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Bard Newsroom

December 2020

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The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Informational Webinar: Bard Graduate Programs in Sustainability

Join and receive a $65 application fee waiver!
        

Tuesday, December 1, 2020
7–8 pm

Online
<<<< RSVP HERE >>>>

Bard Graduate Programs in Sustainability holds online informational webinars for prospective students to learn more about graduate school options in our MBA in Sustainability and Center for Environmental Policy programs. 

ABOUT
Webinars include a program overview for the Bard MBA in Sustainability and the Bard Center for Environmental Policy programs as well as detailed admissions information, course requirements, tips to make your application strong, and financial information. 

Join a live information session with Director Goodstein and the admissions team and ask questions directly of the Bard team. 

WHAT WILL BE COVERED?  
  • Overview of graduate program offerings
  • Alumni success and career outcomes
  • Admissions information
  • Prerequisite course requirements
  • Peace Corps and AmeriCorps programs
  • Financial aid availability
  • Tips for a standout application 
DEGREE OPTIONS
Degree Options Include:
MS in Environmental Policy
MS in Climate Science and Policy
MBA in Sustainability
 
Dual Degree Options Include:
MS/JD with Pace Law School 
MS/MAT with Bard's Master of Arts in Teaching 
MS/MBA with Bard's MBA in Sustainability 

Peace Corps Programs Include:
Master's International (before you serve) 
Peace Corps Fellows (after you serve)  

A $65 application fee waiver is available to those who participate in the webinar at the end of the session. Email Caitlin O'Donnell at [email protected] for further details.


<<<< RSVP HERE >>>>Sponsored by: Bard Center for Environmental Policy; Bard MBA in Sustainability.

For more information, call 845-758-7073, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://gps.bard.edu/upcoming-events.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
1
  • 7–8 pm Informational Webinar: Bard Graduate Programs in SustainabilityTuesday, December 1, 2020, 7–8 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Bard Center for the Study of Hate Webinar

“Hate images” with Aaron Tugendhaft (of Bard College Berlin), author of the new book The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet.

Wednesday, December 2, 2020
3–4 pm

Online Event
Sponsored by: Bard Center for the Study of Hate.

For more information, call 718-503-4441, or e-mail [email protected].
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2
  • 3–4 pm Bard Center for the Study of Hate WebinarWednesday, December 2, 2020, 3–4 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 3, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Black Lives Matter and the Muslim Ummah: Historical Roots of Contemporary Connections

A Conversation with Professor Alaina Morgan, University of Southern California, and Professor Jeannette Estruth

Thursday, December 3, 2020
7:30–8:30 pm

Online Event
An historian of the African Diaspora, Professor Morgan's research focuses on the  utility of religion, in particular Islam, in racial liberation and anti-colonial movements of the mid- to late-twentieth century Atlantic world. Please join her for the inaugural event in Jeannette Estruth's Muslim Ummah Speaker Series. With the support of the Office of the Dean of the College, the Bard Lifetime Learning Institute, and the Academic Program Inclusion Challenge, this event is free and open to the Bard Community, the OSUN Network, and the public of the Hudson Valley.  
 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://bard.zoom.us/j/84036603419
Zoom Meeting ID 840 3660 3419
Sponsored by: Office of the Dean of the College, the Bard Lifetime Learning Institute, and the Academic Program Inclusion Challenge.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
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3
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereThursday, December 3, 2020, 12–5 pm
  • 7:30–8:30 pm Black Lives Matter and the Muslim Ummah: Historical Roots of Contemporary ConnectionsThursday, December 3, 2020, 7:30–8:30 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Friday, December 4, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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CCS Bard: Conversation with George Stanley Nsamba

Friday, December 4, 2020
11 am – 12:30 pm

Online Event
In conjunction with Day With(out) Art 2020, CCS Bard will host a discussion with artist, filmmaker, and activist George Stanley Nsamba. Day With(out) Art is an international day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis. Register in advance here.

Believing in the power of art to tell people’s stories, Nsamba has directed a number of films throughout his career that touch upon the lives of those living with HIV and AIDS. In his newly commissioned work Finding Purpose (2020) the artist offers reflections on the experience of producing a film about teens born HIV positive in Uganda and the pervasive and discriminatory stigmas that cling to that status. This film builds upon the artist’s distinctive commitment to intergenerational and youth-centered storytelling. Nsamba is also a devoted mentor, and in 2013 he founded The Ghetto Film Project in the slums of Naguru, as a way to train and empower youth in socially engaged film production. 

In this student-focused discussion between the filmmaker, members of Bard College, and the wider community, Nsamba will lead a conversation around his practice, the role of the artist in society, and the difficult yet important work of bringing personal narratives of HIV and AIDS to the fore.  

This conversation is free and open to the public. Registration is required in advance here.  Prior to the event, participants are invited to learn more about Nsamba’s practice through materials made available here. Questions for the artist can be submitted in advance via this Google Form. 

George Stanley Nsamba is a filmmaker, spoken word artist, and human rights activist. In 2013, he founded The Ghetto Film Project to mentor and train youth in socially engaged film production. Nsamba's films Time Irreversible (2017), The Dummy Team (2016), Silent Depression (2015), and Crafts: The Value of Life (2015) have screened throughout Africa and the United States.

Learn more about Day With(out) Art 2020 at visualaids.org.Sponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-2442, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/conversation-with-george-stanley-nsamba-tickets-130291269695.
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Songs for a Winter Evening

Streamed program featuring young artists of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program and Collaborative Piano Fellows Program, in music offered at the recent Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition.

Friday, December 4, 2020
7:30–9 pm

Online Event
The program will be streamed at:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbmbVZAh57SREaSAYBG1bdGySponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music; Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program.

For more information, call 845-752-7196, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbmbVZAh57SREaSAYBG1bdGy.
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4
  • 11 am – 12:30 pm CCS Bard: Conversation with George Stanley NsambaFriday, December 4, 2020, 11 am – 12:30 pm
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereFriday, December 4, 2020, 12–5 pm
  • 7:30–9 pm Songs for a Winter EveningFriday, December 4, 2020, 7:30–9 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
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Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
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Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
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2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
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The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Saturday, December 5, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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C2C Fellows Sustainability Leadership Training 

1-Day Virtual Sustainability Leadership Workshop

Saturday, December 5, 2020
9 am – 5 pm

Online Event
Sustainability Leadership Training, 12.5.20 / Gain the Knowledge to Change the Future
 
The C2C Fellows Network at the Bard Center for Environmental Policy is a national program for undergraduates and recent graduates aspiring to leadership work in sustainable politics, NGO’s and business. C2C’s intensive, interactive skills-based virtual workshops teach skills they don't teach at university, skills you need to change the future.  

>>>Apply here<<<

Led by Dr. Eban Goodstein, Director of Bard’s Center for Environmental Policy, C2C trainings focus on key leadership skills: vision, courage, developing your network, telling your story, and raising funds.
Graduates of the workshops join a national network with access to continuing educational and professional opportunities, including dedicated scholarships to attend Bard’s Graduate Programs in Sustainability: Masters of Science degrees in Environmental Policy and Climate Science and Policy, Masters of Education in Environmental Education, and the Bard MBA in Sustainability.
 
C2C Fellows are leaders whose vision is to make a difference soon. Our mission is to accelerate their life’s work. Join us.

>>>APPLY NOW<<<

Details:
  • Workshop begins at 9 AM Saturday 12/5 and ends at 5 PM. 
  • Registration Fee, $10.
  • Questions? Please contact Tara McEIhinney [email protected]
Sponsored by: Bard Center for Environmental Policy.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
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Livestreamed Degree Recital: Weilan Li, viola

Works for viola and piano by J. S. Bach, Arnold Bax, and William Walton

Saturday, December 5, 2020
2–3 pm

Online Event
A degree recital streamed live from the László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building. Visit the Conservatory's YouTube channel for viewing  and program details: 
https://youtu.be/8Tr68J6DSJsSponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-752-7196, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://youtu.be/8Tr68J6DSJs.
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Bard Baroque Ensemble Livestream Concert

Saturday, December 5, 2020
7–8:30 pm

Online Event
Join us for a livestreamed concert by the Bard Baroque ensemble, performing works by Couperin, Torelli, Morley, Dowland, Mozart, and Rameau. Conductor: Renée Anne Louprette.Sponsored by: Music Program.

