About the Bard Conservatory

Music, like all art, engages the mind and the heart.

It redefines boundaries and questions limits in order to make a meaningful statement about the human condition. The education of the mind is, therefore, as important as the education of the fingers. The greatest musicians not only have the technical mastery to communicate effectively but also are deeply curious, and equally adept at analytical and emotional modes of thought.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT FOR BARD COLLEGE IN ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON

Developed in Cooperation with the Stockbridge-Munsee Community

In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who are the original stewards of the land. Today, due to forced removal, the community resides in Northeast Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We honor and pay respect to their ancestors past and present, as well as to future generations, and we recognize their continuing presence in their homelands. We understand that our acknowledgment requires those of us who are settlers to recognize our own place in and responsibilities toward addressing inequity, and that this ongoing and challenging work requires that we commit to real engagement with the Munsee and Mohican communities to build an inclusive and equitable space for all.

This land acknowledgment, adopted in 2020, required establishing and maintaining long-term, and evolving, relationships with the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. The Mellon Foundation's 2022 Humanities for All Times grant for “Rethinking Place: Bard-on-Mahicantuck” offers three years of support for developing a land acknowledgment–based curriculum, public-facing Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) programming, and efforts to support the work of emerging NAIS scholars and tribally enrolled artists at Bard.

About Us

Read Founder Robert Martin's "On The Eduation Of Musicians"

Performance Opportunities

The Bard Conservatory offers unparalleled musical opportunities for its students. The Conservatory Orchestra performs regularly on campus, in New York City, and in semiannual concert tours to Asia or Europe. Students frequently perform alongside faculty in chamber music concerts at Bard, in regional chamber music concert series, and in concerts for the Bard Music Festival. Concerto competition winners from the undergraduate instrumental and graduate Vocal Arts Programs perform with either the Bard Conservatory Orchestra or the American Symphony Orchestra.
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Outstanding Faculty

The Bard Conservatory’s undergraduate faculty members are renowned performing musicians whose artistry has been featured in the world’s great concert halls. They are on campus weekly to give lessons, coach chamber ensembles, offer master classes, hold studio classes, and lead sectional rehearsals of the orchestra. Details about the faculties of the graduate Vocal Arts Program and the Graduate Conducting Program can be found at their individual program pages.
Facilities

The László Z. Bitó ’60 building, completed in 2013, contains general-use classrooms, faculty offices, teaching studios, two percussion studios, a 100-seat recital hall, a student lounge, instrument storage lockers, and administrative offices. The Conservatory’s largest performing venue is the Sosnoff Theater at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. Additional performing venues, classrooms, practice rooms, and studios are located throughout campus in the Avery Arts Center, the Olin Humanities Building, and the Bitó Practice Room Building.