News

Bard alumnae Christine Sun Kim MFA ’13 and Layli Long Soldier MFA ’14 have been named 2026 MacArthur Fellows. Kim, an artist exploring the political, cultural, and multisensory dimensions of sound, spoken language, and communication, and Long Solider, a poet illustrating how language can be a tool of oppression or a means to reshape ourselves and the world around us, are two of this year’s 20 recipients of the prestigious “genius grant” awarded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 

In a statement about Kim’s work, the MacArthur Foundation says, “Across a varied body of work that includes drawings, large-scale murals, video, and interactive installations, Kim creates visual and conceptual representations of sound. She engages with the complexities deaf people experience in a world that prioritizes sound and spoken forms of communication.”

The MacArthur Foundation says about Long Soldier’s work, “Across her widely experimental, yet accessible, body of work, Long Soldier interrogates the colonial violence inflicted on Native Americans. At the same time, she celebrates the beauty, love, and resilience passed down through generations and communities by way of care and tradition.”

Former MFA faculty member in painting Rodney McMillan and member of the Advisory Council of the Center for Indigenous Studies at Bard College Elizabeth Ellis have also been named 2026 MacArthur Fellows. 

The MacArthur Fellowship is a no-strings-attached award for extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential. There are three criteria for selection of MacArthur Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists, social scientists, humanists, teachers, entrepreneurs, or those in other fields, with or without institutional affiliations. Although nominees are reviewed for their achievements, the fellowship is not a lifetime achievement award, but rather an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential.

MacArthur Fellows receive $800,000 stipends that are bestowed with no conditions; recipients may use the money as they see fit. Nominated anonymously by leaders in their respective fields and considered by an anonymous selection committee, recipients learn of their selection only when they receive a call from the MacArthur Foundation just before the public announcement.

“For 45 years, MacArthur Fellows have defied boundaries, by questioning conventions, crossing disciplines, and driving collective progress. The 2026 Fellows continue that creative tradition—they explore the depths of our humanity; they reveal untold origins to modern challenges; they expand the edges of scientific inquiry and life-saving research. They show us new ways to understand the world,” says Kristen Mack, Vice President, Communications, MacArthur Fellows, and Partnerships.

Christine Sun Kim received a BS (2002) from the Rochester Institute of Technology and MFAs from the School of Visual Arts (2006) and Bard College (2013). Her work has been exhibited at such venues as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul, South Korea); the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN); the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (Canada); the Art Institute of Chicago; Secession (Vienna, Austria); and the Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY).

In the participatory sound-based work Game of Skill 2.0 (2015), Kim foregrounds the labor involved in listening, typically considered a passive mode of engagement. For this installation, an individual must painstakingly maneuver a handheld device to make it emit a spoken word text written by the artist. An arm topped with a magnet extends from the device, and participants must carefully keep it in contact with wires stretched across the gallery as they move through the space. How a participant holds the device, moves, or walks affects how the audio is emitted. Kim’s Degrees of Deaf Rage (2018-2019) series is a candid and humorous accounting of the difficulties deaf people face in scenarios where the ability to hear is taken for granted. The series comprises charcoal and oil pastel drawings of geometric angles that visualize Kim and her deaf friends’ frustration and anger in various institutional settings. An acute angle describes their anger when an Uber driver calls instead of texts, while a right angle indicates their “legit” rage at hotels that use fire alarms without strobe lights. A full circle (360 degrees) represents their “full on rage” when their suitcases are left on a runway after a flight attendant asks for the owner in spoken English only.
Many of Kim’s works include infographics, musical notation, and her own graphic lexicon. The mural Prolonged Echo (2023) features black arching forms against a white background, evoking the American Sign Language (ASL) sign for “echo.” The source material for the drawing is illegible to a viewer unfamiliar with ASL, replicating deaf people’s experience of receiving information in echo form; everything is repeated, with more or less detail. This reflects the fact that deaf people do not have direct access to the source of spoken communication and must rely on intermediaries like sign language or writing. Another large-scale mural, Ghost(ed) Notes (2024), depicts musical notes falling outside of and around four-line staves, indicating rhythm without discernable pitch and prompting reflection on omissions and breakdowns in communication. Kim’s work powerfully conveys the experiences of deaf people and opens up new ways of understanding sound and hearing.

Layli Long Soldier received a BFA (2009) from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA (2014) from Bard College. Her poems have appeared in the documentary film Lakota Nation vs. United States (2022) and such publications as Poetry Magazine, BOMB, and The Kenyon Review, among others. She has taught at Diné College, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Randolph College, and the Institute of American Indian Arts, and she was the endowed chair of creative writing at Texas State University (2024-2025). Long Soldier is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation.