For more information, call 845-758-7250, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbkoYEh3TSsHswWvQ-OBWvhp.
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5
  • 9 am – 5 pm C2C Fellows Sustainability Leadership Training Saturday, December 5, 2020, 9 am – 5 pm
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereSaturday, December 5, 2020, 12–5 pm
  • 2–3 pm Livestreamed Degree Recital: Weilan Li, violaSaturday, December 5, 2020, 2–3 pm
  • 7–8:30 pm Bard Baroque Ensemble Livestream ConcertSaturday, December 5, 2020, 7–8:30 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
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Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
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Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Sunday, December 6, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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6
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereSunday, December 6, 2020, 12–5 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Senior Projects Due

Monday, December 7, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Who Counts? A Graphic Novel Performance

Monday, December 7, 2020
10:20 am – 12 pm

Online Event
The Past in the Present, an ELAS class led by Myra Armstead, has engaged with speakers throughout the fall semester—from the mayor of the Village of Red Hook, to the director of community engagement for Dutchess County, to a talent outreach specialist for the U.S. Census—along with independent research, to design illustrations, a graphic novel, and script that creatively address themes of violence and slavery, permissible civic discourse, the politics of celebratory narratives, Constitutional originalism, and citizenship and belonging. This collaborative project will culminate in an audiovisual performance that will consider the question “Who counts, and why?” and compare the politics underlying the U.S. federal censuses of 1820 and 2020 pertaining to race, citizenship rights, and benefits.
 Sponsored by: Center for Civic Engagement.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://bard.zoom.us/j/92883064405?pwd=cXM3TXYvempXc200TU5mWWdvb0dSQT09.
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7
  • 10:20 am – 12 pm Who Counts? A Graphic Novel PerformanceMonday, December 7, 2020, 10:20 am – 12 pm
  • Senior Projects DueMonday, December 7, 2020

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
8

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Advising Day

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Building a Career in Sustainability: Advice From Impact Finance Leaders

Engage with sustainability consulting experts to learn how to launch your career in the field!

Wednesday, December 9, 2020
6:30–7:30 pm

Online Event

>>>RSVP HERE<<<
About this Event: 
Bard’s Graduate Programs in Sustainability are pleased to host a webinar series providing aspiring change-makers access to sustainability experts to gain tips on launching their own careers in sustainability.

Impact Finance Expert Panel:
  • Emma Jenkins, Financial Planning Analyst, JSA Sustainable Wealth Management (moderator)
  • Randy Strickland, Director, Cornerstone Capital Inc.
  • Kathy Hipple, Financial Analyst, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis

Leaders in impact finance are guiding divestment strategies, building socially and environmentally responsible investment portfolios, and redirecting funding support to historically under-resourced communities, all with the goal of using financial instruments to create a sustainable, equitable, and just future. Join this conversation to hear from thought leaders who have been at the forefront of impact finance to learn how they launched and grew their career, what tips they have for high impact careers creating impact finance, and what they look for in their new hires. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions of panelists.
 
>>>RSVP HERE<<<


 Sponsored by: Bard Center for Environmental Policy; Bard MBA in Sustainability.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/building-a-career-in-sustainability-advice-from-impact-finance-leaders-registration-1203015.
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9
  • Advising DayWednesday, December 9, 2020
  • 6:30–7:30 pm Building a Career in Sustainability: Advice From Impact Finance LeadersWednesday, December 9, 2020, 6:30–7:30 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 10, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Registration for Spring Classes Opens

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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10
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereThursday, December 10, 2020, 12–5 pm
  • Registration for Spring Classes OpensThursday, December 10, 2020

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
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Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
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Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
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2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
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The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Friday, December 11, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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China and Beethoven

3rd Annual China Now Music Festival of the the US-China Music Institute

Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with eight days of online musical events in our 3rd annual China Now Music Festival, China and Beethoven. 

Celebratory events for “Beethoven 250” have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where Beethoven enjoys great popularity among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or reimagined. As China begins to reopen, Beethoven once again takes center stage. 

China and Beethoven will provide a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s legacy as a heroic figure during the changing politics of the 20th century, along with China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events are FREE online, and open to the public with event registration. To learn more and to register visit barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.

Festival Event Schedule

December 11, 7:30pm
China’s Sage of Music 
Concert/Lecture
The festival’s opening event traces the story of Beethoven’s ascent into the cultural imagination of China through discussions with music scholars and musical interludes from the US and China. Hosted by Jindong Cai, conductor, professor of Music and Arts at Bard College, and director of the US-China Music Institute. 

December 12, 8pm
Beethoven in China 
Webinar in Chinese (Zoom)
China Institute’s Renwen Society hosts Jindong Cai in a webinar discussion in Chinese of his book Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

December 13, 7:30pm
Beethoven Made in China
Concert/Lecture
Experience an exciting and imaginative evening of musical interpretations of Beethoven with Chinese accents, presented by world-renowned artists including bass-baritone Shenyang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, composer/conductor Tan Dun, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, and musicians of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
Hosted by Shenyang and Jindong Cai. 

December 14, 7:30pm
Beethoven Is Us
Producer’s Expo
Host Jindong Cai and guests will offer a peek into the Chinese market for all things Beethoven, including a musical based on Beethoven’s life, a play describing how his music became known in China, and an “immersive multimedia Beethoven experience” exhibition in Shanghai.   

December 15, 7:30pm
Shanghai Symphony: Night of Beethoven
Concert
Celebrate Beethoven’s birthday with the illustrious Shanghai Symphony, featuring a selection of recent performances of some of Beethoven’s most iconic symphonic and chamber works, specially selected for the China Now Music Festival.

December 16, 7:30pm
Beethoven in Beijing: an American Orchestra’s Journey
Private Film Screening
Get early access to the new documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which follows the Philadelphia Orchestra on their first historic trip to China in 1973 and chronicles the opening of China to Western classical music since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

December 17, 8pm
Building Bridges through Music: Beethoven in Beijing
Roundtable Discussion (Zoom)
Hosted by Asia Society and moderated by author Sheila Melvin, this discussion with the filmmakers of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing plus special guests will look at the future of culture and diplomacy through classical music.

December 18, 7:30pm
Egmont in China
Orchestra Concert 
The 2020 China Now Music Festival closes with a landmark performance of Beethoven’s complete Egmont, his musical setting of the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a new production by the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing. Featuring narration in Mandarin, the concert was recorded live at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 12, 2020.

Featured Artists and Speakers
  • Leon Botstein, president, Bard College
  • Tan Dun, dean, Bard College Conservatory of Music
  • Jindong Cai, artistic director, China Now Music Festival; director, US-China Music Institute
  • Shenyang, bass-baritone
  • Wu Man, pipa
  • The Orchestra Now
  • China NCPA Orchestra
  • Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • Shanghai Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
And more! Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.
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Saw Kill Water Sampling

Friday, December 11, 2020
10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Saw Kill

As a member of one of our four sampling teams, you’ll collect water samples (from stream bank or bridges) from 3–4 sites on the Saw Kill and record the results.

Sampling is done on the second Friday of the month starting at 10:30 a.m. From start to finish, it takes about 2 hours.

Sampling is fun and easy—and you’re contributing to the science that helps keep your drinking water safe. If you wish, you can also help process the samples in the Bard Water Lab after collection.

Open to everyone. Free training is available.

