All Bard News by Date
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February 2023
02-28-2023
The American Academy of Arts and Letters has announced the 16 recipients of this year’s awards in music. Among the winners, Bard College Conservatory and Bard Film and Electronic Arts alumnus Luke Haaksma BA/BM ’21 was awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship. Charles Ives Scholarships are $7,500 each and awarded to composers for continued study in composition, either at institutions of their choice or privately with distinguished composers. Harmony Ives, the widow of Charles Ives, bequeathed to the Academy the royalties of Charles Ives’s music, which has enabled the Academy to give awards in composition since 1970. The award winners were selected by a committee of Academy members: Julia Wolfe (chair), Annea Lockwood, David Sanford, Christopher Theofanidis, Augusta Read Thomas, Chinary Ung, and Melinda Wagner. The awards will be presented at the Academy’s Ceremonial on May 24, 2023. Candidates for music awards are nominated by the 300 members of the Academy.
Luke Haaksma is a composer and filmmaker currently based in New Haven, Connecticut. His work has been performed at various festivals, universities, and venues throughout the United States and abroad. Haaksma is a past winner of both the Diana Wortham Emerging Artist Scholarship and the Ione M. Allen scholarship for the performing arts. His piano etude “Crystal Murk” was selected by Jihye Chang to be toured internationally as part of her multi-year solo recital project, “Continuum 88.” While an undergraduate at Bard College and the Conservatory, Haaksma studied composition with Joan Tower, George Tsontakis, and Lera Auerbach, piano with Blair McMillen, and Hammered Dulcimer with David Degge. He was the Conservatory’s Joan Tower Composition Scholar. He was awarded the Sidney Peterson prize in experimental film, “Best Original Score” by the Dreamachine international film festival, and Official Selections from other Montreal and Los Angeles based festivals. Luke was honored as a 2021 National Hammered Dulcimer Championship finalist at the Walnut Valley music festival in Winfield, Kansas. His most recent string quartet, “talking” piece, was premiered in New York by The Rhythm Method as part of the Lake George Composers Institute. This past summer he was a fellow at the Brandeis Composers Conference. Luke began graduate studies at the Yale School of Music this past fall.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 as an honor society of the country’s leading architects, artists, composers, and writers. Early members include William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Julia Ward Howe, Henry James, Edward MacDowell, Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton. The Academy’s 300 members are elected for life and pay no dues. In addition to electing new members as vacancies occur, the Academy seeks to foster and sustain an interest in Literature, Music, and the Fine Arts by administering over 70 awards and prizes totaling more than $1 million, exhibiting art and manuscripts, funding performances of new works of musical theater, purchasing artwork for donation to museums across the country, and presenting talks and concerts.
Luke Haaksma is a composer and filmmaker currently based in New Haven, Connecticut. His work has been performed at various festivals, universities, and venues throughout the United States and abroad. Haaksma is a past winner of both the Diana Wortham Emerging Artist Scholarship and the Ione M. Allen scholarship for the performing arts. His piano etude “Crystal Murk” was selected by Jihye Chang to be toured internationally as part of her multi-year solo recital project, “Continuum 88.” While an undergraduate at Bard College and the Conservatory, Haaksma studied composition with Joan Tower, George Tsontakis, and Lera Auerbach, piano with Blair McMillen, and Hammered Dulcimer with David Degge. He was the Conservatory’s Joan Tower Composition Scholar. He was awarded the Sidney Peterson prize in experimental film, “Best Original Score” by the Dreamachine international film festival, and Official Selections from other Montreal and Los Angeles based festivals. Luke was honored as a 2021 National Hammered Dulcimer Championship finalist at the Walnut Valley music festival in Winfield, Kansas. His most recent string quartet, “talking” piece, was premiered in New York by The Rhythm Method as part of the Lake George Composers Institute. This past summer he was a fellow at the Brandeis Composers Conference. Luke began graduate studies at the Yale School of Music this past fall.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters was founded in 1898 as an honor society of the country’s leading architects, artists, composers, and writers. Early members include William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Julia Ward Howe, Henry James, Edward MacDowell, Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton. The Academy’s 300 members are elected for life and pay no dues. In addition to electing new members as vacancies occur, the Academy seeks to foster and sustain an interest in Literature, Music, and the Fine Arts by administering over 70 awards and prizes totaling more than $1 million, exhibiting art and manuscripts, funding performances of new works of musical theater, purchasing artwork for donation to museums across the country, and presenting talks and concerts.
