Bard Conservatory of Music News Archive

The two-day conference, “Tradition and Discovery: Teaching Chinese Music in the West,” includes guest speakers and concerts featuring performances by celebrated pipa virtuoso Wu Man and the Chinese instrument majors of the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

The Bard College Conservatory Orchestra performs at The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts’s Sosnoff Theater on Saturday, March 9. The performance features  Mark Russell Smith, guest conductor, and five-time Grammy Award–winner soprano Dawn Upshaw in a program that includes Samuel Barber’s Symphony in One Movement, Op. 9; Oliver Knussen’s Requiem—Songs for Sue; and Mussorgsky/Ravel’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The Conservatory Orchestra performs Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 at the Fisher Center on May 10 and May 12, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director, with Eve Gigliotti, mezzo-soprano, the Bard College Chamber Singers, and the Bard Festival Chorale.

The winners of the 2019 Concerto Competition were announced on Sunday, February 17, at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Students in the Bard College Conservatory of Music competed for the honor in two rounds of performances over the course of the weekend. This year&srquo;s winners are: Xinran Li ’20 (Barber Violin Concerto), Jingyu Mao ’19 (Weber Clarinet Concerto No. 1), and Paulina Swierczek ’19 (Strauss Vier Lieder Op. 27). The winners will perform with the Conservatory Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, or the American Symphony Orchestra during the 2019–2020 season.

“I believe it is important for all students—of all instruments and from all countries—to open their ears and minds to the sounds and traditions and musical ideas of other cultures.”