If interested, please contact:
Lindsey Drew
Bard Water Lab Manager
[email protected]Sponsored by: Bard Center for the Study of Land, Air, and Water; Environmental and Urban Studies Program.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Percussion Studio Recital

Streamed concert of works by J. S. Bach, John Cage, Finola Merivale, Astor Piazzolla, and Jason Treuting

Friday, December 11, 2020
7:30–9 pm

Online Event
Program includes:
Falling Flames  by Finola Merivale
Go Placidly  by Jason Treuting 
Cello Suite No. 5  by J. S. Bach
Histoire du Tango  by Astor Piazzolla
with musicians:
Isabela Cruz-Vespa
Petra Elek
Matt Overbay
Juan Mora Rubio
João Melo
Jaelyn Quilizapa
Juliana Maitenaz
Arnav Shirodkar
Luis Herrera 
 Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-752-7196, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbnQlYMTdLIuQiR1l_i4ty1s.
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11
  • 10:30 am – 12:30 pm Saw Kill Water SamplingFriday, December 11, 2020, 10:30 am – 12:30 pm
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereFriday, December 11, 2020, 12–5 pm
  • 7:30–9 pm Percussion Studio RecitalFriday, December 11, 2020, 7:30–9 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
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Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
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2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
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The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Saturday, December 12, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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China and Beethoven

3rd Annual China Now Music Festival of the the US-China Music Institute

Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with eight days of online musical events in our 3rd annual China Now Music Festival, China and Beethoven. 

Celebratory events for “Beethoven 250” have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where Beethoven enjoys great popularity among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or reimagined. As China begins to reopen, Beethoven once again takes center stage. 

China and Beethoven will provide a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s legacy as a heroic figure during the changing politics of the 20th century, along with China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events are FREE online, and open to the public with event registration. To learn more and to register visit barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.

Festival Event Schedule

December 11, 7:30pm
China’s Sage of Music 
Concert/Lecture
The festival’s opening event traces the story of Beethoven’s ascent into the cultural imagination of China through discussions with music scholars and musical interludes from the US and China. Hosted by Jindong Cai, conductor, professor of Music and Arts at Bard College, and director of the US-China Music Institute. 

December 12, 8pm
Beethoven in China 
Webinar in Chinese (Zoom)
China Institute’s Renwen Society hosts Jindong Cai in a webinar discussion in Chinese of his book Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

December 13, 7:30pm
Beethoven Made in China
Concert/Lecture
Experience an exciting and imaginative evening of musical interpretations of Beethoven with Chinese accents, presented by world-renowned artists including bass-baritone Shenyang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, composer/conductor Tan Dun, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, and musicians of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
Hosted by Shenyang and Jindong Cai. 

December 14, 7:30pm
Beethoven Is Us
Producer’s Expo
Host Jindong Cai and guests will offer a peek into the Chinese market for all things Beethoven, including a musical based on Beethoven’s life, a play describing how his music became known in China, and an “immersive multimedia Beethoven experience” exhibition in Shanghai.   

December 15, 7:30pm
Shanghai Symphony: Night of Beethoven
Concert
Celebrate Beethoven’s birthday with the illustrious Shanghai Symphony, featuring a selection of recent performances of some of Beethoven’s most iconic symphonic and chamber works, specially selected for the China Now Music Festival.

December 16, 7:30pm
Beethoven in Beijing: an American Orchestra’s Journey
Private Film Screening
Get early access to the new documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which follows the Philadelphia Orchestra on their first historic trip to China in 1973 and chronicles the opening of China to Western classical music since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

December 17, 8pm
Building Bridges through Music: Beethoven in Beijing
Roundtable Discussion (Zoom)
Hosted by Asia Society and moderated by author Sheila Melvin, this discussion with the filmmakers of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing plus special guests will look at the future of culture and diplomacy through classical music.

December 18, 7:30pm
Egmont in China
Orchestra Concert 
The 2020 China Now Music Festival closes with a landmark performance of Beethoven’s complete Egmont, his musical setting of the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a new production by the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing. Featuring narration in Mandarin, the concert was recorded live at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 12, 2020.

Featured Artists and Speakers
  • Leon Botstein, president, Bard College
  • Tan Dun, dean, Bard College Conservatory of Music
  • Jindong Cai, artistic director, China Now Music Festival; director, US-China Music Institute
  • Shenyang, bass-baritone
  • Wu Man, pipa
  • The Orchestra Now
  • China NCPA Orchestra
  • Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • Shanghai Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
And more! Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.
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Benjamin Hochman and Keiko Sekino Piano Studio Recital

Streamed recital with six students performing selections from works by Bartok, Brahms, Ravel, Schubert, and Schumann.

Saturday, December 12, 2020
10–11 am

Online Event
This recital will feature a combination of prerecorded videos from students in Moscow and China, and four live performances from the László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building.

Link for streaming this recital:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbmlUYr9opVBxaq42nmSv-6SSponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-7196, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbmlUYr9opVBxaq42nmSv-6S.
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12
  • 10–11 am Benjamin Hochman and Keiko Sekino Piano Studio RecitalSaturday, December 12, 2020, 10–11 am
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereSaturday, December 12, 2020, 12–5 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
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Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
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Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Sunday, December 13, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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China and Beethoven

3rd Annual China Now Music Festival of the the US-China Music Institute

Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with eight days of online musical events in our 3rd annual China Now Music Festival, China and Beethoven. 

Celebratory events for “Beethoven 250” have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where Beethoven enjoys great popularity among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or reimagined. As China begins to reopen, Beethoven once again takes center stage. 

China and Beethoven will provide a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s legacy as a heroic figure during the changing politics of the 20th century, along with China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events are FREE online, and open to the public with event registration. To learn more and to register visit barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.

Festival Event Schedule

December 11, 7:30pm
China’s Sage of Music 
Concert/Lecture
The festival’s opening event traces the story of Beethoven’s ascent into the cultural imagination of China through discussions with music scholars and musical interludes from the US and China. Hosted by Jindong Cai, conductor, professor of Music and Arts at Bard College, and director of the US-China Music Institute. 

December 12, 8pm
Beethoven in China 
Webinar in Chinese (Zoom)
China Institute’s Renwen Society hosts Jindong Cai in a webinar discussion in Chinese of his book Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

December 13, 7:30pm
Beethoven Made in China
Concert/Lecture
Experience an exciting and imaginative evening of musical interpretations of Beethoven with Chinese accents, presented by world-renowned artists including bass-baritone Shenyang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, composer/conductor Tan Dun, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, and musicians of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
Hosted by Shenyang and Jindong Cai. 

December 14, 7:30pm
Beethoven Is Us
Producer’s Expo
Host Jindong Cai and guests will offer a peek into the Chinese market for all things Beethoven, including a musical based on Beethoven’s life, a play describing how his music became known in China, and an “immersive multimedia Beethoven experience” exhibition in Shanghai.   

December 15, 7:30pm
Shanghai Symphony: Night of Beethoven
Concert
Celebrate Beethoven’s birthday with the illustrious Shanghai Symphony, featuring a selection of recent performances of some of Beethoven’s most iconic symphonic and chamber works, specially selected for the China Now Music Festival.

December 16, 7:30pm
Beethoven in Beijing: an American Orchestra’s Journey
Private Film Screening
Get early access to the new documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which follows the Philadelphia Orchestra on their first historic trip to China in 1973 and chronicles the opening of China to Western classical music since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

December 17, 8pm
Building Bridges through Music: Beethoven in Beijing
Roundtable Discussion (Zoom)
Hosted by Asia Society and moderated by author Sheila Melvin, this discussion with the filmmakers of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing plus special guests will look at the future of culture and diplomacy through classical music.

December 18, 7:30pm
Egmont in China
Orchestra Concert 
The 2020 China Now Music Festival closes with a landmark performance of Beethoven’s complete Egmont, his musical setting of the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a new production by the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing. Featuring narration in Mandarin, the concert was recorded live at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 12, 2020.

Featured Artists and Speakers
  • Leon Botstein, president, Bard College
  • Tan Dun, dean, Bard College Conservatory of Music
  • Jindong Cai, artistic director, China Now Music Festival; director, US-China Music Institute
  • Shenyang, bass-baritone
  • Wu Man, pipa
  • The Orchestra Now
  • China NCPA Orchestra
  • Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • Shanghai Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
And more! Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.
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13
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereSunday, December 13, 2020, 12–5 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
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Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
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Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
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2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
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The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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China and Beethoven

3rd Annual China Now Music Festival of the the US-China Music Institute

Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with eight days of online musical events in our 3rd annual China Now Music Festival, China and Beethoven. 