In her collection Whereas (2017), Long Soldier uses a variety of poetic forms and textual manipulations that draw attention to the materiality of language: words arranged into geometric shapes, crossed out text, blank spaces, words for punctuation written out in place of punctuation marks. In many poems, she quotes, revises, and repurposes text from congressional statements, newspaper articles, and historical studies, unmasking acts of violence, theft, and erasure that legalistic and sanitized language obscures. For example, the prose poem “38” ponders the role of language in the hanging of 38 Dakota men in 1862 after the so-called Sioux uprising. The poem clarifies that the uprising occurred as the Dakota People were starving after a series of opaque treaties—forged and repeatedly broken by the U.S. government—took their land and livelihood. The centerpiece of Whereas is the titular poem, in which Long Solider responds to the 2009 Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans. She juxtaposes the impersonal legalese of the text with Lakota traditions and cultural teachings, revealing the continued conflict between two opposing worldviews.

Long Soldier also has created several works that present poetry in visual media such as sculpture and video. For example, Long Soldier’s Obligations series of poems began as a hanging sculptural piece. The sculpture emulates a Lakota star quilt, with each diamond-shaped point of the star containing a poem from the series. The words of each poem can be read in multiple directions, creating many different iterations; likewise, the points of the star can be rearranged within the star configuration, adding new dimensions to the poems’ consideration of what we owe each other and how to remain in relationship with one another. The Obligations series will appear in printed form in Long Soldier’s forthcoming collection, We (October 2026). Through her eclectic body of work, Long Soldier demonstrates the power of poetry to articulate our past and build a better future.

 
https://www.macfound.org/programs/awards/fellows/

Asher B. Edelman Professor of Music Joan Tower, who has been a member of Bard’s faculty for 54 years, was profiled in the Daily Catch and featured on Classical music station WHMT. Tower was interviewed by WHMT along with Alexandra Balog, director of the Atalena Artists Collective, who are presenting a concert celebrating Tower’s work on October 3. “Seeing [Joan] composing every day, after all she’s accomplished … her discipline and love for music has influenced my way of thinking about music and life in general,” Balog said.

“[Tower] was larger than life for me [as a child],” Bard Artist in Residence and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, who will perform at the celebratory concert, told the Daily Catch. “[Her music can be] stormy, serene, humorous, nostalgic, tender, or violent.” Tower said her goal as a professor is to help writers develop their own perspective. “We don’t try to burden our students with our style,” she said. “They develop their own voice, which is something I’m very proud of.”

The October 3 concert marks Tower’s 54 years at Bard with an evening of her music performed by Bard faculty, students, the Cassatt Quartet, and musicians of The Orchestra Now (TŌN). This celebratory concert is free and open to the public.
 
https://www.classicalwmht.org/concert-preview/2026-09-25/joan-tower-a-celebration

The ninth annual China Now music festival celebrates the 250th anniversary of America and the evolution of the American Dream with events in New York City, Kingston, and at Bard College, October 2–11, 2026

The US–China Music Institute at Bard College Conservatory presents the ninth annual China Now Music Festival, taking place in New York City, Kingston, and at Bard College from October 2–11, 2026 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America and the evolution of the American Dream.

This year’s festival “Chasing Dreams” reminds us that the pursuit of dreams is a shared human experience that connects all people. Artistic director of the China Now Music Festival, Jindong Cai, emphasizes the power of music in sustaining hope and preserving historical memory as we navigate turbulent times. He says, “For this year’s festival, we aim to tell stories of the shared dreams, resilience, and creativity that connect all of us, American and Chinese alike. Through music, we can be reminded that our histories and aspirations are deeply intertwined.”

With works by an outstanding roster of contemporary Chinese-American and Chinese composers including Huang Ruo, Zhou Long, and Li Shaosheng, the festival reflects the tenacity of the human spirit through stories of creativity, perseverance, and innovation. From Maya Lin’s determination to realize a bold artistic vision, to the sacrifices of the Chinese railroad workers to build a nation, to the scientists and explorers whose ambitions continue to expand humanity’s horizons, these works celebrate the many ways dreams have shaped American history and continue to inspire future generations. Together, they embody the China Now Music Festival’s mission of fostering cross-cultural understanding through music while honoring the enduring contributions of Chinese people who have chased freedom, unity, and equality in what has historically been called the American Dream.

