All Bard News by Date
April 2013
04-16-2013
Chorus Master James Bagwell discusses Mahler's Symphony No. 2, which will be performed at the Fisher Center on April 26 and 27 by members of the American Symphony Orchestra, Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, and Longy Conservatory Orchestra.
04-16-2013
Tonight: Bard's Dawn Upshaw and Kayo Iwama will perform at the Longy School of Music of Bard College with the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program, featuring works by Bard students, faculty, and alumni/ae.
04-15-2013
Bard's new conservatory building was made possible by alumnus, scientist, author, and activist László Z. Bitó '60.
04-05-2013
Morning Edition highlights Dawn Upshaw's new album Winter Morning Walks, a collaboration with jazz composer Maria Schneider.
04-03-2013
Dawn Upshaw, whom Opera News calls "a diva of the people and for the people," will be honored in an awards ceremony on April 21.
March 2013
03-25-2013
Sō Percussion and the Bard College Conservatory of Music Percussion Program present their second annual spring concert at the Fisher Center on April 12. Works include music by Steve Reich, Lou Harrison, Paul Lansky, and other recent percussion masterworks.
03-21-2013
The celebration on April 14 will include an open house with chamber music performances, followed by a celebration in the performance hall at 4 p.m., with Conservatory director Robert Martin; musical performances by students of the Conservatory and Bard’s Music Program; a reading by acclaimed poet Robert Kelly, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature; and remarks by László Z. Bitó ’60 and Bard College president Leon Botstein.
03-19-2013
Dávid discusses the Conservatory's Central European Tour, playing with Contemporaneous, and "Bard’s well-known aptitude for making dreams come true."
03-18-2013
Bard College first-year percussion student Chris Gunnell was featured in the annual report of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation. Chris is pursuing a five-year dual degree at Bard, studying music at the Conservatory as well as philosophy and social policy at the College.
03-18-2013
Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Music, will receive an honorary degree from Smith College at their commencement in May. Professor Tower has taught at Bard College since 1972. She is regarded as one of the most important living American composers, and has made lasting contributions as composer, performer, conductor, and educator in a career spanning more than 50 years.
03-11-2013
President Botstein conducted the American Symphony Orchestra in a clarinet concerto by Bard Conservatory faculty member Harold Farberman, as well as Anton Bruckner’s rarely-performed Eighth Symphony.
03-04-2013
Violinist Sabrina Tabby is in her fourth year in the Bard Conservatory's dual-degree program. She performs with student music ensemble Contemporaneous and recently returned from the Conservatory's tour of central Europe.
03-01-2013
The Almanac looks at this historic piece and previews the performance, featuring members of the Bard Conservatory Orchestra and singers from the Bard Chamber Singers and the Graduate Vocal Arts Program.
February 2013
02-25-2013
Students and faculty of the Bard Conservatory performed at the Morgan Library in Manhattan, featuring new works composed by Bard faculty, as well as current students and recent alumni of Bard College and Conservatory.
02-25-2013
Bard College president Leon Botstein has been awarded the Bruckner Society Medal of Honor in recognition of his exemplary work in furthering the understanding and appreciation of the life and work of Anton Bruckner. The award was presented on February 24 at a concert of the American Symphony Orchestra in New York City, before a performance of Bruckner's Symphony No. 8.
02-20-2013
“The Secret Listener,” a lecture and recital including a performance of Robert Schumann’s Phantasie, will be presented by acclaimed pianist/conductor Jeffrey Kahane, on Monday, March 4, at 8 p.m. in Olin Hall.
02-18-2013
The Fisher Center presents J. S. Bach’s sacred oratorio St. John Passion, featuring members of the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, with singers from the Bard College Chamber Singers and the Graduate Vocal Arts Program, with James Bagwell, choral director.
02-14-2013
Acclaimed soprano Dawn Upshaw and singers from her graduate Vocal Arts Program at The Bard College Conservatory of Music perform a concert of contemporary songs featuring the world premier of a work by George Tsontakis as well as new works composed by current students and recent alumni of the Conservatory and the Longy School of Music of Bard College. The performance takes place on Tuesday, February 19 at 8:00 p.m.
02-07-2013
Bard Conservatory student and economics major Chi-Hui Yen opens the "Bard at Beattie" 2013 season at Beattie-Powers Place in Catskill on Sunday.
02-06-2013
Bard College Conservatory of Music professor Jeffrey Kahane talks about his musical values, teaching philosophy, and the Conservatory.
02-06-2013
The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts presents the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra on Sunday, February 17. The program includes Ottorino Respighi’s Fountains of Rome; Krzysztof Penderecki’s Viola Concerto, with Lin Wang, viola; and Sergey Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet.
December 2012
12-23-2012
12-18-2012
12-15-2012
The Preparatory Division of The Bard College Conservatory of Music is announcing the creation of a new Preparatory Orchestra, for students aged 8 through 18. All orchestral instruments will be included, and young musicians of all levels of ability are welcome.
12-07-2012
On Sunday, December 9, 2012, the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra performs Haydn, Dvořák, and a world premiere by Christopher Swist, with guest conductor Marcelo Lehninger MFA ’07.
November 2012
11-15-2012
11-13-2012
11-05-2012
The Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle and the Preparatory Division of The Bard College Conservatory of Music present a Family Concert on Saturday, November 10, at 4 p.m. in the Bard Chapel. Admission is free of charge; all donations support the Bard Conservatory Preparatory Division scholarship fund.
11-01-2012
October 2012
10-31-2012
The Graduate Conducting Program of The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents an evening of music by Harold Farberman, founder and artistic director of The Conductors Institute at Bard College, on Friday, November 9, at 8 p.m. in Olin Hall. The concert features Marka Gustavsson, viola; Sō Percussion; and Farberman’s students in the Graduate Conducting Program. A reception will follow the program. Admission is free and no reservations are necessary.