Celebratory events for “Beethoven 250” have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where Beethoven enjoys great popularity among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or reimagined. As China begins to reopen, Beethoven once again takes center stage. 

China and Beethoven will provide a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s legacy as a heroic figure during the changing politics of the 20th century, along with China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events are FREE online, and open to the public with event registration. To learn more and to register visit barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.

Festival Event Schedule

December 11, 7:30pm
China’s Sage of Music 
Concert/Lecture
The festival’s opening event traces the story of Beethoven’s ascent into the cultural imagination of China through discussions with music scholars and musical interludes from the US and China. Hosted by Jindong Cai, conductor, professor of Music and Arts at Bard College, and director of the US-China Music Institute. 

December 12, 8pm
Beethoven in China 
Webinar in Chinese (Zoom)
China Institute’s Renwen Society hosts Jindong Cai in a webinar discussion in Chinese of his book Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

December 13, 7:30pm
Beethoven Made in China
Concert/Lecture
Experience an exciting and imaginative evening of musical interpretations of Beethoven with Chinese accents, presented by world-renowned artists including bass-baritone Shenyang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, composer/conductor Tan Dun, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, and musicians of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
Hosted by Shenyang and Jindong Cai. 

December 14, 7:30pm
Beethoven Is Us
Producer’s Expo
Host Jindong Cai and guests will offer a peek into the Chinese market for all things Beethoven, including a musical based on Beethoven’s life, a play describing how his music became known in China, and an “immersive multimedia Beethoven experience” exhibition in Shanghai.   

December 15, 7:30pm
Shanghai Symphony: Night of Beethoven
Concert
Celebrate Beethoven’s birthday with the illustrious Shanghai Symphony, featuring a selection of recent performances of some of Beethoven’s most iconic symphonic and chamber works, specially selected for the China Now Music Festival.

December 16, 7:30pm
Beethoven in Beijing: an American Orchestra’s Journey
Private Film Screening
Get early access to the new documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which follows the Philadelphia Orchestra on their first historic trip to China in 1973 and chronicles the opening of China to Western classical music since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

December 17, 8pm
Building Bridges through Music: Beethoven in Beijing
Roundtable Discussion (Zoom)
Hosted by Asia Society and moderated by author Sheila Melvin, this discussion with the filmmakers of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing plus special guests will look at the future of culture and diplomacy through classical music.

December 18, 7:30pm
Egmont in China
Orchestra Concert 
The 2020 China Now Music Festival closes with a landmark performance of Beethoven’s complete Egmont, his musical setting of the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a new production by the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing. Featuring narration in Mandarin, the concert was recorded live at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 12, 2020.

Featured Artists and Speakers
  • Leon Botstein, president, Bard College
  • Tan Dun, dean, Bard College Conservatory of Music
  • Jindong Cai, artistic director, China Now Music Festival; director, US-China Music Institute
  • Shenyang, bass-baritone
  • Wu Man, pipa
  • The Orchestra Now
  • China NCPA Orchestra
  • Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • Shanghai Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
And more! Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.
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Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Adapting to the New Reality: Civically Engaged Universities and Long-Term Partnerships

Monday, December 14, 2020
9–10 am

Online Event
Join us via Zoom: https://bard.zoom.us/j/81662127894?pwd=NHJOK01odkdKa25xbnZXS2RudkMzZz09

Panelists:
  • Haifa Jamal Al-Lail, President, Effat University (Saudia Arabia)
  • Penn Loh, Senior Lecturer, Tufts University (U.S.)
  • Julian Skyrme, Director of Social Responsibility, The University of Manchester (England)
Moderated by Jonathan Becker, Vice-Chancellor of the Open Society University Network.

Join us via Zoom

Webinar ID: 816 6212 7894
Passcode: 363782
Or iPhone one-tap : US: +16465588656,,81662127894#,,,,,,0#,,363782#  or +13017158592,,81662127894#,,,,,,0#,,363782#
Or Telephone: Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
        US: +1 646 558 8656  or +1 301 715 8592  or +1 312 626 6799  or +1 253 215 8782  or +1 346 248 7799  or +1 669 900 9128
International numbers available: https://bard.zoom.us/u/kcXiFiLXUx


The COV-AID webinar series Adapting to the New Reality: Civically Engaged Universities Offer Strategies and Hope collects and shares stories of institutions and individuals who are taking action to mitigate the crisis, and documents practical steps and strategies that may be of use elsewhere. The series is a collaboration between the Open Society University Network and the Talloires Network of Engaged Universities.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://bard.zoom.us/j/81662127894?pwd=NHJOK01odkdKa25xbnZXS2RudkMzZz09.
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Bard Graduate Programs in Sustainability: Virtual Open House

Monday, December 14, 2020
7–8:30 pm

Online Event


Attendees receive a $65 application fee waiver!
>>>RSVP HERE<<<


Join us for an online Open House hosted by the Bard MBA in Sustainability and Center for Environmental Policy.

Attendees will hear from a panel of current students and alumni of Bard's MBA in Sustainability and Center for Environmental Policy. Our panel of student/alum experts will discuss topics such as:
  • career outcomes -- how the MS degrees at CEP and MBA in Sustainability have led to impactful sustainability careers
  • the program experience -- highlights on courses and key features at Bard (including the NYCLab course and the CEP internship)
  • how to get the most of your graduate school journey -- career development + student engagement opportunities at Bard
  • how to make your application stand out -- tips on perfecting your application materials, advice on getting through the graduate school admissions process
In addition: Program Director Eban Goodstein will provide an overview of the program offerings at Bard CEP and the MBA in Sustainability.

Our Admissions staff will also be on hand to provide information on the application process and answer questions regarding:
  • financial aid opportunities
  • successfully completing program prerequisites 
>>>RSVP HERE<<<

Event Location: This event will be held via Zoom. Access details will be shared with attendees upon event registration.

Email Katie Boyle with any additional questions.Sponsored by: Bard Center for Environmental Policy; Bard MBA in Sustainability.

For more information, call 845-758-7073, or e-mail [email protected].
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14
  • 9–10 am Adapting to the New Reality: Civically Engaged Universities and Long-Term PartnershipsMonday, December 14, 2020, 9–10 am
  • Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final ExamsMonday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020
  • 7–8:30 pm Bard Graduate Programs in Sustainability: Virtual Open HouseMonday, December 14, 2020, 7–8:30 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

China and Beethoven

3rd Annual China Now Music Festival of the the US-China Music Institute

Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with eight days of online musical events in our 3rd annual China Now Music Festival, China and Beethoven. 

Celebratory events for “Beethoven 250” have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where Beethoven enjoys great popularity among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or reimagined. As China begins to reopen, Beethoven once again takes center stage. 

China and Beethoven will provide a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s legacy as a heroic figure during the changing politics of the 20th century, along with China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events are FREE online, and open to the public with event registration. To learn more and to register visit barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.

Festival Event Schedule

December 11, 7:30pm
China’s Sage of Music 
Concert/Lecture
The festival’s opening event traces the story of Beethoven’s ascent into the cultural imagination of China through discussions with music scholars and musical interludes from the US and China. Hosted by Jindong Cai, conductor, professor of Music and Arts at Bard College, and director of the US-China Music Institute. 

December 12, 8pm
Beethoven in China 
Webinar in Chinese (Zoom)
China Institute’s Renwen Society hosts Jindong Cai in a webinar discussion in Chinese of his book Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

December 13, 7:30pm
Beethoven Made in China
Concert/Lecture
Experience an exciting and imaginative evening of musical interpretations of Beethoven with Chinese accents, presented by world-renowned artists including bass-baritone Shenyang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, composer/conductor Tan Dun, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, and musicians of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
Hosted by Shenyang and Jindong Cai. 

December 14, 7:30pm
Beethoven Is Us
Producer’s Expo
Host Jindong Cai and guests will offer a peek into the Chinese market for all things Beethoven, including a musical based on Beethoven’s life, a play describing how his music became known in China, and an “immersive multimedia Beethoven experience” exhibition in Shanghai.   

December 15, 7:30pm
Shanghai Symphony: Night of Beethoven
Concert
Celebrate Beethoven’s birthday with the illustrious Shanghai Symphony, featuring a selection of recent performances of some of Beethoven’s most iconic symphonic and chamber works, specially selected for the China Now Music Festival.

