Bard Baroque Ensemble 

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Renée Anne Louprette, director

Renée Anne Louprette maintains an international career as an organ recitalist, accompanist, conductor, and teacher. As director of the Bard Baroque Ensemble, she leads an annual series of Bach cantatas presented in Bard’s Chapel of the Holy Innocents and at venues throughout the Hudson Valley region. She is director of the National Competition in Organ Improvisation and a 2022 U.S.-Romanian Fulbright Scholar. Recent recitals include such venues as Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris; Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles; Royal Festival Hall, London; Rochester Celebrity Organ Recital Series, Eastman School of Music; Washington National Cathedral; the United States Military Academy at West Point; and the Bard Music Festival. She is associated with several distinguished sacred music programs in the New York City area, having served as associate director of music at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, associate director of music and the arts at Trinity Church Wall Street, associate director at the Unitarian Church of All Souls, and director of music at the Church of Notre Dame. She has collaborated with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Berkshire Bach Society, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, Clarion Music Society, Piffaro, American Symphony Orchestra, Dessoff Choirs, Los Angeles Dance Project, and the Empire Brass Quintet, among others. Conducting positions have included assistant conductor of the chamber singers and symphonic chorus at Bard College; founder and conductor, Les Demoiselles de Notre Dame, New York City; and assistant conductor of the South West London Choral Society. Professor Louprette has also held academic positions at Rutgers University, Manhattan School of Music, Hartt School, and Montclair State University. Her recording of the Great Eighteen Chorales of J. S. Bach on the Metzler organ in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, was named a classical music Critics’ Choice in 2014 by the New York Times. In 2018, she released a recording of 20th-century French organ repertoire on the Acis Productions label to critical acclaim. Her recording of Bach’s Clavier-Übung III on the Acis label will be released in a celebratory recital at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York in September 2023.

BM, Graduate Professional Diploma (organ performance), Hartt School, University of Hartford; Diplôme Supérieur, Centre d'Études Supérieures de Musique et de Danse de Toulouse; MM, conducting, Bard College Conservatory of Music. At Bard since 2019.