Faculty

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Sohyun Ahn

With live performances broadcast by WFMT (Chicago’s Classical Radio Station), LCATV( Lake Champlain Access Television), EBS (Korean Educational Broadcast TV Station), pianist Sohyun Ahn was named the Best Performer of the Year by Eumak-Chunchu, South Korea’s leading classical music journal. She has performed throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, at venues including Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and Merkin Hall, An Die Musik in Baltimore, Bates Recital Hall at the University of Texas at Austin, Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert at Chicago Cultural Center, Allegro Music Consultants Concert Series in Philadelphia, Dallas Mu Phi Epsilon Public Library Concert Series, and the Island Arts Center Concert Series in Vermont. Her performances include appearances with the Queensboro Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Baroque Orchestra, Royal Scottish Academy Orchestra, the Korean Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul Tutti Orchestra, and the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra. She has been invited to perform at Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert in Chicago, the W. Kempff Beethoven Course in Positano Italy, and the Ferrara International Music Festival Concert Series. She was also a guest soloist at the concert honoring the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth at the Sejong Art Center in Korea. As a collaborative pianist, she has performed with musicians of the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and New York City Ballet and more.

Her recordings of the Bach Goldberg Variations (Sonoris) and Mozart Sonatas (Classic Art) earned critics’ attention. New York Concert Review wrote of her Bach, “balanced and rational”, and of her Mozart, “a perfectly balanced, crystalline performance.” She gave the complete Mozart Piano Sonata Concert Series at St. John’s in the Village,New York City in 2019.

A passionate advocate and educator of music, she has taught at the Concordia College in New York and Rutgers, New Jersey State University, the University of Texas at Austin, and was a director at the Geneva Conservatory of Music, NYC. She also gave master classes at University of Malaya, University of College Sedaya International, Universiti Punta Malaysia, Glovil Conservatory in Korea, and Trinity College Board in Malaysia. Sohyun also has served as an adjudicator for the New York Laureate International Music Competition, Westchester Musicians Guild Young Artists Auditions, Greater Princeton Steinway Society Scholarship Competition, and the Third Street Music School Program. She was a recipient of the Teachers’ Enrichment Grant by Music Teachers National Association.

Sohyun holds the Doctor of Musical Arts from Rutgers University, the Professional Studies Degree from the Manhattan School of Music, and Masters of Music in Piano Performance with distinction from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Tokyo Geidai Academy. Her Bachelor of Music was from Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea) where she received the president award. Since 2017 she has been dedicated to organizing concerts for Riverside Rehabilitation Center, New Jewish Home, Upper East Side Rehabilitation Center, Amsterdam Nursing Home, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, New York Presbyterian Hospital, and Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. Currently Sohyun is a classical music coordinator at the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in NYC and a faculty at the Bard College Conservatory Preparatory Division, University of Mount Saint Vincent and the Lucy Moses School at the Kaufman Music Center, NYC.

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Phyllis Clark

Phyllis Clark lives in Saugerties where she moved after a 40 year career as a freelance singer in concert, choral and a Capella groups. She taught voice, music and chorus at Saint David’s School in NYC and toured with and arranged music for The Western Wind Vocal Ensemble. She completed degrees at Boston University in Vocal Performance and at The Royal Conservatory of The Hague in Opera. She studied Dalcroze with Joy Kane and Kodaly with faculty at NYU and in Hungary.



She presently leads a community chorus, Saugerties Sings, and plays organ and leads the choir at Saugerties United Methodist Church. She has been teaching at Bard Prep since 2021. Phyllis plays piano, viola, and recorders in amateur chamber ensembles and enjoys baking, gardening and walking with husband Michael and Havanese companion, Corbie.

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Julia Hwang

Praised by Gramophone for displaying a “model of expressive purity”, Julia Hwang gave her professional solo debut with the English National Baroque Chamber Orchestra at the age of nine, performing Bach's Concerto in A minor. Following her debut at the Wigmore Hall, other recent concerts include recitals at St Martin in the Fields and the Royal Albert Hall, solo and chamber performances at Yellow Barn, Vermont and the Schoenberg Centre in Vienna, and performances of the Bruch, Korngold and Mendelssohn concertos in the UK and South Korea. An avid chamber musician, she has performed in ensembles around the world.