Led by conductor Jindong Cai, the opening night at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall on October 2 at 7:30 pm features a performance of renowned composer Huang Ruo and Tony-award winning librettist David Henry Hwang’s chamber opera, The Rift. The chamber opera recounts the creation of architect Maya Lin’s iconic Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Although it is now one of the most beloved and most visited memorials in the United States, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial had a deeply contentious beginning. The controversial origin of the memorial is at the heart of this story featuring interconnected yet conflicting characters: architect Maya Lin sung by soprano Karen Vuong; a Vietnam War veteran sung by tenor Edward Graves; a Vietnamese refugee sung by mezzo-soprano Michelle Mariposa; and former secretary of defense Robert McNamara sung by Daniel Klein. In an article by AsAmNews, librettist David Henry Hwang describes Maya Lin’s journey as “a story about how a work of art can help to heal a country.” That same night, the festival’s resident ensemble, the Bard East/West Ensemble, will perform three works written for the group by Zhang Zheng, Luk Wai Chun, and Wang Danhong. The core members of the ensemble are composed of a Western string quintet and seven Chinese instruments including dizi, erhu, pipa, ruan, suona, guzheng and sheng, with Chinese and Western percussionists.

For the final two concerts at Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College on October 10 at 3 pm and at Frederick P. Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center on October 11 at 3 pm, artistic director Jindong Cai conducts The Orchestra Now (TŌN), China Now Chorus, and vocal soloists, bringing to life Pulitzer-winning composer Zhou Long and librettist Sun Wei’s powerful symphonic oratorio Men of Iron and the Golden Spike. The work honors the thousands of Chinese laborers who came to America in the 1860s to build the Transcontinental Railroad that connected the US coasts and transformed the nation. Zhou Long writes, “In this divisive moment in our country, I hope this piece reminds audiences that America has always been shaped by diverse ethnic communities, and that the stories of Chinese laborers deserve their rightful place in our shared history.” This monumental work returns to the stage in New York City after its premiere during the 2019 China Now Music Festival and features a large orchestra, 120 choristers, and vocal soloists.

In the same program as the oratorio is the US premiere of Li Shaosheng’s symphonic suite Chasing the Sky which explores humanity’s enduring fascination with the skies and the journey of space exploration. The piece traces the relationship between ancient imagination, scientific discovery, and contemporary innovation. Through five interconnected movements, the work reflects on the timeless human desire to understand the universe as we push the boundaries of knowledge while remaining connected to the world we call home. The work celebrates generations of dreamers, researchers, engineers, and explorers whose curiosity and dedication have expanded our understanding of the cosmos. The performance features a suona soloist in the second movement, Questioning the Sky, and a tenor soloist Li Yi in the powerful finale. The soaring vocal lines embody the timeless spirit of discovery and humanity's shared aspiration to reach beyond the horizon.

Additional musical performances include a concert on Sunday, October 4 at 3 pm at TEMPO Performing Arts Center in Kingston and another on Friday, October 9 at 2 pm at Chapel of the Holy Innocents at Bard College. At TEMPO, the Bard East/West Ensemble will present the three pieces from the previous concert at Carnegie Hall in addition to repertoire that further showcases their innovative, cross-cultural sound. Returning home from a 2026 tour in China that took them to 8 cities for 15 performances, the Bard East/West Ensemble will perform unique arrangements of works by Aaron Copland, Astor Piazzolla, and Jiang Ying, among others. At the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, singers from the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, will perform Chinese and American folk songs, along with other contemporary works. 

Through opera, orchestral works, chamber music, and conversation, the 2026 China Now Music Festival reminds audiences of important moments in American history and invites the listeners to reflect on how the “American Dream” has changed over time. As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, the festival offers an opportunity to listen to music that explores the impact and contributions of Chinese people on the development of America.

US-China Music Forum:
This year, on October 3rd at 4:30PM, alongside Asia Society, the China Now Music Festival will co-host the US-China Music Forum: Chasing Dreams, followed by a reception. The forum features live solo performances of excerpts from Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Rift and Zhou Long and Su Wei’s Men of Iron and the Golden Spike, as well as a panel discussion. The creators and performers behind The Rift and the Men of Iron and the Golden Spike will discuss how music captures the emotion and power of history, what the “American Dream” means to them, and how they envision music and performance illuminating stories that have been neglected. The discussion will be followed with a Q&A.

For more information on the festival, visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/chasing-dreams
 
https://www.barduschinamusic.org/chasing-dreams

The Bard Center for the Study of Hate (BCSH) is proud to announce Jamal Armstead ’26 as the recipient of this year’s Beth Rickey Award. The award is presented annually to a member of Bard College’s international network of schools who has taken sustained and effective action against hate.

 
The annual Beth Rickey Award is given in memory of Elizabeth “Beth” Rickey, who died on September 12, 2009. Rickey was a Republican state committeewoman in Louisiana. Politically conservative, Rickey was appalled when neo-Nazi and former Klansman David Duke won elected office, and devastated that many of her fellow Republicans in state government welcomed Duke into their midst. She made it her mission to expose Duke, following him to meetings with other white supremacists, showing that he continued to sell Mein Kampf and Holocaust-denying material from his legislative office. 
 
