Bard Conservatory News Archive

"I've always loved to teach," says Professor Tower. "I do it because I love working with young composers."

Bard professor George Tsontakis's String Quartet No. 7 will have its world premiere this weekend in the final concert of the 2013–2014 season of Chamber Music Monterey Bay in Carmel, California.

Josh Hodge '14 has successfully navigated the rigorous five-year, dual-degree program required by the Bard College Conservatory of Music while also competing as a varsity athlete for the college. Hodge is the principal bassoonist in the Conservatory Orchestra. He's also been the captain of the men's swimming team for two years and is running track this spring. Now, as he looks forward to graduate school in the fall, he reflects on his time at Bard.

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College presents the American Symphony Orchestra on Friday, April 11, and Saturday, April 12, at 8 p.m. The program includes Johann Strauss Jr.’s Emperor Waltz, Accelerations, and On the Beautiful Blue Danube; Julius Conus’s Violin Concerto, featuring Zhi Ma ’15, violin; and Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2. The concert will be conducted by Leon Botstein, music director. There will be a special preconcert talk by Alexander Bonus, assistant professor of music at Bard College, beginning at 7 p.m.

The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents Conservatory Sundays: Sō Percussion and Bard Percussion with guest artist Blair McMillen. The ensembles perform works by Kyle Gann, Steve Reich, John Cage, Daníel Bjarnason, and Martin Bresnick on Sunday, April 6 at 3 p.m. in the Fisher Center. All ticket sales benefit the Conservatory’s Scholarship Fund.

Seven Bard Conservatory students offered a "lively, intimate and playful performance that sometimes left listeners visibly moved" on Sunday at Beattie-Powers Place in Catskill.

Jeremy Denk has been honored with the Avery Fisher Prize, established 40 years ago to recognize musicianship and contributions to the musical world.

Soprano Julia Bullock has won the first prize of the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation’s international vocal competition. Ms. Bullock’s prize includes a $15,000 cash award, two New York concerts, and an unspecified number of concerts elsewhere in the United States.

San Francisco's Cypress String Quartet premiered a new composition by George Tsontakis last week. His String Quartet No. 6 "is warmly shadowed, lyric yet somber. ... It's hypnotic, a work of imagination, a fascination."

Joan Tower sounds off on gender bias in classical music and why it's important that high-profile performers take risks on new compositions.

The Graduate Vocal Arts Program of The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents two professionally staged one-act operas, including the world premiere of Payne Hollow by Shawn Jaeger, conducted by Carl Christian Bettendorf; and The Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten, conducted by James Bagwell. The production is directed by Nicholas Muni and features the talented singers of the Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program and the musicians of the Conservatory Orchestra. All ticket sales benefit the Conservatory’s scholarship fund. Evening and matinée opera performances will take place in the Sosnoff Theater of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts on March 14 and March 16.

An original composition by Dylan Mattingly '14 has been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic for its 2014 season. Mattingly's work will be performed on May 26 at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Jeremy Denk discusses his upcoming recital at Bowling Green State University, and talks about his own personal music history.

At the 56th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony Sunday in Los Angeles, Dawn Upshaw, celebrated soprano and artistic director of The Bard College Conservatory of Music’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, won the Grammy Award for best classical vocal solo, one of three Grammy Awards awarded to Winter Morning Walks, the monumental collaboration between Upshaw and jazz composer Maria Schneider. The album also won for best contemporary classical composition and best engineered album, classical, and also was cited as one of the projects by David Frost, who won the Grammy for producer of the year, classical.

"Superlative singer" Dawn Upshaw discusses her new album, Winter Morning Walks, which, since the publication of this article, has won three Grammy Awards.

In October of this year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted a day of TEDx talks and performances on the theme "Icons." Among the performers were So Percussion, Bard's own Percussion Program faculty.

Winter Morning Walks, a new album by Dawn Upshaw, celebrated soprano and artistic director of the Conservatory’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program, has been nominated for three Grammy awards including Best Contemporary Classical Composition and Best Classical Vocal Solo.

A Greek tragedy, a retuned piano, and many musical Bardians: Dylan Mattingly '14 discusses his composition of The Bakkhai, to be performed at Bard on December 10.