Julia has appeared many times on live television and radio through the BBC and ITV, and was featured in a BBC4 documentary about ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Her performance of this work was specifically chosen by the BBC and the documentary has been re-broadcast on many occasions due to popular demand. Her latest CD, featuring works by Grieg, Lutoslawski, Wieniawski and Vaughan Williams, was met with critical acclaim, reviewed by Gramophone as representing “old-world wit and warmth”.

She is a cultural ambassador for the BRACE Alzheimer’s Research, and is also a Concordia Foundation Artist, which has led to many performances in London’s hospitals and care centres. Other charity performances have included concerts to raise money for, among others, The Alzheimer’s Society, the NSPCC, The Prince’s Trust, and MacMillan Cancer Relief. 

Julia completed her studies as a Fulbright Scholar at Yale University under the tutelage of Ani Kavafian, and undertook her undergraduate degree as a University scholar at St John’s College, Cambridge. She is the winner of numerous prizes, including the Presser Foundation Award, Hattori Foundation Award, the annual Musicians Company Award, and the Countess of Munster Prize.

She plays on a Peter Guarnerius of Mantua violin c.1698, on generous loan from the Alderson Trust.

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David Keringer

David Keringer is a versatile clarinet, saxophone, and recorder player, currently a member of TŌN – The Orchestra Now at Bard College. As a soloist, he has played in Hungary, Austria, Italy, Japan, the United States, and on the Hungarian National TV Show “Virtuosos”. He was the winner of the Danubia Talents 2020 Competition in the Winds category, First Prize Winner of the National Saxophone Competition in 2014, and First Prize Winner of the National Clarinet Competition in 2013. He received a Bachelor of Music Degree from the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. After he graduated from the University of Music Vienna, he won a Fulbright Scholarship for the Advanced Performance Studies Program at Bard College Conservatory of Music. As an orchestra musician he been on stages of Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The MET Museum, the Wiener Musikverein, the Osaka Symphony Hall, the Palace of Arts Budapest, and many more. He is an avid collaborator in theatrical, and musical productions, and an enthusiastic woodwind doubler. He was in the pit orchestra of Mörbisch Festival Austria playing West Side Story, Budapest Operetta playing Hunchback of Notre Dame, Singin' in the Rain, and Comedy Theatre Budapest playing Cabaret. 

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Hsiao-Fang Lin

Hsiao-Fang Lin, trombone, was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. She completed her double degrees at Bard College: a bachelor of music degree in trombone performance, studied with John Rojak, Demian Austin, Weston Sprott, and Denson Paul Pollard, and a bachelor of arts degree in computer science.



In addition to working as an audio video engineer for Bard SummerScape for the past few years. Hsiao-Fang performed with America Symphony Orchestra for Le Roi Malgré Lui (The King in Spite of Himself) in The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in 2012. She has also participated in numerous music festivals including the Summer Trombone Workshop and the Asian Trombone Seminar, studied with Dietmar Küblböck, Haim Avitsur, David Taylor, James Olin, Ko-ichiro Yamamoto.



Hsiao-Fang is currently working as the Director of Music Programming at the US-China Music Institute and the orchestra manager at Bard Conservatory of Music.

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Jillian Reed

Jillian Reed is an associate flutist with The Orchestra Now, and has played with the American Symphony Orchestra and the Vermont Philharmonic. In 2023, she performed Tōru Takemitsu’s “I Hear the Water Dreaming” for flute and orchestra with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra under the direction of Tan Dun. Jillian enjoys working closely with living composers, and performed with the North Country Chamber Players, Da Capo Chamber Players, Capitol City Concerts, and at the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival.

Jillian maintains a vibrant flute studio, and has taught at Middlebury Community Music Center, the Pittsburgh Flute Academy, and El Sistema El Salvador. Her students have won awards at the International Grande Music Competition, played with Empire State Youth Orchestra, and have participated in NYSSMA festivals. Her primary goal as a teacher is to help her students express their ideas freely and fully through music making.

Jillian studied at Carnegie Mellon University and Bard College & Conservatory, completing degrees in Human Rights and Flute Performance, studying with Tara Helen O’Connor. Her thesis investigated issues of health and ableism in the music world, and her research findings were published in a feature in Flutist Quarterly. 