The recipient’s achievements can be through their scholarship, adding to our understanding of how hatred works, or through their actions, such as public advocacy and community organizing.
 
Rickey’s dedication to justice is shared by Armstead, although the two activists followed quite different trajectories. Armstead was arrested at 17 and has spent most of the last two decades behind bars. In 2021, he enrolled in the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), which offers undergraduate and graduate degrees to students incarcerated in New York state prisons. He graduated this year with his bachelor’s degree after completing his senior project entitled “The Public Health Implications of Anti-LGBTQ+ Discrimination: How Conformity and Lack of Awareness Lead to Crisis.”
 
Armstead completed a public health fellowship after his release from prison. He is now pursuing a Bard MBA in Sustainability, working toward his goal of creating an organization that will, in the words of Megan Callaghan, dean of BPI, “help design a safe haven for LGBTQ+ youth impacted by the criminal legal system.”
 
As Dean Callaghan recounted in her nominating letter:
 
“While incarcerated at a men’s maximum security prison, Jamal became aware of the way that he and others around him had actively ostracized anyone who was openly gay or gender nonconforming. Incarcerated as a teenager, he had grown up with these social norms and knew that anyone seen socializing with someone who had been identified as gay could be a target of violence . . . [A] combination of personal experience and the readings he encountered [in Bard classes] provoked him to begin reflecting on the injustice of this situation for the first time . . . For four years, in two different prisons, Jamal used his time at Bard to build an inclusive community and to develop academic expertise that would position him to support LGBTQ+ youth in the future.”
 
Kenneth S. Stern ’75, director of the BCSH and a friend of Rickey’s, said: “Of all the nominees this year, Mr. Armstead stood out. I used to be a criminal defense attorney who sometimes had a gay client, and I always worried about the extra danger they’d face if they were sent to prison. Mr. Armstead saw this hatred first hand and acted. Doing so while behind bars took courage. We hope this acknowledgment, in the spirit of Beth Rickey, may help him achieve his goals, empowered in part by the academic skills he learned through his Bard degree.”

Choreographer Alexa West MFA ’14 was featured in ArtNews as part of their “New Talent 2026” series, following the staging of her immersive dance performance Jawbreaker. After premiering at the TONO Festival in Mexico in March, Jawbreaker was staged in August at the New York Museum of Modern Art as part of the museum’s Kravis Studio artist residency program. “West’s uncanny, Rube Goldberg-esque dances have made her one of the stars of the city’s experimental dance scene,” writes Madeleine Seidel for ArtNews. “[Jawbreaker] is a near-perfect distillation of what makes West one of America’s most exciting choreographers: kinetic movement, a hypnotic soundtrack, and props that serve as objects for the dancers to work against.” West, who studied sculpture at Bard’s Milton Avery School of the Arts, says her time in Bard’s sculpture program influenced her dance practice. “I’ve learned how to make dances from a sculptural approach in terms of material, scale, and time,” she told ArtNews.

Bard’s MFA Program is a two-year multidisciplinary program focused on individual process and work in progress, as each student confronts the conceptual and practical questions at the core of all artistic production. Each MFA candidate chooses a primary field: Moving Image, Music/Sound, Painting, Photography, Sculpture, or Writing.
 
https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/columns/alexa-west-dance-labor-1234796295/

Bard College’s Acting President Jonathan Becker appeared on the SpeechMatters podcast to discuss the ongoing struggle for youth voting rights in the United States. SpeechMatters is a project of the University of California’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, and features guests who are tackling the issues of free speech and democracy on college campuses. Becker was joined by host Michelle Deutchman, as well as Yael Bromburg, adjunct professor of law at the American University Washington College of Law. They addressed a range of issues, including the history of youth voting and on-campus voting, the civic impacts of student voting, and the structural and psychological challenges to broader enfranchisement of young people. Becker argued that institutions of learning should not be neutral, but explicitly and forcefully in favor of student voting. “Young people are the future of our democracy, and would we rather have engaged citizens, or passive citizens who are not involved in our democracy?" he said. "I think if you believe in civic participation, then you believe in young people voting.”