December 16, 7:30pm
Beethoven in Beijing: an American Orchestra’s Journey
Private Film Screening
Get early access to the new documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which follows the Philadelphia Orchestra on their first historic trip to China in 1973 and chronicles the opening of China to Western classical music since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

December 17, 8pm
Building Bridges through Music: Beethoven in Beijing
Roundtable Discussion (Zoom)
Hosted by Asia Society and moderated by author Sheila Melvin, this discussion with the filmmakers of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing plus special guests will look at the future of culture and diplomacy through classical music.

December 18, 7:30pm
Egmont in China
Orchestra Concert 
The 2020 China Now Music Festival closes with a landmark performance of Beethoven’s complete Egmont, his musical setting of the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a new production by the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing. Featuring narration in Mandarin, the concert was recorded live at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 12, 2020.

Featured Artists and Speakers
  • Leon Botstein, president, Bard College
  • Tan Dun, dean, Bard College Conservatory of Music
  • Jindong Cai, artistic director, China Now Music Festival; director, US-China Music Institute
  • Shenyang, bass-baritone
  • Wu Man, pipa
  • The Orchestra Now
  • China NCPA Orchestra
  • Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • Shanghai Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
And more! Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
15
  • Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final ExamsMonday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

China and Beethoven

3rd Annual China Now Music Festival of the the US-China Music Institute

Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with eight days of online musical events in our 3rd annual China Now Music Festival, China and Beethoven. 

Celebratory events for “Beethoven 250” have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where Beethoven enjoys great popularity among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or reimagined. As China begins to reopen, Beethoven once again takes center stage. 

China and Beethoven will provide a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s legacy as a heroic figure during the changing politics of the 20th century, along with China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events are FREE online, and open to the public with event registration. To learn more and to register visit barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.

Festival Event Schedule

December 11, 7:30pm
China’s Sage of Music 
Concert/Lecture
The festival’s opening event traces the story of Beethoven’s ascent into the cultural imagination of China through discussions with music scholars and musical interludes from the US and China. Hosted by Jindong Cai, conductor, professor of Music and Arts at Bard College, and director of the US-China Music Institute. 

December 12, 8pm
Beethoven in China 
Webinar in Chinese (Zoom)
China Institute’s Renwen Society hosts Jindong Cai in a webinar discussion in Chinese of his book Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

December 13, 7:30pm
Beethoven Made in China
Concert/Lecture
Experience an exciting and imaginative evening of musical interpretations of Beethoven with Chinese accents, presented by world-renowned artists including bass-baritone Shenyang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, composer/conductor Tan Dun, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, and musicians of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
Hosted by Shenyang and Jindong Cai. 

December 14, 7:30pm
Beethoven Is Us
Producer’s Expo
Host Jindong Cai and guests will offer a peek into the Chinese market for all things Beethoven, including a musical based on Beethoven’s life, a play describing how his music became known in China, and an “immersive multimedia Beethoven experience” exhibition in Shanghai.   

December 15, 7:30pm
Shanghai Symphony: Night of Beethoven
Concert
Celebrate Beethoven’s birthday with the illustrious Shanghai Symphony, featuring a selection of recent performances of some of Beethoven’s most iconic symphonic and chamber works, specially selected for the China Now Music Festival.

December 16, 7:30pm
Beethoven in Beijing: an American Orchestra’s Journey
Private Film Screening
Get early access to the new documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which follows the Philadelphia Orchestra on their first historic trip to China in 1973 and chronicles the opening of China to Western classical music since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

December 17, 8pm
Building Bridges through Music: Beethoven in Beijing
Roundtable Discussion (Zoom)
Hosted by Asia Society and moderated by author Sheila Melvin, this discussion with the filmmakers of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing plus special guests will look at the future of culture and diplomacy through classical music.

December 18, 7:30pm
Egmont in China
Orchestra Concert 
The 2020 China Now Music Festival closes with a landmark performance of Beethoven’s complete Egmont, his musical setting of the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a new production by the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing. Featuring narration in Mandarin, the concert was recorded live at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 12, 2020.

Featured Artists and Speakers
  • Leon Botstein, president, Bard College
  • Tan Dun, dean, Bard College Conservatory of Music
  • Jindong Cai, artistic director, China Now Music Festival; director, US-China Music Institute
  • Shenyang, bass-baritone
  • Wu Man, pipa
  • The Orchestra Now
  • China NCPA Orchestra
  • Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • Shanghai Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
And more! Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
16
  • Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final ExamsMonday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
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2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
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The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 17, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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China and Beethoven

3rd Annual China Now Music Festival of the the US-China Music Institute

Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with eight days of online musical events in our 3rd annual China Now Music Festival, China and Beethoven. 

Celebratory events for “Beethoven 250” have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where Beethoven enjoys great popularity among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or reimagined. As China begins to reopen, Beethoven once again takes center stage. 

China and Beethoven will provide a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s legacy as a heroic figure during the changing politics of the 20th century, along with China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events are FREE online, and open to the public with event registration. To learn more and to register visit barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.

Festival Event Schedule

December 11, 7:30pm
China’s Sage of Music 
Concert/Lecture
The festival’s opening event traces the story of Beethoven’s ascent into the cultural imagination of China through discussions with music scholars and musical interludes from the US and China. Hosted by Jindong Cai, conductor, professor of Music and Arts at Bard College, and director of the US-China Music Institute. 

December 12, 8pm
Beethoven in China 
Webinar in Chinese (Zoom)
China Institute’s Renwen Society hosts Jindong Cai in a webinar discussion in Chinese of his book Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

December 13, 7:30pm
Beethoven Made in China
Concert/Lecture
Experience an exciting and imaginative evening of musical interpretations of Beethoven with Chinese accents, presented by world-renowned artists including bass-baritone Shenyang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, composer/conductor Tan Dun, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, and musicians of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
Hosted by Shenyang and Jindong Cai. 

December 14, 7:30pm
Beethoven Is Us
Producer’s Expo
Host Jindong Cai and guests will offer a peek into the Chinese market for all things Beethoven, including a musical based on Beethoven’s life, a play describing how his music became known in China, and an “immersive multimedia Beethoven experience” exhibition in Shanghai.   

December 15, 7:30pm
Shanghai Symphony: Night of Beethoven
Concert
Celebrate Beethoven’s birthday with the illustrious Shanghai Symphony, featuring a selection of recent performances of some of Beethoven’s most iconic symphonic and chamber works, specially selected for the China Now Music Festival.

December 16, 7:30pm
Beethoven in Beijing: an American Orchestra’s Journey
Private Film Screening
Get early access to the new documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which follows the Philadelphia Orchestra on their first historic trip to China in 1973 and chronicles the opening of China to Western classical music since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

December 17, 8pm
Building Bridges through Music: Beethoven in Beijing
Roundtable Discussion (Zoom)
Hosted by Asia Society and moderated by author Sheila Melvin, this discussion with the filmmakers of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing plus special guests will look at the future of culture and diplomacy through classical music.

December 18, 7:30pm
Egmont in China
Orchestra Concert 
The 2020 China Now Music Festival closes with a landmark performance of Beethoven’s complete Egmont, his musical setting of the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a new production by the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing. Featuring narration in Mandarin, the concert was recorded live at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 12, 2020.

Featured Artists and Speakers
  • Leon Botstein, president, Bard College
  • Tan Dun, dean, Bard College Conservatory of Music
  • Jindong Cai, artistic director, China Now Music Festival; director, US-China Music Institute
  • Shenyang, bass-baritone
  • Wu Man, pipa
  • The Orchestra Now
  • China NCPA Orchestra
  • Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • Shanghai Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
And more! Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.
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Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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17
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereThursday, December 17, 2020, 12–5 pm
  • Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final ExamsMonday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
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Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
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Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
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2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
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The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Friday, December 18, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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China and Beethoven

3rd Annual China Now Music Festival of the the US-China Music Institute

Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with eight days of online musical events in our 3rd annual China Now Music Festival, China and Beethoven. 