02-14-2023
The Bard Conservatory Orchestra presents a concert celebrating works by Robert Schumann (1810-56), Richard Strauss (1864-1949), and Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). Conducted by Leon Botstein, music director, the program will feature Schumann’s Konzertstück for Four Horns and Orchestra, Op. 86, with horn players Erik Ralske, Javier Gándara, Hugo Valverde, and Barbara Jostlein Curry; Strauss’ Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Op. 24, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “A London Symphony.” The performance will be held on Saturday, March 11 at 8 p.m. in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. To reserve tickets, visit fishercenter.bard.edu, or call 845-758-7900 (Mon-Fri 10 am-5 pm).
Schumann was one of the earliest champions of what is known today as the French horn. All three movements of the Konzertstück, written by Schumann in 1849, are played without pause, demanding the utmost of the four horn players, giving them the fanfare-type material commonly associated with the horn, but also plenty of lyrical melodies. He considered this work to be one of the best he had ever written.
At its inception, the symphonic poem was a bold attempt to create drama without words and to test music’s expressive powers to the fullest. The genre found a practitioner of genius in the young Richard Strauss. In a series of orchestral works that established him as one of the leading avant-gardists of the day, Strauss did not hesitate to tackle in his music the most complex literary and philosophical topics possible. “It occurred to me to present in the form of a tone poem the dying hours of a man who had striven towards the highest idealistic aims, maybe indeed those of an artist,” Strauss wrote of Death and Transfiguration in 1894.
Musicologist Wilfrid Mellers wrote that Vaughan Williams was a “double man,” deeply immersed in the Christian tradition and yet a self-described agnostic, looking into the future while spiritually most at home in the past. The “city,” to his way of thinking, was the antithesis of the “country”; it represented culture as opposed to nature, bustling activity as opposed to rural tranquility—and the composer, in a sense, was drawn to both. London, therefore, was both a real place and a metaphor for Williams who, in his 45-minute A London Symphony completed in 1913, combined descriptive realism and philosophical meditation.
Schumann was one of the earliest champions of what is known today as the French horn. All three movements of the Konzertstück, written by Schumann in 1849, are played without pause, demanding the utmost of the four horn players, giving them the fanfare-type material commonly associated with the horn, but also plenty of lyrical melodies. He considered this work to be one of the best he had ever written.
At its inception, the symphonic poem was a bold attempt to create drama without words and to test music’s expressive powers to the fullest. The genre found a practitioner of genius in the young Richard Strauss. In a series of orchestral works that established him as one of the leading avant-gardists of the day, Strauss did not hesitate to tackle in his music the most complex literary and philosophical topics possible. “It occurred to me to present in the form of a tone poem the dying hours of a man who had striven towards the highest idealistic aims, maybe indeed those of an artist,” Strauss wrote of Death and Transfiguration in 1894.
Musicologist Wilfrid Mellers wrote that Vaughan Williams was a “double man,” deeply immersed in the Christian tradition and yet a self-described agnostic, looking into the future while spiritually most at home in the past. The “city,” to his way of thinking, was the antithesis of the “country”; it represented culture as opposed to nature, bustling activity as opposed to rural tranquility—and the composer, in a sense, was drawn to both. London, therefore, was both a real place and a metaphor for Williams who, in his 45-minute A London Symphony completed in 1913, combined descriptive realism and philosophical meditation.
02-09-2023
Dean of the Bard Conservatory Tan Dun, who is the award-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon composer, has just signed with the Decca recording label. Tan Dun says, “Decca has always been a dream for me. As a young artist, I could never have imagined that one day we would embrace each other. I’ve worked with many recording labels over the years, but now, connecting with Decca, I understand. It is so pure and classical and yet cool and fresh and open to all sorts of music and cultures, it is a very special place. I feel deeply honored to be part of it.”