Becker, who coedited a recent book about youth voting rights, also spoke of his volunteer teaching experience in Kiev, Ukraine, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and his dismay upon returning to New York's Hudson Valley to discover efforts by local officials to limit youth voting. “Having promoted democracy abroad, I discovered that our students here were systematically denied the right to vote locally,” he said. “As someone who spent half of their life abroad, the idea that we should be promoting democracy abroad, and coming home and some local official in Dutchess county is systematically denying students the right to vote is…outrageous.”
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speechmatters/id1617830292

Bard College has been ranked in the top five of the Princeton Review’s 2026 list of colleges and universities for positive student sentiment about faculty. The “Professors Get High Marks” ranking is based on how strongly students at a school agree or disagree with the statement, "Professors are interesting and bring their material to life." Members of the Bard faculty include Guggenheim, Pulitzer, and McArthur Genius Grant award winners. They have written critically acclaimed novels and plays, and effected change in medicine, the arts and letters, international affairs, journalism, scientific research, education, and more. Bard has no graduate teaching assistants, and the average class sizes of 16 in the Lower College and 12 in the Upper College allows for intimate discussions and one-on-one interaction between faculty and students.
 
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/?rankings=professors-get-high-marks

Concerts and Discussions Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of America at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Bard College, Tempo Performing Arts Center, and Asia Society

The US–China Music Institute at Bard College Conservatory announces the launch of the ninth annual China Now Music Festival, taking place in New York City, Kingston, and at Bard College from October 2–11, 2026 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America and the evolution of the American Dream.

This year’s festival “Chasing Dreams” reminds us that the pursuit of dreams is a shared human experience that connects all people. Artistic director of the China Now Music Festival, Jindong Cai, emphasizes the power of music in sustaining hope and preserving historical memory as we navigate turbulent times. He says, “For this year’s festival, we aim to tell stories of the shared dreams, resilience, and creativity that connect all of us, American and Chinese alike. Through music, we can be reminded that our histories and aspirations are deeply intertwined.”

With works by an outstanding roster of contemporary Chinese-American and Chinese composers including Huang Ruo, Zhou Long, and Li Shaosheng, the festival reflects the tenacity of the human spirit through stories of creativity, perseverance, and innovation. From Maya Lin’s determination to realize a bold artistic vision, to the sacrifices of the Chinese railroad workers to build a nation, to the scientists and explorers whose ambitions continue to expand humanity’s horizons, these works celebrate the many ways dreams have shaped American history and continue to inspire future generations. Together, they embody the China Now Music Festival’s mission of fostering cross-cultural understanding through music while honoring the enduring contributions of Chinese people who have chased freedom, unity, and equality in what has historically been called the American Dream.

Led by conductor Jindong Cai, the opening night at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall on October 2 at 7:30 pm features a performance of renowned composer Huang Ruo and Tony-award winning librettist David Henry Hwang’s chamber opera, The Rift. The chamber opera recounts the creation of architect Maya Lin’s iconic Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Although it is now one of the most beloved and most visited memorials in the United States, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial had a deeply contentious beginning. The controversial origin of the memorial is at the heart of this story featuring interconnected yet conflicting characters: architect Maya Lin sung by soprano Karen Vuong; a Vietnam War veteran sung by tenor Edward Graves; a Vietnamese refugee sung by mezzo-soprano Michelle Mariposa; and former secretary of defense Robert McNamara sung by Daniel Klein. In an article by AsAmNews, librettist David Henry Hwang describes Maya Lin’s journey as “a story about how a work of art can help to heal a country.” That same night, the festival’s resident ensemble, the Bard East/West Ensemble, will perform three works written for the group by Zhang Zheng, Luk Wai Chun, and Wang Danhong. The core members of the ensemble are composed of a Western string quintet and seven Chinese instruments including dizi, erhu, pipa, ruan, suona, guzheng and sheng, with Chinese and Western percussionists.

For the final two concerts at Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College on October 10 at 3 pm and at Frederick P. Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center on October 11 at 3 pm, artistic director Jindong Cai conducts The Orchestra Now (TŌN), China Now Chorus, and vocal soloists, bringing to life Pulitzer-winning composer Zhou Long and librettist Sun Wei’s powerful symphonic oratorio Men of Iron and the Golden Spike. The work honors the thousands of Chinese laborers who came to America in the 1860s to build the Transcontinental Railroad that connected the US coasts and transformed the nation. Zhou Long writes, “In this divisive moment in our country, I hope this piece reminds audiences that America has always been shaped by diverse ethnic communities, and that the stories of Chinese laborers deserve their rightful place in our shared history.” This monumental work returns to the stage in New York City after its premiere during the 2019 China Now Music Festival and features a large orchestra, 120 choristers, and vocal soloists.

In the same program as the oratorio is the US premiere of Li Shaosheng’s symphonic suite Chasing the Sky which explores humanity’s enduring fascination with the skies and the journey of space exploration. The piece traces the relationship between ancient imagination, scientific discovery, and contemporary innovation. Through five interconnected movements, the work reflects on the timeless human desire to understand the universe as we push the boundaries of knowledge while remaining connected to the world we call home. The work celebrates generations of dreamers, researchers, engineers, and explorers whose curiosity and dedication have expanded our understanding of the cosmos. The performance features a suona soloist in the second movement, Questioning the Sky, and a tenor soloist Li Yi in the powerful finale. The soaring vocal lines embody the timeless spirit of discovery and humanity's shared aspiration to reach beyond the horizon.