Celebratory events for “Beethoven 250” have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where Beethoven enjoys great popularity among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or reimagined. As China begins to reopen, Beethoven once again takes center stage. 

China and Beethoven will provide a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s legacy as a heroic figure during the changing politics of the 20th century, along with China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events are FREE online, and open to the public with event registration. To learn more and to register visit barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.

Festival Event Schedule

December 11, 7:30pm
China’s Sage of Music 
Concert/Lecture
The festival’s opening event traces the story of Beethoven’s ascent into the cultural imagination of China through discussions with music scholars and musical interludes from the US and China. Hosted by Jindong Cai, conductor, professor of Music and Arts at Bard College, and director of the US-China Music Institute. 

December 12, 8pm
Beethoven in China 
Webinar in Chinese (Zoom)
China Institute’s Renwen Society hosts Jindong Cai in a webinar discussion in Chinese of his book Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

December 13, 7:30pm
Beethoven Made in China
Concert/Lecture
Experience an exciting and imaginative evening of musical interpretations of Beethoven with Chinese accents, presented by world-renowned artists including bass-baritone Shenyang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, composer/conductor Tan Dun, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, and musicians of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
Hosted by Shenyang and Jindong Cai. 

December 14, 7:30pm
Beethoven Is Us
Producer’s Expo
Host Jindong Cai and guests will offer a peek into the Chinese market for all things Beethoven, including a musical based on Beethoven’s life, a play describing how his music became known in China, and an “immersive multimedia Beethoven experience” exhibition in Shanghai.   

December 15, 7:30pm
Shanghai Symphony: Night of Beethoven
Concert
Celebrate Beethoven’s birthday with the illustrious Shanghai Symphony, featuring a selection of recent performances of some of Beethoven’s most iconic symphonic and chamber works, specially selected for the China Now Music Festival.

December 16, 7:30pm
Beethoven in Beijing: an American Orchestra’s Journey
Private Film Screening
Get early access to the new documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which follows the Philadelphia Orchestra on their first historic trip to China in 1973 and chronicles the opening of China to Western classical music since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

December 17, 8pm
Building Bridges through Music: Beethoven in Beijing
Roundtable Discussion (Zoom)
Hosted by Asia Society and moderated by author Sheila Melvin, this discussion with the filmmakers of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing plus special guests will look at the future of culture and diplomacy through classical music.

December 18, 7:30pm
Egmont in China
Orchestra Concert 
The 2020 China Now Music Festival closes with a landmark performance of Beethoven’s complete Egmont, his musical setting of the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a new production by the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing. Featuring narration in Mandarin, the concert was recorded live at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 12, 2020.

Featured Artists and Speakers
  • Leon Botstein, president, Bard College
  • Tan Dun, dean, Bard College Conservatory of Music
  • Jindong Cai, artistic director, China Now Music Festival; director, US-China Music Institute
  • Shenyang, bass-baritone
  • Wu Man, pipa
  • The Orchestra Now
  • China NCPA Orchestra
  • Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • Shanghai Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
And more! Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.
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Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Last Day of fall Classes

Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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18
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereFriday, December 18, 2020, 12–5 pm
  • Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final ExamsMonday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020
  • Last Day of fall ClassesFriday, December 18, 2020

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
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Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
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Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
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2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
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The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Saturday, December 19, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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19
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereSaturday, December 19, 2020, 12–5 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Sunday, December 20, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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20
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereSunday, December 20, 2020, 12–5 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
21

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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22

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
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Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
23

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 24, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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24
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereThursday, December 24, 2020, 12–5 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Friday, December 25, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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25
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereFriday, December 25, 2020, 12–5 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Saturday, December 26, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
26
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereSaturday, December 26, 2020, 12–5 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Sunday, December 27, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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27
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereSunday, December 27, 2020, 12–5 pm

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
28

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
29

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
30

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
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The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 31, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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31
  • 12–5 pm Sky Hopinka: Centers of SomewhereThursday, December 31, 2020, 12–5 pm
   

Ongoing Events

  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 Oresteia
  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 Euryanthe
  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 The Wreckers
  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 Le roi malgré lui
  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 Demon
  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 The Miracle of Heliane
  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 Die Liebe der Danae
  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 Dimitrij
  • Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021 Meshell Ndegeocello
  • Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020 The Four Quartets Experience
  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 Iris
  • Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021 2020 World Opera Day Talk 
  • Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020 China and Beethoven

all events are subject to change

close

The Miracle of Heliane

by Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2019, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

First performed in the U.S. almost 100 years after its world premiere in Hamburg, this lushly orchestrated allegorical tale was staged by Christian Räth in 2019. Performed by a remarkable cast and the 80-member American Symphony Orchestra, this staging was a stellar example of Maestro Botstein’s commitment to reintroduce rarely seen operatic treasures to a contemporary audience.

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Heliane/.
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Demon

by Anton Rubinstein

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
2018, Sosnoff Theater, SummerScape

Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece is based on a poem depicting the isolation and despair of a fallen angel. Premiered to great acclaim in 1871, Demon received its first fully staged U.S. performances at Bard in 2018. With rich choral writing and a fiery libretto, the production was staged by Thaddeus Strassberger and featured an all-Russian cast, Pesvebi Georgian Dancers and The American Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Botstein.

Read the Program


 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Demon/.
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Oresteia

Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the world of Russian composer Sergey Taneyev (1856–1915). 
 

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos.

Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory, where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later recalled how highly he valued Taneyev’s treatise on counterpoint, calling it “one of the best books of its kind.” Yet in striving to synthesize counterpoint with folksong, he developed a distinct compositional voice that looked forward to Stravinsky himself.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-sergey-taneyev/.
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Euryanthe

Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
Bard SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival have become synonymous with a new kind of concert experience, one that provides a “rich web of context” (New York Times) for a full appreciation of each composer’s inspirations, significance, and legacy. 

This week, UPSTREAMING illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), featuring:
 
  • 2014 Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe
  • The American Symphony Orchestra performing Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 from the 2017 Bard Music Festival: Chopin and His World.
  • Euryanthe video playlist, which includes: an opera talk with Maestro Botstein, a conversation with set designer Victoria Tzykun, and behind-the-scenes interviews with the producer, director, and cast of Euryanthe.
 

Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also became one of the most influential composers of the early 19th century whose prodigious gifts as a composer, pianist, conductor, and writer bring to mind Mozart. The premiere of Der Freischütz in 1821, an opera that immediately captured the imagination of audiences in Europe and beyond, was a transformative event in the history of Romanticism and helped to usher in a new sensibility in music. He did not have a comparable success in the remaining five years of his life, although the overtures to his later Euryanthe and Oberon became repertory standards. In these operas, and in less familiar compositions, his masterful orchestration and compelling evocation of mood became models for composers from Meyerbeer to Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, Glinka, and Hindemith. 
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-carl-maria-von-weber/.
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The Wreckers

by Ethel Smyth

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

This engrossing program encompasses varied works exploring religion and spirituality through the lens of female composers: Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers, staged at Bard in 2015, animates a moral drama about social justice and personal courage, while Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 “Du fond de l'abîme” (1917) offers a deeply personal requiem dedicated to her father. Lera Auerbach’s Violin Concerto No. 3, “De Profundis” (2015) with Vadim Repin rounds out the program.

Featuring:

  • SummerScape Opera: The Wreckers
  • New Conversation: Leon Botstein with Thaddeus Strassberger
  • BMF/TON Recordings: Spirituality Through the Lens of Female Composers

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-The-Wreckers/.
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Le roi malgré lui

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
This week’s UPSTREAMING selection offers an exploration of French romanticism through the work of two composers—Emmanuel Chabrier and Hector Berlioz—who, while stylistically different, shared capacity for independent thought and innovation. The fully staged production of Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lui from the 2012 Bard SummerScape is complemented by Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette from the 2017 Bard Music Festival.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/French-Romanticism/.
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Dimitrij

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
“Botstein and Bard SummerScape show courage, foresight and great imagination, honoring operas that larger institutions are content to ignore.  —Time Out New York

UPSTREAMING: Opera at Bard presents the musical centerpiece of the 2017 Bard SummerScape: Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s 1882 rare opera Dimitrij. Supporting content includes a recording of Janáček's Sinfonietta as performed by the American Symphony Orchestra and discussions including a lively and illuminating conversation between ASO music director Leon Botstein and noted Dvořák specialist Michael Beckerman.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Dimitrij/.
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Die Liebe der Danae

by Richard Strauss

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This program—which includes the operatic rarity Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) from the 2011 Bard SummerScape along with various symphonic and choral works—explores the composer’s substantial melodic gifts and his mastery of instrumentation and expression.


