. These songs are a perfect way to initiate an intimate dialogue with an audience—one that we have been developing even more keenly after such a long, forced separation from all of you. Through the art of the chanson, we see what it means to be fully human, something we have all been taking a hard look at over the last year and a half.”

The evening’s program includes a repertoire of French cabaret songs spanning 1866 through 1968, and includes “Les temps des cerises” (1866) by Jean-Baptiste Clément (1836-1903), “La Vie en rose” (1945) by Louiguy (1916-91), “Le serpents qui danse” (1957) by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), and “Les moulins de mon coeur” (1968) by Michel Legrand (1932-2019) among many others.

Stephanie Blythe, world-renowned mezzo-soprano and artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, will kick off the San Diego Opera’s 2021–22 season on Saturday, October 23 with a tribute to lyricist Johnny Mercer. Mercer cowrote more than 1,500 songs in his half-century career, helping to create the Great American Songbook of the 20th century​​. “He was known as the king of lyrics and he worked with many of the best composers because he was such a great collaborator,” Blythe says in this interview.

The Violin Channel’s VC Live is streaming “Asian American Voices: American Stories & Music,” an online concert featuring a selection of important live symphonic works recorded at this year’s China Now Music Festival presented by the US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Tune in at 7 PM (ET) on Tuesday, October 19 for this special event.

“Asian American artists are taking a greater role in the music world of the 21st Century,” said China Now Music Festival Artistic Director Jindong Cai, who recently sat down with The Violin Channel in an interview. “You can witness this in any symphony orchestra, opera house, or conservatory and the creation of the US-China Music Institute is a reflection of this trend. I hope I can use my experience to create a strong platform to enable a greater appreciation of the music from China and to provide new opportunities for artists to perform Chinese music.”

“The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music is proving a leading force in introducing music from contemporary China to the United States, and in promoting musical exchanges between the countries,” writes The Violin Channel. 

“Asian American Voices: American Stories & Music”
Presented by US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music 
Tuesday, October 19 at 7 PM (ET)

Del Sol Quartet & China Now Festival Chorus
Huang Ruo | Angel Island: Oratorio for voices and String Quartet

Conductor Jingdong Cai & The Orchestra Now | Li Yi (tenor) | Nina Yoshida Nelsen (mezzo-soprano) | Helen Zhibing Huang (soprano) | David Henry Hwang (librettist, live narration)
Huang Ruo | Selections from An American Soldier

Conductor Jingdong Cai & The Orchestra Now | Yixin Wang (guzheng)
Xinyan Li | Awakening Light

Conductor Jingdong Cai & The Orchestra Now
Peng-Peng Gong | A Chinese in New York (2019)