10-08-2012
The Fisher Center and Bard College Conservatory present Conservatory Sundays, October 14, 21, and 28, and December 9.
10-07-2012
Last summer, the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra toured greater China, performing in Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Guangzhou over three weeks. In this video, conservatory students discuss tourism, culture, and developing identity as an orchestra during the tour.
September 2012
09-10-2012
09-08-2012
Bard Conservatory students are ambitious and versatile. In this video, students and faculty talk about how the Conservatory's unique double-degree program affords a rigorous and well-rounded education in music and the liberal arts.
August 2012
08-07-2012
Highlights Include Amanda Palmer and The Grand Theft Orchestra, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, American Ballet Theatre, Conservatory Sunday Series, American Symphony Orchestra Concerts, Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, and John Cage: On & Off the Air!
08-05-2012
Contemporaneous is an ensemble of student musicians dedicated to performing new music by student composers. The group released their first album, Stream of Stars: Music of Dylan Mattingly, in 2012, and performs regularly on the Bard campus and in the greater region.
July 2012
07-06-2012
May 2012
05-02-2012
For three weeks in June 2012 the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by President Botstein, will tour greater China, performing in Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, and Guangzhou.
March 2012
03-28-2012
03-15-2012
On the cutting edge of contemporary classical, So Percussion is training Bard Conservatory students in the percussion program's debut year.
03-14-2012
"Conservatory Sundays: Music Alive!" features 40 conservatory students in an exciting program of 20th- and 21st-century music.
03-12-2012
03-09-2012
February 2012
02-20-2012
James Bagwell has taught at Bard College since 2000, where he is the chair of the undergraduate Music Program and codirector of the Graduate Program in Conducting.
He maintains an active schedule throughout the United States as a conductor of choral, operatic, and orchestral music. In 2009 he was appointed music director of The Collegiate Chorale and led the ensemble in concerts at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall during the 2009–10 season. He is the principal guest conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra in New York, and since 2003 has been director of choruses for the Bard Music Festival, conducting and preparing choral works during the summer festival at Bard College. He has also prepared The Concert Chorale of New York for performances with the American Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Mostly Mozart Festival (broadcast nationally in 2006 on Live from Lincoln Center), all in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Bagwell has trained choruses for a number of major American and international orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NHK Symphony (Japan), St. Petersburg Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, among others, and has worked with noted conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Leon Botstein, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Robert Shaw. He holds degrees from Birmingham-Southern College, Florida State University, and Indiana University.02-17-2012
January 2012
01-13-2012
Internationally renowned soprano Dawn UpshawCharles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor of the Arts and Humanities and artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard Conservatory of Musichas been a member of the Bard College faculty since 2004.
A four-time Grammy Award winner, Upshaw is featured on more than 50 recordings, including the million-selling Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Gorecki. Her discography also includes full-length opera recordings of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro; Messiaen’s St. Francois d’Assise; Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress; John Adams’s El Niño; two volumes of Canteloube’s “Songs of the Auvergne”; and a dozen recital recordings. Upshaw made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1984 and has since achieved worldwide celebrity. She is known for singing the great Mozart roles (Pamina, Ilia, Susanna, Despina) as well as works by Bach, Bartók, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Messiaen, Debussy, and John Adams. She has performed with James Levine, Sir Simon Rattle, Gilbert Kalish, Kronos Quartet, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia Symphony Orchestras, among others. She was the first singer to be named a “Perspectives” Artist by Carnegie Hall, and was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 2007. She earned her B.A. from Illinois Wesleyan University and M.A. from the Manhattan School of Music; she holds honorary doctorate degrees from Yale, the Manhattan School of Music, Allegheny College, and Illinois Wesleyan University. She is also a faculty member of the Tanglewood Music Center.01-13-2012
Since 1972, Joan Tower has taught at Bard College, where she is Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts. She is regarded as one of the most important living American composers. During a career spanning more than 50 years, Tower has made lasting contributions as composer, performer, conductor, and educator.
She has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Houston Symphonies, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center Chamber Society, among many other major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras. She was the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission for 65 orchestras. Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony recorded her composition Made in America in 2008; the album collected three Grammy awards. In 1990, she became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders. Other accolades include an honorary degree from the New England Conservatory (2006), the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Composer of the Year (2010–11), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts. She received her B.A. at Bennington College and her M.A. and D.M.A. at Columbia University. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1998).December 2011
12-08-2011
The seventh annual Concerto Competition, presented by The Bard College Conservatory of Music, took place at Bard College with a preliminary round on Saturday, November 19, and a final round on Sunday, November 20. The eight finalists performed in the Sosnoff Theater of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, competing for the opportunity to perform with the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra and the American Symphony Orchestra.
12-04-2011
The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents the Conservatory Orchestra in a matinee concert at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts's Sosnoff Theater. Conducted by music director Leon Botstein and featuring guest soloist Jeremy Denk, piano, the Conservatory Orchestra will perform Charles Ives's "Decoration Day" and "Fourth of July" from A Symphony: New England Holidays; Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37; and Mahler's Symphony No. 5.
12-04-2011
Dan Deacon and So Percussion, Ghostbuster Cook: Origin of the Riddler: During the Ecstatic Music Festival, So Percussion teamed up with the swami of dance-party electronica, Dan Deacon. Ghostbuster turned out to be a loose, ornate symphony for soda bottles, marimbas, and one loud laptop. The piece does for the rave what Bartok did for Hungarian folk music: sublimate the urge to dance into a visceral concert experience.