Bard Conservatory of Music News Archive

Bard Conservatory Orchestra, Conducted by Leon Botstein, Performs Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker for In-Person and Remote Audiences, December 3

Fisher Center Premieres SITI Company’s Production of Dickens’
A Christmas Carol, Co-Directed by Anne Bogart ’74 and Darron L West,
Concluding SITI Company’s “Finale Season,” December 16–18

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON —The Fisher Center at Bard celebrates the holidays with two seasonal classics given fresh interpretations by world-renowned artists with deep connections to the college. Leon Botstein leads the Bard Conservatory Orchestra in a symphonic concert performance of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker on December 3, and the Fisher Center presents the world premiere of SITI Company’s reimagining of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, co-directed by Anne Bogart ‘74 and Tony Award winner Darron L West. The work, commissioned by the Fisher Center, is the final production in SITI Company’s 30th anniversary “Finale Season,” and runs for three performances, December 16-18.

In its special holiday performance on December 3, the 80-piece Bard Conservatory Orchestra, with a 24-member children’s chorus, takes on Tchaikovsky’s score for perhaps the most widely performed holiday classic, the two-act ballet The Nutcracker. The concert showcases the skill of the exceptional young players comprising the orchestra. It gives Fisher Center audiences a world-class rendering of the music, which Bard visiting associate professor of music Peter Laki, in a program note, contends is “the only thing critics liked about the piece from the start,” and is “what has ensured The Nutcracker’s place in the repertoire for 130 years, and is likely to keep it there.”

After fruitful work-in-progress performances in December 2021, SITI Company returns to the Fisher Center to premiere a uniquely SITI A Christmas Carol. They conjure the ghosts of the past, present, and future to speak to our society’s immediate need for gratitude, charity, fairness, justice, and equity. The cast includes Akiko Aizawa, Will Bond, Gian-Murray Gianino, Leon Inguslrud, Ellen Lauren, Kelly Maurer, Barney O’Hanlon, Stephen Duff Webber, and special guests Violeta Picayo and Donnell E. Smith. The production features costumes and scenery by James Schuette, lighting by Brian H Scott, and sound by Darron L West.

Gideon Lester, Artistic Director of the Fisher Center, says, “For 30 years, the legendary SITI Company has been one of the most inspiring and influential American theater ensembles. It’s an honor for the Fisher Center at Bard to collaborate with the company to create their ‘finale’ production—a wholly original adaptation of A Christmas Carol that brings Dickens’ words to new life through the theatrical power of imagination—in SITI’s inimitable style. Anne Bogart is a Bard alum, so this is a fitting homecoming. We’re delighted to continue our collaboration with her at her alma mater and to welcome her superb collaborators back to the Sosnoff Theater.”

Anne Bogart has said, “SITI Company and I are thrilled to return to Bard to share our encounter with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I graduated from Bard in 1974, and my trajectory was deeply affected by all of my experiences there. Bard instilled in me a sense of adventure and an enduring curiosity.”

Performance Schedule and Tickets

Bard Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, performs The Nutcracker on Saturday, December 3, at 8 pm EST, in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. In-person tickets are available for a suggested donation of $15–20, and livestream access is pay-what-you-wish.

Fisher Center presents SITI Company’s A Christmas Carol Friday, December 16, at 8 pm; Saturday, December 17, at 6 pm; and Sunday, December 18, at 2 pm. Tickets are $25–65, with $5 tickets for Bard students made possible by the Passloff Pass and a 20% discount for groups of six or more.

Tickets for both events can be reserved at fishercenter.bard.edu, by phone at 845-758-7900 (Monday–Friday, 10 am–5 pm EST), or by email at [email protected].

The Bard Conservatory of Music presents Uncaged, a centennial concert in honor of John Cage performed by the Bard Conservatory Orchestra under the direction of Tan Dun. The first part of the program features John Cage’s Credo in US (1942); Third Construction (1941), with members of the Conservatory percussion studio; 4′ 33″ (1952); and Atlas Eclipticalis (1961-62). Following a 15-minute intermission, the second part of the concert features Tan Dun’s Percussion Concerto: The Tears of Nature (2012). The performance will be held on Friday, November 4 at 8 pm in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. Tickets are $15-$20 suggested donation. Virtual livestream tickets are pay-what-you-wish. To reserve tickets, visit fishercenter.bard.edu, call 845-758-7900 (Mon-Fri 10 am-5 pm), or email [email protected].

