Bard Conservatory News Archive

Professor of Music James Bagwell, director of the music program at Bard College and director of performance studies in the Bard College Conservatory of Music, has been announced as the principal conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, as well as principal conductor and director of choral music at the Berkshire Bach Society. Bagwell will assume a central artistic leadership role with Tulsa Symphony, helping shape programming and performances as the orchestra continues to expand its artistic vision and community impact. Bagwell was recognized by both organizations for the role he has played over the past two decades in creating a consistent record of excellence in choral performance. “These two appointments mark the culmination of a long artistic association with the Tulsa Symphony and Berkshire Bach,” said Bagwell. “I look forward to many more years of artistic collaborations with these two prestigious organizations.”

He has been a regular guest conductor for the Tulsa Symphony since 2007, leading it in performances of Mozart’s Requiem and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, returning in subsequent seasons to conduct Britten’s War Requiem, and Mahler’s First Symphony. “We are thrilled to welcome James Bagwell as principal conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra,” said Morgan Walker, executive director of Tulsa. “His long-standing relationship with the orchestra, combined with his depth of experience and artistic leadership, makes him the ideal partner as we look ahead to an exciting new chapter.” 

Bagwell, who additionally serves as codirector of the Bard Conservatory Graduate Program in conducting and is associate conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), also frequently appears as a guest conductor for orchestras around the country and abroad, including the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Interlochen Music Festival, and the Jerusalem Symphony. “I’ve long admired James Bagwell’s work as a choral conductor,” said Eugene Drucker, artistic director of Berkshire Bach, “specifically in the Berkshire Bach Society vocal concerts for which I’ve had the pleasure of serving as his concertmaster, and more generally in his meticulous preparation of the chorus for opera productions at Bard College’s Summerscape and for oratorio performances with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.” 

The Music Program, one of the largest programs on Bard’s campus, provides a wide range of musical concentrations, from classical composition and performance to jazz, electronic music, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory. 
 

The US-China Music Institute's eighth annual conference on Chinese Music in the West was highlighted in China Daily. The three-day program brought together renowned guzheng masters from China, musicians from across North America, and young student performers for a gathering of artistic exchange, collaboration, and performance. The event culminated in a special performance by the Gu Zheng Tianxia Ensemble, held at Olin Hall at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, which featured 40 guzheng players, “their sound flowing as one and filling the hall with a powerful, continuous wave of music,” writes China Daily. The guzheng, one of China's most recognizable traditional instruments, has become increasingly popular in China and the West as musicians explore new techniques and forms of innovation while maintaining the instrument’s traditional character, said Cai Jindong, director of the US-China Music Institute. 

A dual opera performance featuring Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amelia Goes to the Ball and Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, performed by the Bard College Conservatory of Music and Graduate Vocal Arts Program, was reviewed in the Millbrook Independent. “This production was both local treat and professional declaration,” writes Kevin McEneaney, adding that “The audience responded with vivid acclamation.” Menotti’s opera relays the story of an Italian socialite’s navigation of hurdles to attend the season’s first ball, while Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi transforms a Dantean tale of fraud into a masterclass of operatic irony and memorable motifs. “The chorus sang with probing, elevated emotion and remarkably tight harmony,” continued McEneaney. “Both witty operettas celebrate skillful women in a male-dominated society.”

The seventh annual Sound of Spring concert celebrating the Chinese New Year, which premiered earlier this month at the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater, was reviewed in China Daily and the Millbrook Independent. The concert focused on the Lunar New Year of the horse, with performances including the Light Calvary Overture by Franz von Suppé and the Capriccio Xu Beihong by Huang Anlun. Writing for China Daily, Minlu Zhang interviewed attendees including composer Daniel Asia, who said, “'It was a wonderful concert, very varied [in] repertoire, timbre, and sounds.” Zhang also interviewed director of the US-China Music Institute Cai Jindong, who said, “When people talk about China-US relations, they often look at it from a political angle… [but through] music, Eastern and Western music can be connected. We can use a theme like the horse to allow everyone to express their feelings together.”

The concert was also reviewed by Kevin T. McEneaney for the Millbrook Independent, who describes the concert as “a mélange of city and landscape visions that brought the listener to lean into the direction of the hypnotic orchestra.” “An unexpected and lengthy encore featuring [musician and composer] Yazhi Guo on bass suona” concluded the concert, which he describes as “the most memorable encore that my ears have ever heard.”

Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts Joan Tower was awarded the Dean’s Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). The Dean’s Award is given to Columbia alumni/ae who achieve outstanding success in their field and have a positive impact on the world at large. “Through a prolific body of commissioned works, sustained mentorship of generations of composers, and a bold, distinctive musical voice, you have expanded both the possibilities and the audiences of modern classical Composition,” wrote GSAS Dean Carlos Alonso of Tower’s achievement.

Tower has taught at Bard since 1972. She is a renowned composer, performer, and conductor and her works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets and soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, and John Browning. She teaches at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, which aims to provide the best possible preparation for students immersed in the creation and performance of music.

The Bard Conservatory of Music presents the seventh season of the Kurtág Festival, Signs, Games & Messages, honoring Hungarian composer György Kurtág’s 100th birthday. The 2026 edition highlights the clarity, precision, and expressive depth of Kurtág’s music, and places his work in dialogue with composers and traditions important to him, including both predecessors and contemporaries.