Additional musical performances include a concert on Sunday, October 4 at 3 pm at TEMPO Performing Arts Center in Kingston and another on Friday, October 9 at 2 pm at Chapel of the Holy Innocents at Bard College. At TEMPO, the Bard East/West Ensemble will present the three pieces from the previous concert at Carnegie Hall in addition to repertoire that further showcases their innovative, cross-cultural sound. Returning home from a 2026 tour in China that took them to 8 cities for 15 performances, the Bard East/West Ensemble will perform unique arrangements of works by Aaron Copland, Astor Piazzolla, and Jiang Ying, among others. At the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, singers from the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, will perform Chinese and American folk songs, along with other contemporary works. 

Through opera, orchestral works, chamber music, and conversation, the 2026 China Now Music Festival reminds audiences of important moments in American history and invites the listeners to reflect on how the “American Dream” has changed over time. As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, the festival offers an opportunity to listen to music that explores the impact and contributions of Chinese people on the development of America.

US-China Music Forum:
This year, on October 3rd at 4:30PM, alongside Asia Society, the China Now Music Festival will co-host the US-China Music Forum: Chasing Dreams, followed by a reception. The forum features live solo performances of excerpts from Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Rift and Zhou Long and Su Wei’s Men of Iron and the Golden Spike, as well as a panel discussion. The creators and performers behind The Rift and the Men of Iron and the Golden Spike will discuss how music captures the emotion and power of history, what the “American Dream” means to them, and how they envision music and performance illuminating stories that have been neglected. The discussion will be followed with a Q&A.

For more information on the festival, visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/chasing-dreams
https://www.barduschinamusic.org/chasing-dreams

The Galloping Cure, an opera by Missy Mazzoli, composer in residence at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, was featured on the BBC’s Radio 4: Front Row. A collaboration between Mazzoli and author and Bard Fiction Prize winner Karen Russell, The Galloping Cure is based on a short story by Russell that was inspired by Kafka’s short story “A Country Doctor.” The opera is an allegory for the opioid crisis in which a mysterious carousel cures a town of its illnesses but becomes more expensive and addictive as time passes. The Edinburgh International Festival, where the opera premiered, described it as “visually stunning and emotionally gripping… [evoking] a darkly funny and devastating vision of a crumbling society.”

Mazzoli spoke with the BBC about her opera, which they describe as “sometimes elegiac, sometimes… dystopian.” “Opera is inherently multimedia [and] immersive,” Mazzoli said. Her research involved riding on and listening to carousels in Paris and Coney Island in New York, to “make the audience feel like they were on a carousel [by] recreating this doppler effect.” Although The Galloping Cure is about a serious subject, “it’s not moralistic, it’s not dour… my goal is that people come out of it having more of a language to discuss something that’s very hard to talk about. Losing someone to addiction, it’s very hard to have the words for it. So my attempt to talk about it was to make this piece.”

The Galloping Cure premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival earlier this month. Mazzoli’s next opera Lincoln in the Bardo, which is based on the novel by George Saunders, will premiere in October at the Metropolitan Opera, the first opera by a woman to do so.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002zhsh

Associate Professor of Economics Michael Martell coauthored a guest opinion piece in the Bay Area Reporter about the need for more LGBTQ+ representation in economics. In his article “More LGBTQ Economists Are Needed,” written with Leanne Roncolato, Martell argues that the field needs to be challenged and tested, a solution that requires more LGBTQ+ economists in positions of authority. The two conducted interviews with 31 queer economists, which formed the basis for their book Queering Economics: Reimagining the Dismal Science, released this May. “Too few economists question the status quo. We agree far too much, because we are far too similar,” they write. “When too many of us share the same philosophy, we are less able to see our commonly held flaws and more likely to conform to prevailing philosophies.” Instead, they argue, “as we diversify who are economists, we can crowd out convention and create space for new ways of thinking and creative solutions to the problems we face.”

Bard’s Economics Program trains students to think critically about the economy and its social, political, and historical context. Small classes, encouragement of student research, and close interaction with the Levy Economics Institute are distinctive features of the experience.
https://www.ebar.com/story/168814

In recent weeks, Bard’s MBA in Sustainability has received recognition by several prominent ranking and ratings systems. The program has, for the sixth consecutive year, been named the #1 Green MBA by The Princeton Review in the publication’s 2027 business school rankings, and has also earned #1 MBA for Nonprofits ranking by the Review for the third consecutive year, placing Bard ahead of institutions including Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Columbia, Berkeley, and Northwestern. Additionally, CEO awarded Bard an AAA rating in its Green MBA Index, which assesses how thoroughly sustainability is integrated into an MBA program’s curriculum, hands-on learning opportunities, research, institutional strategy, and graduate outcomes.