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts presents The Bard College Conservatory Orchestra in concert at the Sosnoff Theater on Sunday, November 10 at 3 p.m. Conducted by Leon Botstein, music director, the Conservatory Orchestra will perform a program that includes Rossini’s Overture to William Tell; Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel; and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 in A Major, Op. 141. The concert is part of the Conservatory Sundays series, and all proceeds will benefit the Scholarship Fund of The Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Jeremy Denk, esteemed pianist and faculty of The Bard College Conservatory of Music, has been named a 2013 MacArthur Fellow. MacArthur Fellowships are awarded to talented individuals in a variety of fields who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self direction. MacArthur Fellows each receive a $625,000 grant that is bestowed with no conditions—recipients may use the money as they see fit. Nominated anonymously by leaders in their respective fields and never notified of their candidacy, the recipients learn of their selection only when they receive a call from the MacArthur Foundation days before the public announcement. Denk is the 12th Bard faculty member to be honored with a MacArthur Fellowship.

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College presents the opening concert of the 2013–14 season of the popular American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) series on Friday, October 25 and Saturday, October 26, at 8 p.m. Featured soloists for the ASO’s fall-spring season include Bard College Conservatory of Music students and Concert Competition winners Fanya Wyrick-Flax ’13, Dongfang Ouyang ’14, and Zhi Ma ’15.

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts presents “Conservatory Sundays: Music Alive!” on Sunday, September 29 at 3 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater. Curated by artistic directors Joan Tower, Grammy Award–winning composer, and Blair McMillen, pianist, this exciting program of 20th- and 21st-century music showcases works performed by students from The Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Music Program.

Vocal Arts Program alumnae Lucy Dhegrae M.M. '12 and Ariadne Greif M.M. '10 performed at the Resonant Bodies Festival in Brooklyn, and will sing at Bard on Sunday in "Dawn Upshaw and Friends."

On September 7, The Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Bard faculty member and renowned composer Joan Tower with a gala, “Joan Tower and Friends Celebrate Her 75th Birthday,” to benefit the Joan Tower Composition Scholarship. The program features Tower’s compositions performed by Tower, Blair McMillen, and Kayo Iwama on piano; soprano Dawn Upshaw; cellist Peter Wiley; violist Steven Tenenbom; the Daedalus Quartet; and the Horszowski Trio.

Bard Conservatory graduate Ming Aldrich-Gan '10 is the music director for Bradley Cole at the New York International Fringe Festival.

On the eve of her first solo concert in Ireland, opera singer Dawn Upshaw talks about her early career and bringing classical music down to earth.

Graduate Vocal Arts Program artistic director Dawn Upshaw talks about teaching music as a profession at the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Bard's new partnership with Soochow University is a first for both institutions, and quite unusual in Chinese education.

Bard Conservatory Percussion Program faculty members Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting—constituting the group So Percussion—team up with composer Dan Trueman on their new album.

Bard Conservatory Vocal Arts Program graduate Julia Bullock receives a rave review for her "full-voiced, stunningly paced account of 'Somewhere,'" in the San Francisco Symphony's concert performance of West Side Story.

So Percussion members and Bard Conservatory faculty Eric Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting will perform at the Make Music New York festival this Friday with artist and percussionist Eli Keszler, using the Manhattan Bridge as a musical instrument.

Emily Reese at Minnesota Public Radio bids a fond farewell to Dawn Upshaw as her six-year artistic partnership with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra draws to a close.

The New York Times praised Julia Bullock's "rosy, agile voice" as Vixen in a production of "The Cunning Little Vixen" at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater in New York City.

Bard faculty member Dawn Upshaw will receive an honorary doctoral degree from the Juilliard School at their commencement this year.

The Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by music director Leon Botstein, is back on stage at the Fisher Center for its final concert of the semester on Saturday, May 11. Called a “genuine talent and profoundly gifted” by Vienna Express, violinist Shmuel Ashkenasi will perform Violin Concerto No. 1 by Prokofiev. The program celebrates the theme for this summer’s Bard Music Festival, “Stravinsky and His World,” and proceeds from the concert benefit the Scholarship Fund of The Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Bard Conservatory's Erica Kiesewetter was the concertmaster of a recent performance of Verdi’s “Lombardi Alla Prima Crociata" at Lincoln Center. The concert received a positive review from the New York Times and Kiesewetter's violin performance was applauded.

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.

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.

Bard's new conservatory building was made possible by alumnus, scientist, author, and activist László Z. Bitó '60.

Morning Edition highlights Dawn Upshaw's new album Winter Morning Walks, a collaboration with jazz composer Maria Schneider.

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.

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.

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.

Dávid discusses the Conservatory's Central European Tour, playing with Contemporaneous, and "Bard’s well-known aptitude for making dreams come true."

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.

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.