On March 3, Decca releases Five Souls, which Tan Dun describes as a “a journey from the universe to the metaverse where we discover our spirit, who we are and what we are meant to be.” The five movements for small ensemble include water percussion, harp, brass, strings, and didgeridoo. Listen to the first single from Five Souls, which was released today, here.
The first major new album from Decca, to be released on April 7, will be the world premiere recording of Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion: a tale of wonder, of truth and of gentle but irresistible transformation. The monumental work, involving massed choirs, large orchestra, six percussionists, and an array of soloists including indigenous singers, traditional Chinese instruments, and a dancing pipa player, is the first such "Passion" on a Buddhist rather than Christian narrative.
Another major world premiere recording, The Tears of Nature, will follow in September. The 25-minute percussion concerto was written in the wake of three major natural disasters—the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, the Japanese Tsunami in 2011, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, all of which affected Tan Dun personally.
Copresidents of Decca Label Group, Tom Lewis and Laura Monks, say, “We are so proud to welcome Tan Dun to Decca. He is a global statesman for classical music; arguably one of the most inventive, energetic and warm-hearted composers alive. His story is quite extraordinary. He embodies the sometimes unimaginable and unique way in which music can change your life.”
On March 3, Decca releases Five Souls, which Tan Dun describes as a “a journey from the universe to the metaverse where we discover our spirit, who we are and what we are meant to be.” The five movements for small ensemble include water percussion, harp, brass, strings, and didgeridoo. Listen to the first single from Five Souls, which was released today, here.
The first major new album from Decca, to be released on April 7, will be the world premiere recording of Tan Dun’s Buddha Passion: a tale of wonder, of truth and of gentle but irresistible transformation. The monumental work, involving massed choirs, large orchestra, six percussionists, and an array of soloists including indigenous singers, traditional Chinese instruments, and a dancing pipa player, is the first such "Passion" on a Buddhist rather than Christian narrative.
Another major world premiere recording, The Tears of Nature, will follow in September. The 25-minute percussion concerto was written in the wake of three major natural disasters—the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, the Japanese Tsunami in 2011, and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, all of which affected Tan Dun personally.
Copresidents of Decca Label Group, Tom Lewis and Laura Monks, say, “We are so proud to welcome Tan Dun to Decca. He is a global statesman for classical music; arguably one of the most inventive, energetic and warm-hearted composers alive. His story is quite extraordinary. He embodies the sometimes unimaginable and unique way in which music can change your life.”
02-07-2023
Opening on February 11, renowned opera singer and recitalist Stephanie Blythe has dual upcoming roles in “The Puccini Duo,” San Diego Opera’s production of two one-act operas by Puccini. Blythe, a mezzo-soprano, will first sing a deeper contralto as the Principessa in Suor Angelica. She will then step into the title role of Gianni Schicchi in the baritone range traditionally assigned to a male singer. “I’m attracted to projects that allow me to explore different passions and transitions in my life. I think ‘transition’ is one of the most important words for any artist,” said Blythe in her interview with Broadway World. “Voices change from the moment you start singing. It’s never the same—from one day, one year, one decade to the next. It’s part of the body, and so affected by intellectual, physical, and spiritual change. And that has to be accepted.”
Blythe is artistic director of Bard’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, an appointment she adores. “I feel like my soul is fed every day I work with students and young artists, and especially the singers and pianists. They are so enterprising and have so many interests,” she said. “They don’t want to play concerts just to check academic boxes. There’s a thought-out reason based on who they are and what they want to say, and I think that’s marvelous.”
Blythe is artistic director of Bard’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, an appointment she adores. “I feel like my soul is fed every day I work with students and young artists, and especially the singers and pianists. They are so enterprising and have so many interests,” she said. “They don’t want to play concerts just to check academic boxes. There’s a thought-out reason based on who they are and what they want to say, and I think that’s marvelous.”
listings 1-4 of 4