Unlike many business school rankings, The Princeton Review evaluations are based on student experience, and the top Green MBA ranking reflects how well students believe their MBA prepares them to address environmental, sustainability, and social responsibility issues throughout their careers. The top MBA for Nonprofits ranking recognizes programs that prepare graduates for mission-driven leadership.

“As sustainability becomes increasingly central to business success, organizations need leaders who can connect financial performance with environmental and social outcomes,” said Dr. Eban Goodstein, director of the Bard MBA in Sustainability. “That's exactly what our students learn to do.”

Rather than offering sustainability as an elective or concentration, Bard’s MBA in Sustainability weaves it throughout the curriculum. Every course—from finance and accounting to marketing, operations, leadership, and strategy—helps students understand how business decisions create both financial and environmental outcomes.
https://leadthechange.bard.edu/blog/bard-named-1-green-mba-for-the-sixth-consecutive-year-by-the-princeton-review

Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies and the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard, was quoted in an article by the New York Times about how new proposed federal guidelines are threatening graduate arts programs. The planned future guidelines by the Education Department would require an earnings test that, according to the government’s calculations, would punish nearly half of all graduate programs in visual arts, music and performance based on the income of recent alumni. The Times reported that the new guidelines would apply to all university programs, and institutions whose alumni fail to meet them twice in three years could lose their ability to enroll students using federal loans, threatening their future in education. “They are taking a DOGE approach to education,” Eccles told Zachary Small for the Times. “They are deciding what the metric is, as though there were an objective way to measure the value of an arts education.” 

The Center for Curatorial Studies is an incubator for experimentation in exhibition-making and the leading institution dedicated exclusively to curatorial studies. It includes the Graduate Program for Curatorial Studies, an intensive course of study in the history of contemporary art, the institutions and practices of exhibition making, and the theory and criticism of contemporary art since the 1960s.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/arts/design/education-department-earnings-salary.html

Pavlina Tcherneva, president of the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, spoke with Marketplace about the current state of inflation in the US economy. The article notes that when the prices of groceries, gas, and rent rise faster than wages, consumers lose purchasing power, which is reflected in the current inflation numbers. “I expect that these price shocks will ripple through the economy in coming months,” said Tcherneva, who added that she does not expect wages to improve much. “Workers are going to be squeezed on both sides, stagnating wages and increasing cost of living."

The Levy Economics Institute Graduate Programs in Economic Theory and Policy were created to offer students an alternative to mainstream programs in economics and finance. These programs combine a rigorous course of study with the exceptional opportunity to participate in advanced economics research alongside Institute scholars. The Levy Institute’s programs also give Bard College undergraduates the opportunity to meet prominent figures who give seminars, attend conferences, and serve on the research staff.
 

Bard College will hold its one hundred sixty-sixth commencement on Saturday, May 23, 2026. Bard President Leon Botstein will confer 501 undergraduate degrees on the Class of 2026 and 197 graduate degrees. Bard will also confer 46 associate degrees on students from its microcolleges. The Undergraduate Degrees Commencement will begin at 2:30 pm in the commencement tent on the Seth Goldfine Memorial Rugby Field. The Graduate Degrees Commencement will begin at 10:30 am at Sosnoff Theater in the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.
 
The Undergraduate Commencement address will be given by journalist and bestselling author Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s flagship international affairs program and a prominent columnist for The Washington Post. Honorary degrees will be awarded to Fareed Zakaria, lawyer Jack Arthur Blum ’62, business owner Patricia L. Bowman, public health researcher and activist Robert E. Fullilove, philanthropist Marieluise Hessel, Bard High School Early College founding principal Raymond Peterson, historian Oliver Rathkolb, physicist Thomas F. Rosenbaum, musicologist Elaine Sisman, immunologist Kathryn E. Stein ’66, and composer Richard Wilson.

The Graduate Commencement address will be given by Thomas F. Rosenbaum, president of the California Institute of Technology. Graduate degrees conferred will be doctor of philosophy, master of philosophy, and master of arts degrees in decorative arts, design history, material culture; master of fine arts; master of science degrees in environmental policy, climate science and policy, and master of education degrees in environmental education; master of arts degrees in curatorial studies; master of arts degrees in teaching; master of music degrees in vocal arts and master of music degrees in conducting; master of business administration degrees in sustainability; master of science degrees and master of arts degrees in economic theory and policy; master of music degrees in curatorial, critical, and performance studies; master of arts degrees in global studies; master of arts degrees in human rights and the arts; master of arts degrees in Chinese music and culture; master of music degrees in instrumental studies; and master of arts degrees in public humanities.