Alongside her work in the music world, Jillian is the co-founder of a community centered thrift store called Thrift 2 Fight, which funds local initiatives doing racial, queer, and disability justice work. Since its founding in 2020, Thrift 2 Fight has raised and donated over $95k through the sale of secondhand clothes.

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Viktor Toth

Hungarian clarinetist Viktor Toth graduated from the Bard College Conservatory of Music in May 2016 and pursued his Bachelor of Music degree in Clarinet Performance Studies under the direction of clarinetists including Laura Flax, David Krakauer, Pascual Martínez-Forteza and Anthony McGill. He also studied Italian language and literature as his second major at Bard College.

As a member of the Bard Conservatory Orchestra, Mr. Toth appeared in Alice Tully Hall, New York in 2013, at Brown University in 2015 and has collaborated with conductors such as Leon Botstein, Jeffrey Milarsky, Cristian Măcelaru, Adam Fischer, Carl Bettendorf, Jeffrey Kahane,

José-Luis Novo, Marcelo Lehninger and JoAnn Falletta. In 2014, he performed with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra in Europe’s major cities including Warsaw, Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Budapest, Bratislava, Wien, Prague and Berlin. In 2016, he went on a tour in Cuba with the same orchestra and performed in Cienfuegos, Santa Clara and Havana.

As a full László Z. Bitó–Scholarship holder at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, Mr. Toth has worked with professors and coaches such as Shmuel Ashkenasi, Edward Carroll, Laura Flax, Marc Goldberg, David Krakauer, Pascual Martínez-Forteza, Anthony McGill, Tara Helen O’Connor, Daniel Phillips, Peter Serkin, Joan Tower, Alan Kay, Bart Feller, Nadine Asin and Patricia Rogers. During his studies at Bard, he participated in master classes given by Yehuda Gilad, Peter Kolkay (The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center), Janis Vakarelis and David Gould. He also appeared on the “Side-by-Side Concerts” with the members of American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Conservatory Orchestra, participated in the world premier of the opera “Payne Hollow” by Shawn Jaeger in 2014 and performed with Natalie Merchant in 2015. He was one of the winners of the Bard Conservatory 2016 Concerto Competition and performed Copland’s Clarinet Concerto as a soloist with The Orchestra Now at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. After finishing the Advanced Performance Studies Program in the Bard Conservatory, he got accepted to The Orchestra Now where he received his Master’s Degree in Curatorial, Critical and Performance Studies in 2021. During his time at The Orchestra Now, he had the opportunity to perform Debussy’s Première Rhapsodie as soloist with Academy Award-winning composer and conductor, Tan Dun and The Orchestra Now at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Currently, Mr. Toth serves as the Central/Eastern European Music Curator at The Orchestra Now.

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Sindy Yang

Sindy Yang is an actively performing pianist. Recent performances have included recitals at Bard Conservatory as well as performances at summer music festivals including Manhattan in the Mountains. Ms. Yang is also an enthusiastic collaborator of chamber music. She has been a participant of several chamber music festivals with scholarship awards including Manhattan in the Mountains in Hunter, New York; the Summit Music Festival in Pleasantville, New York; the EuroArts Music Festival in Halle, Germany; and the International Academy of Music in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana in Tuscany, Italy. In chamber music, she has collaborated with players such as Peter Wiley. Outside of solo and chamber performances, Ms. Yang has also performed as an orchestral pianist with The Orchestra Now at Bard College. As an orchestral pianist, she has worked with conductors such as Leon Botstein and Tan Dun and performed in venues including Carnegie Hall, Rose Hall at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.



Ms. Yang began her musical studies at the age of six. As a young student, she was the recipient of numerous music awards and was a prizewinner of several competitions including the Renée B. Fisher Piano Competition and the Chaminade Music Club Scholarship Award. She continued her musical studies at the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Division, studying piano under the tutelage of Miyoko Nakaya Lotto.



Ms. Yang earned a BM in classical piano performance from the Manhattan School of Music and an Advanced Performance Certificate in solo piano performance from Bard Conservatory as a full scholarship recipient. Her instructors include Peter Serkin, Richard Goode, and Shai Wosner.