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/UPS-Danae/.
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Meshell Ndegeocello

Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin

Runs through Monday, April 12, 2021

UPSTREAMING

Inspired by the writing of James Baldwin
Created by Meshell Ndegeocello 
In collaboration with Charlotte Brathwaite
Featuring the contributions of Staceyann Chin, Suné Woods, Nicholas Galanin, Paul Thompson '93, Justin Hicks, and more.

A Co-Production of Bismillah, LLC and Fisher Center at Bard
Co-Commissioned by Live Arts Bard, UCLA's Center for the Art of Performance, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre, and Festival de Marseille.


“No label, no slogan, no party, no skin color, and no religion is more important than the human being.”—James Baldwin

A project inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treatise on justice in the United States, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. Chapter & Verse: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice. A call for revolution. A gift during turbulent times. 

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy—but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” —James Baldwin

Each month, September–December 2020, we offered gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. 

“This is my offering to you. This is a different experience so I hope you have an open mind or at least an open heart. I see James Baldwin as an Orisha, his writing as the living word. I wanted to pay homage to him and to the time and effort it took to sit, to physically and emotionally fill the page with a truth that made my own sorrow feel less lonely. He put me on a path of empathy and humility towards my parents. It humbled me towards my mother born in 1944 and my father born in 1939—a time I can’t imagine living in while black.” —Meshell

Check out "Songs of Protest & Healing: Meshell Ndegeocello on the Gospel of James Baldwin" on Tidal Magazine.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/chapter-and-verse/.
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Iris

by Pietro Mascagni
 

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING

At once opulent and eerie, Pietro Mascagni’s Iris, composed in 1898 with libretto by Luigi Illica, received its North American premiere at Bard SummerScape in 2016. The American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Leon Botstein performed with a brilliant cast of accomplished singers including the Australian tenor Gerard Schneider as a menacing and callous Osaka alongside the soprano Talise Travigne who movingly embodied the naivete and fragility of the eponymous character. 

Read the Program


For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/iris/.
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2020 World Opera Day Talk 

Leon Botstein in conversation with Stephanie Blythe

Runs through Friday, December 31, 2021

UPSTREAMING
For World Opera Day 2020, join two iconoclastic figures from the opera world for a wide-ranging and lively conversation. Revered mezzo & Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard, Stephanie Blythe joins Leon Botstein, Bard College President & Music Director of the American Symphony Orchestra engage in an engrossing discussion about their shared fascination with rarely-performed operas along with anecdotes and trenchant observations about the past, present, and future of the art form.
 

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/worldoperaday/.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

The Four Quartets Experience

Runs through Thursday, December 31, 2020

Online Event
Presented with the support of the T. S. Eliot Foundation

"The greatest creation of dance theater so far this century.”—The New York Times

*The 2018 premiere of 
Four Quartets and the Four Quartets audiobook were offered as a limited stream in 2020, and are not currently available to view.

THERE THE DANCE IS:
IN THE STEPS OF PAM TANOWITZ'S FOUR QUARTETS

What is it like to dance Four Quartets? Experience this epic performance from the other side of the curtain—through conversations with Kathleen Chalfant, Pam Tanowitz, and the dancers of the company. Filmed remotely over the summer of 2020, There the Dance Is leads us on a journey of reflection and revelation.  

Watch There the Dance Is


AUDIOBOOK
Actress Kathleen Chalfant has narrated Four Quartets at the Fisher Center, in London, and in Los Angeles. Now her acclaimed and beautiful reading of the poem is immortalized in a new audiobook—the first authorized performance of the poem by a woman and an American. Available for a limited time exclusively on UPSTREAMING.Sponsored by: Fisher Center.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/four-quartets-experience.
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Informational Webinar: Bard Graduate Programs in Sustainability

Join and receive a $65 application fee waiver!
        

Tuesday, December 1, 2020
7–8 pm

Online
<<<< RSVP HERE >>>>

Bard Graduate Programs in Sustainability holds online informational webinars for prospective students to learn more about graduate school options in our MBA in Sustainability and Center for Environmental Policy programs. 

ABOUT
Webinars include a program overview for the Bard MBA in Sustainability and the Bard Center for Environmental Policy programs as well as detailed admissions information, course requirements, tips to make your application strong, and financial information. 

Join a live information session with Director Goodstein and the admissions team and ask questions directly of the Bard team. 

WHAT WILL BE COVERED?  
  • Overview of graduate program offerings
  • Alumni success and career outcomes
  • Admissions information
  • Prerequisite course requirements
  • Peace Corps and AmeriCorps programs
  • Financial aid availability
  • Tips for a standout application 
DEGREE OPTIONS
Degree Options Include:
MS in Environmental Policy
MS in Climate Science and Policy
MBA in Sustainability
 
Dual Degree Options Include:
MS/JD with Pace Law School 
MS/MAT with Bard's Master of Arts in Teaching 
MS/MBA with Bard's MBA in Sustainability 

Peace Corps Programs Include:
Master's International (before you serve) 
Peace Corps Fellows (after you serve)  

A $65 application fee waiver is available to those who participate in the webinar at the end of the session. Email Caitlin O'Donnell at [email protected] for further details.


<<<< RSVP HERE >>>>Sponsored by: Bard Center for Environmental Policy; Bard MBA in Sustainability.

For more information, call 845-758-7073, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://gps.bard.edu/upcoming-events.
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Bard Center for the Study of Hate Webinar

“Hate images” with Aaron Tugendhaft (of Bard College Berlin), author of the new book The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet.

Wednesday, December 2, 2020
3–4 pm

Online Event
Sponsored by: Bard Center for the Study of Hate.

For more information, call 718-503-4441, or e-mail [email protected].
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 3, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Black Lives Matter and the Muslim Ummah: Historical Roots of Contemporary Connections

A Conversation with Professor Alaina Morgan, University of Southern California, and Professor Jeannette Estruth

Thursday, December 3, 2020
7:30–8:30 pm

Online Event
An historian of the African Diaspora, Professor Morgan's research focuses on the  utility of religion, in particular Islam, in racial liberation and anti-colonial movements of the mid- to late-twentieth century Atlantic world. Please join her for the inaugural event in Jeannette Estruth's Muslim Ummah Speaker Series. With the support of the Office of the Dean of the College, the Bard Lifetime Learning Institute, and the Academic Program Inclusion Challenge, this event is free and open to the Bard Community, the OSUN Network, and the public of the Hudson Valley.  
 
Join Zoom Meeting
https://bard.zoom.us/j/84036603419
Zoom Meeting ID 840 3660 3419
Sponsored by: Office of the Dean of the College, the Bard Lifetime Learning Institute, and the Academic Program Inclusion Challenge.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Friday, December 4, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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CCS Bard: Conversation with George Stanley Nsamba

Friday, December 4, 2020
11 am – 12:30 pm

Online Event
In conjunction with Day With(out) Art 2020, CCS Bard will host a discussion with artist, filmmaker, and activist George Stanley Nsamba. Day With(out) Art is an international day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis. Register in advance here.

Believing in the power of art to tell people’s stories, Nsamba has directed a number of films throughout his career that touch upon the lives of those living with HIV and AIDS. In his newly commissioned work Finding Purpose (2020) the artist offers reflections on the experience of producing a film about teens born HIV positive in Uganda and the pervasive and discriminatory stigmas that cling to that status. This film builds upon the artist’s distinctive commitment to intergenerational and youth-centered storytelling. Nsamba is also a devoted mentor, and in 2013 he founded The Ghetto Film Project in the slums of Naguru, as a way to train and empower youth in socially engaged film production. 