Bard College Awards will also be presented on Commencement Weekend: The Bard Medal will be awarded to Olivia B. Carino and Audrey Lasher Smith ’78; the John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science to Amy Bernard ’91 and Matthew DeGennaro ’96; the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters to Youssef Kerkour ’00; the John Dewey Award for Distinguished Public Service to Kevin Barbosa ’18 and Eva-Marie Quinones ’17; the Mary McCarthy Award to Marilynne Robinson; the Laszlo Z. Bito Award for Humanitarian Service to Imran Ahmed ’02; and a Bardian Award to Sven Anderson.

ABOUT THE COMMENCEMENT SPEAKERS

Fareed Zakaria hosts CNN’s flagship international affairs program, Fareed Zakaria GPS, and produces documentaries for the network. He has interviewed Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, among others.
 
Zakaria is a columnist for The Washington Post and has written five New York Times bestsellers: The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad (2003), The Post-American World (2008), In Defense of a Liberal Education (2015), Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World (2020), and Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present (2024).
 
Zakaria was named a Top 10 Global Thinker of the Last 10 Years by Foreign Policy magazine in 2019. He has received a Peabody Award and three Emmys for his television work, and a National Magazine Award for his writing. In 2010, India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, one of the country’s highest civilian honors, and, in 2022, Ukraine awarded him the Order of Merit. He holds a BA from Yale and a PhD from Harvard.

Thomas F. Rosenbaum is the ninth president of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where he is also professor of physics. He is an expert on the quantum-mechanical nature of materials, and has conducted research at Bell Laboratories, INC.; the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center; Argonne National Laboratory; and the University of Chicago. At the last, he served as vice president for research and then as provost before moving to Caltech in 2014. He received his bachelor’s degree in physics with honors from Harvard University and a PhD in physics from Princeton University. He serves as the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Society for Science, as a board member of the Aspen Center for Physics, and on the Los Angeles Committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

On May 8, at Blithewood Manor, the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College convened its annual conference marking 40 years since the Institute’s founding. The occasion drew the kind of distinguished assembly of economists, journalists, and policymakers that Levy has become known for, united by a shared conviction that conventional economics has consistently failed to reckon with the realities facing the global economy and working Americans.
 
The keynote was delivered by William H. Janeway, distinguished affiliated professor at Cambridge, veteran venture capitalist, and cofounder of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. The connection was fitting: in 1986, Hyman Minsky—Levy senior scholar and foremost expert on financial instability—asked a young Janeway to address the American Economic Association. 40 years later, Janeway returned the gesture, opening a conference devoted to Minsky’s enduring relevance.
 
The event’s panels brought together leading voices that have long defined Levy Institute conferences. Former FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair joined Bloomberg’s Tom Keene in conversation on the next financial crisis. John Cassidy of the New Yorker moderated the opening session on AI and the US economy. Isabella Weber of UMass Amherst and James Galbraith of the LBJ School discussed the global energy crisis and China’s domestic price stabilization policies. Finally, Levy Institute President Tcherneva spoke alongside Darrick Hamilton, chief economist of the AFL-CIO and economic adviser to NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani, on employment and economic security.
 
“The inescapable reality — the single most defining feature of our economy — is that it no longer works for most Americans,” Tcherneva said. “Everything else follows from this.” 
 
Tcherneva’s opening address was both retrospective and strategic. She traced four decades of the Institute’s real-world impact: predicting the private-sector debt bubble, calling the 2008 housing collapse before it arrived, and anticipating the doubling of central bank balance sheets. Since then, Levy has become a go-to source on financial instability and monetary policy, its influence reaching from the US Congress and European Parliament to the highest levels of the Chinese government, shaping legislation, stabilization policy in Greece, and methodological work by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and international statistical agencies.
 
Looking ahead, Tcherneva identified two research and policy priorities: economic security for American families and the financial architecture on which that security depends. “Finance must be checked and economic security must be built — those are the twin pillars of Levy’s agenda.” she said. She sounded an alarm on GENIUS/STABLE coin legislation, anticipated a paradigm shift under incoming Fed Chair Warsh, and called for a fundamental rethinking of the 21st-century job—encompassing paid leave, childcare, healthcare, and retirement security alongside direct job creation.
 
The conference also celebrated the Institute’s graduate program and inaugurated the Levy Alumni Impact Award, presented to Oscar Valdés Viera, Senior Economist at Americans for Financial Reform, recognized for his work on private equity’s threat to retirement accounts. 40 years on, Levy’s ideas have never been more central to economic debate — and the work of the next four decades has already begun.