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. Tan Dun is Dean of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. As dean, Tan Dun further demonstrates 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 Principal 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.

Renée Anne Louprette, assistant professor of music, director of the Bard Baroque Ensemble, and College organist, is spending her fall semester sabbatical conducting research supported by a Fulbright US Scholar Award in Brașov, Romania. Hosted by Transylvania University, Louprette’s project focuses on the rich cultural heritage of historic pipe organs in the Transylvanian region and the efforts of local artisans to rescue, preserve, and restore these instruments. She has given recital performances in the urban centers of Brașov and Sibiu, completed audio and video recordings of 18th-century instruments in fortified churches of Mediaș, Saschiz, and Hărman, and of the 1930 Wegenstein organ in the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Bucharest. She is also conducting interviews and collecting critical documentation related to notable 18th-century organ builders and recent restorations. She hopes that these efforts will help cast new light on this precious musical heritage unique to Romania as a cross-cultural center of Eastern Europe.

Jessie Montgomery, composer in residence at Bard, has been named Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year. “Jessie Montgomery grew up surrounded by jazz and activism. A  Juilliard-trained violinist, she gravitated towards composition in her 20s, and later learned to associate her own Black identity with her music. The resulting body of work has been embraced all around the world for its freshness and energy,” writes Musical America. The 62nd annual Musical America awards will be presented at an awards ceremony in New York City on December 4.

Bard composer in residence Missy Mazzoli (2022) and Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts Joan Tower (2020) were recent recipients of this award.

Lucy Fitz Gibbon, Bard Conservatory voice faculty, releases a new album, the labor of forgetting, the inaugural album from independent label False Azure Records, on November 4. The album features husband-and-wife duo soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and pianist Ryan McCullough performing three world premieres by composers Katherine Balch and Dante De Silva, with new poetry by Katie Ford. “Though sonically distinct, each of the included works explores the effects of time and distance on memory and human relationships, a fitting response to the lingering isolation and irreality of the last several years,” writes the record label of the album.

Countertenor Chuanyuan Liu, who graduated from the Bard Conservatory of Music’s Vocal Arts Program in 2021, has been named a grantee of the Met’s Education Fund. Education Fund grants are available to semifinalists, finalists, and Grand Finals winners of the Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition, following an audition with the Met artistic staff. The grants are intended to support the development of these young artists and are made possible by the generosity of donors. Since the 2021 Laffont semifinals, Chuanyuan Liu has been involved in three world premiere projects: Pittsburgh Opera’s production of In a Grove, with music by Christopher Cerrone and libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann; Philadelphia Orchestra’s concert version of Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce’s The Hours; and Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang's highly anticipated new opera M. Butterfly 蝴蝶君 at Santa Fe Opera. Liu has committed himself to an Asian-focused project each year stating, “as someone who grew up in China and spent all of my adulthood in the US, I have seen firsthand the differences but also the common ground. I want to use as much power as I have to build a bridge.”

Pianist Jong Sun Woo, who graduated from the Bard Conservatory of Music’s Advanced Performance Studies Program in 2018, is the recipient of the 2022 Gerald Moore Award for outstanding piano accompanists. With this award, she will receive a prize of £5,000 and the opportunity to play at London’s prestigious Wigmore Hall. The Gerald Moore Award is presented biennially to exceptional piano accompanists, usually in the early stages of very promising careers. Now in its 30th year, the Gerald Moore Award has been its own registered charity but from 2022 has made its new home at the UK’s Royal Philharmonic Society. “My favourite activity as a child was to play pretend with a friend. Playing the song repertoire is not far from that . . . Being a song pianist means that I have the limitless possibilities of parallel universes under my fingers,” said Woo.

For Opera News, David Shengold reviews the Bard College Conservatory of Music’s March 2022 production of Richard Strauss’s opera Salome with libretto by Oscar Wilde, directed by R. B. Schlather. In his review, he praises the Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein. “The performance also aroused admiration for the Bard Conservatory Orchestra: the eighty-six student players for Salome orchestra played the difficult score with notable beauty and precision,” he writes.  The Fisher Center staging was directed by R. B. Schlather.