“Our 2026 Kurtág Festival is the heart of the centenary celebrations in North America, bringing a program that reflects the depth of Kurtág’s musical legacy,” says Artistic Director Benjamin Hochman. “We are pleased to welcome Benjamin Appl, András Kemenes, and András Szalai—artists who have worked closely with Kurtág—and to showcase the central role Bard Conservatory faculty and students play in this festival.”

The festival presents solo, vocal, and chamber works by Kurtág alongside music by Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Bartók, Benjamin, Abrahamsen, Adès, and others, including U.S. premieres of selections from the later volumes of Játékok. The programming brings together Bard faculty, students, and artists closely connected to Kurtág, reflecting the collaborative spirit that defines the festival.
Most of the festival events (March 11, 27, 28, 29) take place at Bard College’s Annandale campus, with one event (April 4) at the Brooklyn Public Library. All on-campus performances are free and open to the public.

Artists performing in the festival include Benjamin Appl (baritone); Demian Austin (trombone); James Baillieu (piano); Sydney Cornett (mezzo-soprano); Luosha Fang (violin); Lucy Fitz Gibbons (soprano); Benjamin Hochman (piano); András Kemenes (piano); Alexandra Knoll (oboe); Ryan McCullough (piano); Marcus Rojas (tuba); Erika Switzer (piano); András Szalai (cimbalom); and additional faculty and students of the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

About György Kurtág and the Kurtág Festival
Bard Conservatory of Music’s annual Kurtág Festival celebrates the last surviving member of the great generation of composers who gave classical music a new direction in the years following World War II. György Kurtág, a seminal figure of the post–World War II musical avant-garde, is celebrated for his intensely expressive music and influential teaching. Born in Romania in 1926, he moved to Hungary to study and later teach at the Franz Liszt Academy. Now recognized as one of the foremost composers of our time, he premiered his first opera, Fin de partie, at La Scala in 2018. After years in Western Europe, he returned to Hungary in 2015, where he continues to compose. He turns 100 in February 2026.

About the Bard College Conservatory
Founded in 2005, the Bard College Conservatory of Music offers a unique five-year, double-degree program at the undergraduate level, integrating rigorous musical training with a liberal arts education. Graduate programs include vocal arts, conducting, instrumental performance, and Chinese music and culture, along with Advanced Performance Studies and a Collaborative Piano Fellowship. The Conservatory’s US-China Music Institute, formed in 2017, offers the only degree programs in Chinese instrument performance in the Western Hemisphere. The Bard Conservatory Orchestra has performed at Lincoln Center, toured internationally to China, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Cuba, and in collaboration with the Bard Prison Initiative presents annual performances at NY-area prisons. The Conservatory enrolls more than 200 students from 27 countries and 35 states. bard.edu/conservatory

Funding Credit
This festival has been permanently endowed through the generous support of László Z. Bitó '60 and Olivia Cariño.

 

​​Festival Programs

Program One, Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 7pm
Olin Hall, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Kurtág and the Lieder Tradition
Baritone Benjamin Appl joins pianists Erika Switzer, James Baillieu, and Benjamin Hochman for a program that places Kurtág’s vocal writing in conversation with the 19th-century Lieder tradition. Music by Schubert and Schumann appears alongside Kurtág’s Four Schuster Songs and Hölderlin-Gesänge, Op. 35a. Demian Austin (trombone) and Marcus Rojas (tuba) contribute to the Hölderlin-Gesänge, and Hochman performs solo selections from Játékok.
 
Program Two, Friday, March 27, 2026, 7pm
Conservatory Performance Space, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Abrahamsen’s Schnee
The festival weekend’s opening night program features Hans Abrahamsen’s masterpiece Schnee, a one-hour cycle of ten canons for nine instruments, inspired by Bach’s canonic writing. The work is performed by an ensemble of Conservatory faculty, students, and guest artists, conducted by Benjamin Hochman. The program also includes George Benjamin’s arrangement of a Canon & Fugue from Bach’s Art of Fugue, as well as solo piano selections from Kurtág’s Játékok.
 
Program Three, Saturday, March 28, 2026, 1pm
Conservatory Performance Space, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Bach Inventions and Sinfonias
Students from across the Bard Conservatory perform Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias in a 50-minute recital. The program highlights Bach’s central place in Kurtág’s music and the composers’ shared interest in pedagogical composition.

Program Four, Saturday, March 28, 2026, 7pm
Chapel of the Holy Innocents, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Songs, Laments, Dances, Games
This program puts a special spotlight on the cimbalom, with Hungarian Fulbright Scholar András Szalai performing alongside Bard Conservatory students and faculty. The concert features musical works within the Hungarian tradition, including Bartok, Kurtág, Ligeti, and Thomas Adès’s Növények for mezzo-soprano and piano sextet.

Program Five, Sunday, March 29, 2026, 3pm
Conservatory Performance Space, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Kurtág, Mozart, and the Bach Family
Hungarian pianist András Kemenes makes his U.S. debut with solo works by C. P. E. Bach and later performs two-piano works from Kurtág’s Bach transcriptions and Mozart’s Six German Dances, K. 509, with pianist Benjamin Hochman. Conservatory woodwind students and faculty perform Kurtág’s Wind Quintet, Op. 2, and Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds, K. 452.
 
Program Six, Saturday, April 4, 2026, 4 pm
Brooklyn Public Library, NYC
The Brooklyn Public Library presents a special event in collaboration with the Bard Conservatory’s Kurtág Festival. The concert program will include highlights from the Bard Kurtág Festival alongside a panel discussion on Kurtág’s life and work led by scholar Gergely Fazekas, Associate Professor at the Liszt Academy.