Undergraduate Double-Degree Program

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Course Requirements

Requirements for the simultaneously awarded degrees of B. Music and B.A. can be summarized as follows:

A minimum of 160 credits, at least 64 of which must be taken at Bard. (Students who enrolled before Fall 2011 are required to complete a minimum of 156 credits.)
A minimum of 40 credits outside the division of BA major.
Every student must take two semesters of First-Year Seminar.  Transfer students may be exempt.
Every student must be promoted to the Upper College by passing moderation.
Every student must complete an acceptable BA Senior Project in a field other than music.
Distribution requirements: one course from each of the appropriate distribution areas.
Withdrawals
A Conservatory student may withdraw from the Conservatory and continue as a BA candidate at Bard College. (Such a decision may have an impact on the student’s financial aid.) However, a student may not withdraw from Bard’s BA program and continue in the Conservatory.

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Course Descriptions

Studio Instruction
Weekly private lessons with artist teachers are at the center of the educational experience of every student at the Bard Conservatory. Drawing from the professional music world of New York City, Bard is able to attract world-class faculty who believe strongly in the special mission of the Conservatory double degree program. Private studio lessons are supplemented with frequent masterclasses with visiting guest artists.

Chamber Music
Chamber music plays a particularly important role at the Conservatory. In addition to performing the standard masterworks of the chamber music repertoire, students work closely with the composition program of the Conservatory to perform works of the late 20th and the 21st centuries. Studio faculty members not only serve as coaches but often as players in ensembles so that students can hear firsthand and learn from the playing of a more experienced musician. The chamber music program is further enriched by master classes and concerts by guest artists groups.

Orchestra
The growth gained by rehearsing and performing music with peers in large ensemble is an irreplaceable part of any orchestral musician’s education. Bard places considerable emphasis upon this aspect of the Conservatory experience. The Bard Conservatory Orchestra rehearses twice a week and performs at least twice each semester in the beautiful and acoustically superb Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Under the direction of its music director, Leon Botstein, the orchestra also performs off campus in major cities in the US and overseas in tours of Asia and Europe.

Conservatory Core Sequence in Theory, Analysis and Composition
The Conservatory Core Sequence is unique four-semester sequence of classes that integrate the study of music theory, music history, and composition in order to give students a richer understanding of these topics as vital and relevant to their work as interpreters:

• Harmony and Counterpoint - an accelerated introduction to species counterpoint and traditional harmony.
• Composing in Classical Forms - the study of musical form through the creation of model compositions: a Baroque dance movement, a set of variations on a ground bass, a waltz, and a complete sonata exposition.
• Composition for Performers - By learning to compose, students develop a deep understanding of the compositional process, which is an integral skill for all performing musicians. Students produce several original compositions to be performed by themselves and others at a final concert. The class is taught by the conservatory composition faculty Joan Tower and George Tsontakis, two of our most celebrated composers and teachers of composition.
• Conservatory Seminar - This is the capstone class for the Conservatory Core Sequence and is designed to give students the ability to place their music making in a larger historical, musical, sociological, and expressive context. Conservatory Seminar examines pieces from the conservatory orchestra repertoire and addresses broad questions such as the political and social context in which they were composed and understood, the relationship between the formal structure of the work and others of a similar general type, how the form of the work conveys meaning for particular sets of listeners and how these meaning have evolved through time

Aural Skills
This sequence of courses provides Conservatory students with skills in sight-singing, harmonic, melodic and rhythmic dictation, clef reading, keyboard harmony, harmonic analysis and other requirements of functional musical literacy.

Music History
In addition to the four-semester Conservatory Core Sequence in Theory, Analysis and Composition, students are required to take two upper level music history classes. These classes can be general survey classes or classes devoted to more specific topics in music history.

Orchestra Repertoire Class
In this class for wind, brass, percussion and harp players works drawn from the core of the symphonic repertoire are studied and rehearsed in 2-hour sessions throughout the semester with all wind, brass, percussion players. This course addresses issues of ensemble playing, intonation, and musical expression, and broadens the knowledge of the symphonic repertoire through practical playing experience.

Graduation Recital
Students present a full length in the fourth or fifth years of the program. The repertoire is chosen in conjunction with the primary teacher and should demonstrate the unique musical strengths and artistic goals of the student.