Stephen Jones, who graduated from the Bard College Conservatory’s Advanced Performance Studies (APS) Program in 2019, joins the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra as Assistant Principal Bass in the 2022-23 season. Following extensive national auditions, Jones won the Trish & Rick Bryan Chair, a tenure-track position with the orchestra. “Each of these musicians won highly competitive auditions, joining the ranks of the exceptional players who make up the CSO,” said President and CEO of the CSO Jonathan Martin.

Jones began playing the double bass at the age of 13 and later received his undergraduate degree from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with James VanDemark followed by additional studies at Bard College with Leigh Mesh. During his time at Bard he received additional coaching from Daniel Phillips of the Orion Quartet, Tara Hellen O'Connor, Lera Auerbach and Dawn Upshaw. He has recently completed his master’s degree at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where he studied with Owen Lee.

 

The Bard College Conservatory of Music has appointed acclaimed composers Jessie Montgomery and Missy Mazzoli to the faculty as composers in residence. Composer, violinist, and educator Montgomery has been called “One of the most distinctive and communicative voices in the US, as a player and a creator” (BBC). Grammy-nominated composer, pianist, and keyboardist Mazzoli was recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (New York Times). They both join the Bard Conservatory in fall 2022.

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. A recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, Montgomery’s 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 profoundly felt 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”—for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation, which was presented in its UK premiere at the BBC Proms on 7 August 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 (7 August); a site-specific collaboration with Bard SummerScape Festival and Pam Tanowitz Dance, I was waiting for the echo of a better day (8 July); and Passacaglia, a flute quartet for The National Flute Association’s 49th annual convention (13 August).

Since 1999, Montgomery 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 is professor of violin and composition at The New School. In May 2021, she began her three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. jessiemontgomery.com

Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (New York 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 Mazzoli 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. 

Mazzoli’s 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. 

Mazzoli 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, Mazzoli 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. 

Mazzoli attended the Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and Boston University.  She has studied with (in no particular order) David Lang, Louis Andriessen, Martin Bresnick, Aaron Jay Kernis, Martijn Padding, Richard Ayres, John Harbison, Charles Fussell, Martin Amlin, Marco Stroppa, Ladislav Kubik, Louis DeLise and Richard Cornell. Her works are published by G. Schirmer. missymazzoli.com

The Borromeo String Quartet (BSQ), now entering its 33rd season, will welcome violist and Bard Conservatory faculty member Melissa Reardon as the newest member of the ensemble. Reardon takes the place of Mai Motobuchi, who is retiring from performing after a remarkable 22-year tenure in the quartet. Leading a multifaceted career, Reardon is an artist in residence at Bard College and the Bard Conservatory, artistic director of the Portland Chamber Music Festival, and a founding member and executive director of East Coast Chamber Orchestra.

A Grammy-nominated performer, Reardon was the violist of the Ensō Quartet from 2006 to 2018. On joining the BSQ, she says, “I have long admired the Borromeo String Quartet and I feel so incredibly excited and lucky to join Nick Kitchen, Kris Tong, and Yeesun Kim. I have some big shoes to fill and hope to honor Mai Motobuchi’s legacy in the group. It is a dream come true to have the opportunity to play quartets with these musicians!” Reardon begins performing with the BSQ in August 2022.

Viveca Lawrie wasn’t looking to come to Bard. She was discovered—by a member of the faculty at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. 
 
Lawrie recalls that Edward Carroll, who teaches trumpet, heard her play and asked her to apply to Bard. She enrolled in the Conservatory, as a bachelor of music student in trumpet performance, and in the College, as a bachelor or arts student majoring in French studies, with a concentration in medieval studies. “The double degree appealed to me,” says the Sedona, Arizona, native. “Trumpet and French are two things I enjoy.” 
 
Her first impression of Bard was of “a beautiful campus.” Her next impression was one of welcome. “It’s a small community and I felt part of it right away.” She soon met Karen Sullivan, Irma Brandeis Professor of Romance Literature and Culture, “and that set me up for the rest of my academic career.” She credits Sullivan with teaching classes “that were 100 percent fun,” and Carroll with “being on board with my love of contemporary music, and help with the technical side” of horn virtuosity. “Bard is very good at matching you with someone,” she says. 
 
At the Conservatory, she and colleagues played together and critiqued one another in “brass class.” “We are a tight-knit group. We really support each other,” she says. “Elsewhere there’s competition, but it’s never been that way here.” 
 
At Bard, “I definitely learned how to write an essay and push the boundaries of how to study.” A surprise was realizing how much she enjoyed academic research and “learning history from the perspective not of the conqueror but of those not in power. This is something that will forever influence how I approach all my research.”
 
With work for her Senior Project in Welsh Arthurian legend, and her Graduation Recital in trumpet, she has little time for extracurricular activities. But she works in the Conservatory audio-visual office on live streaming and recording, and gave AV assistance to a student-organized concert to benefit a Conservatory student whose family is suffering from consequences of COVID-19.
 
For Lawrie, that kind of outreach exemplifies the Bard community. “I meet people who are interested in what I’m doing and I’m open to what they’re doing. It’s healthy that we all show such curiosity.”
 
After graduation, she plans to apply to an MA program in Wales, then a PhD in comparative literature; she also wants to commission composers of contemporary works. “I think people should have multiple options,” she says.
 
How should high school students prepare for Bard? “Come with an open mind. I can’t stress enough how wonderful a preparation Bard’s Language and Thinking Program is for thinking about the world.” She adds, “And come uncomfortable, because you won’t be used to such focused thinking. But don’t feel afraid of it, and be open to listening to others.” 
 
Bard has changed Lawrie’s life in myriad ways. “I am a lot more confident,” she says. “As a homeschooled student, I learned to live on my own. Here I’ve learned how to make friends. I’ve learned—through the support system, counseling, and Upper College students who do tutorials—how to deal when things don’t go my way. Every professor lets me know I can come to them with any problem, especially in the Conservatory. And the French Studies Program has more of a support system than I could imagine, in terms of recommendations, tutoring, wanting to help. Not a lot of colleges have that.”

Micah Gleason GCP ’21, VAP ’22 is currently the music director and conductor on a project in residency at the cell theatre in Manhattan. The Final Veil is a new movement chamber opera based on the true story of Franceska Mann, a Polish-Jewish ballet and burlesque dancer who was captured by the Nazis and used her skills as a dancer to attempt to escape. It was composed by JL Marlor and co-conceived with dancer/director Cassandra Rosebeetle. The show also includes two current VAP students, Abby Cheng and Katherine Lerner-Lee.

Performances are July 14–31, on Thursday Friday, Saturday at 8pm, and Sunday at 5pm at the cell theatre. Book tickets and learn more here.
 

Bard Conservatory of Music horn faculty member Barbara Jöstlein Currie will perform and teach at the International Horn Society symposium at Texas A&M University in Kingsville, Texas. Performing the opening event recital together with fellow Bard horn faculty member Julia Pilant, they will be joined by Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Horn Jennifer Montone. For this recital, Currie commissioned a new piece for horn and piano from Bard Advanced Performance Studies horn student Liri Ronen. The piece is called “Verdant Place,” which is Ronen’s translation of the German title “Anmutige Gegend,” from Faust, Part II by Goethe. The recital will be held at the school of music Performance Hall at Texas A&M University on Monday, August 1 at 8 pm CT. 

Other events, such as an opera excerpt masterclass and a presentation on “How to Succeed in a Time of Need, the Story of the Met Orchestra during the Pandemic,” will be given by on Tuesday, August 2. 

Currie has invented an accessory for brass instruments and created a new company called Brass Witch, which will debut at the symposium. 
Using strong NeoDymium “rare Earth” magnets, she found a new way to attach a pencil to all makes and types of brass instruments. This new product is a vast improvement over the existing hard plastic pencil clip which regularly scratches the surfaces of the instrument and frequently falls off of the instrument. This patent-pending design was tested by many of Currie’s Met Orchestra colleagues, many of whom are also Bard faculty members. Being used in such a rigorous environment such as during 6-hour-long performances of Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger”, or while teaching outside in a tent at Bard during the early stages of the pandemic were great practical ways to test the durability of the product. 

For more information, please visit Brass Witch.

“Bard College's Graduate Vocal Arts Program produced a lively, delightful and musically assured staging of Leoš Janáček's nonpareil Cunning Little Vixen,” writes David Shengold for Opera News. “Doug Fitch's handsome, inventive production and James Bagwell's assured musical direction demonstrated their understanding of this very particular—even peculiar—piece. [...] Bagwell led the youthful Orchestra Now with considerable grace.”