In this student-focused discussion between the filmmaker, members of Bard College, and the wider community, Nsamba will lead a conversation around his practice, the role of the artist in society, and the difficult yet important work of bringing personal narratives of HIV and AIDS to the fore.  

This conversation is free and open to the public. Registration is required in advance here.  Prior to the event, participants are invited to learn more about Nsamba’s practice through materials made available here. Questions for the artist can be submitted in advance via this Google Form. 

George Stanley Nsamba is a filmmaker, spoken word artist, and human rights activist. In 2013, he founded The Ghetto Film Project to mentor and train youth in socially engaged film production. Nsamba's films Time Irreversible (2017), The Dummy Team (2016), Silent Depression (2015), and Crafts: The Value of Life (2015) have screened throughout Africa and the United States.

Learn more about Day With(out) Art 2020 at visualaids.org.Sponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-2442, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/conversation-with-george-stanley-nsamba-tickets-130291269695.
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Songs for a Winter Evening

Streamed program featuring young artists of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program and Collaborative Piano Fellows Program, in music offered at the recent Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition.

Friday, December 4, 2020
7:30–9 pm

Online Event
The program will be streamed at:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbmbVZAh57SREaSAYBG1bdGySponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music; Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program.

For more information, call 845-752-7196, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbmbVZAh57SREaSAYBG1bdGy.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Saturday, December 5, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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C2C Fellows Sustainability Leadership Training 

1-Day Virtual Sustainability Leadership Workshop

Saturday, December 5, 2020
9 am – 5 pm

Online Event
Sustainability Leadership Training, 12.5.20 / Gain the Knowledge to Change the Future
 
The C2C Fellows Network at the Bard Center for Environmental Policy is a national program for undergraduates and recent graduates aspiring to leadership work in sustainable politics, NGO’s and business. C2C’s intensive, interactive skills-based virtual workshops teach skills they don't teach at university, skills you need to change the future.  

>>>Apply here<<<

Led by Dr. Eban Goodstein, Director of Bard’s Center for Environmental Policy, C2C trainings focus on key leadership skills: vision, courage, developing your network, telling your story, and raising funds.
Graduates of the workshops join a national network with access to continuing educational and professional opportunities, including dedicated scholarships to attend Bard’s Graduate Programs in Sustainability: Masters of Science degrees in Environmental Policy and Climate Science and Policy, Masters of Education in Environmental Education, and the Bard MBA in Sustainability.
 
C2C Fellows are leaders whose vision is to make a difference soon. Our mission is to accelerate their life’s work. Join us.

>>>APPLY NOW<<<

Details:
  • Workshop begins at 9 AM Saturday 12/5 and ends at 5 PM. 
  • Registration Fee, $10.
  • Questions? Please contact Tara McEIhinney [email protected]
Sponsored by: Bard Center for Environmental Policy.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].
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Livestreamed Degree Recital: Weilan Li, viola

Works for viola and piano by J. S. Bach, Arnold Bax, and William Walton

Saturday, December 5, 2020
2–3 pm

Online Event
A degree recital streamed live from the László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building. Visit the Conservatory's YouTube channel for viewing  and program details: 
https://youtu.be/8Tr68J6DSJsSponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-752-7196, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://youtu.be/8Tr68J6DSJs.
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Bard Baroque Ensemble Livestream Concert

Saturday, December 5, 2020
7–8:30 pm

Online Event
Join us for a livestreamed concert by the Bard Baroque ensemble, performing works by Couperin, Torelli, Morley, Dowland, Mozart, and Rameau. Conductor: Renée Anne Louprette.Sponsored by: Music Program.

For more information, call 845-758-7250, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbkoYEh3TSsHswWvQ-OBWvhp.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Sunday, December 6, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Senior Projects Due

Monday, December 7, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Who Counts? A Graphic Novel Performance

Monday, December 7, 2020
10:20 am – 12 pm

Online Event
The Past in the Present, an ELAS class led by Myra Armstead, has engaged with speakers throughout the fall semester—from the mayor of the Village of Red Hook, to the director of community engagement for Dutchess County, to a talent outreach specialist for the U.S. Census—along with independent research, to design illustrations, a graphic novel, and script that creatively address themes of violence and slavery, permissible civic discourse, the politics of celebratory narratives, Constitutional originalism, and citizenship and belonging. This collaborative project will culminate in an audiovisual performance that will consider the question “Who counts, and why?” and compare the politics underlying the U.S. federal censuses of 1820 and 2020 pertaining to race, citizenship rights, and benefits.
 Sponsored by: Center for Civic Engagement.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://bard.zoom.us/j/92883064405?pwd=cXM3TXYvempXc200TU5mWWdvb0dSQT09.
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Advising Day

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Building a Career in Sustainability: Advice From Impact Finance Leaders

Engage with sustainability consulting experts to learn how to launch your career in the field!

Wednesday, December 9, 2020
6:30–7:30 pm

Online Event

>>>RSVP HERE<<<
About this Event: 
Bard’s Graduate Programs in Sustainability are pleased to host a webinar series providing aspiring change-makers access to sustainability experts to gain tips on launching their own careers in sustainability.

Impact Finance Expert Panel:
  • Emma Jenkins, Financial Planning Analyst, JSA Sustainable Wealth Management (moderator)
  • Randy Strickland, Director, Cornerstone Capital Inc.
  • Kathy Hipple, Financial Analyst, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis

Leaders in impact finance are guiding divestment strategies, building socially and environmentally responsible investment portfolios, and redirecting funding support to historically under-resourced communities, all with the goal of using financial instruments to create a sustainable, equitable, and just future. Join this conversation to hear from thought leaders who have been at the forefront of impact finance to learn how they launched and grew their career, what tips they have for high impact careers creating impact finance, and what they look for in their new hires. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions of panelists.
 
>>>RSVP HERE<<<


 Sponsored by: Bard Center for Environmental Policy; Bard MBA in Sustainability.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/building-a-career-in-sustainability-advice-from-impact-finance-leaders-registration-1203015.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 10, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Registration for Spring Classes Opens

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Friday, December 11, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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China and Beethoven

3rd Annual China Now Music Festival of the the US-China Music Institute

Runs through Friday, December 18, 2020

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music celebrates Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with eight days of online musical events in our 3rd annual China Now Music Festival, China and Beethoven. 

Celebratory events for “Beethoven 250” have been planned all around the world, and nowhere more so than in China, where Beethoven enjoys great popularity among audiences of all ages. When theaters, concert halls, and orchestras found themselves unexpectedly shuttered for much of the year, many celebrations were put on hold or reimagined. As China begins to reopen, Beethoven once again takes center stage. 

China and Beethoven will provide a window into celebrations happening in China today, as well as exploring Beethoven’s legacy as a heroic figure during the changing politics of the 20th century, along with China’s oscillating affiliation with Western classical music.

All events are FREE online, and open to the public with event registration. To learn more and to register visit barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.

Festival Event Schedule

December 11, 7:30pm
China’s Sage of Music 
Concert/Lecture
The festival’s opening event traces the story of Beethoven’s ascent into the cultural imagination of China through discussions with music scholars and musical interludes from the US and China. Hosted by Jindong Cai, conductor, professor of Music and Arts at Bard College, and director of the US-China Music Institute. 

December 12, 8pm
Beethoven in China 
Webinar in Chinese (Zoom)
China Institute’s Renwen Society hosts Jindong Cai in a webinar discussion in Chinese of his book Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic.

December 13, 7:30pm
Beethoven Made in China
Concert/Lecture
Experience an exciting and imaginative evening of musical interpretations of Beethoven with Chinese accents, presented by world-renowned artists including bass-baritone Shenyang, pipa virtuoso Wu Man, composer/conductor Tan Dun, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestra Now, and musicians of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
Hosted by Shenyang and Jindong Cai. 

December 14, 7:30pm
Beethoven Is Us
Producer’s Expo
Host Jindong Cai and guests will offer a peek into the Chinese market for all things Beethoven, including a musical based on Beethoven’s life, a play describing how his music became known in China, and an “immersive multimedia Beethoven experience” exhibition in Shanghai.   

December 15, 7:30pm
Shanghai Symphony: Night of Beethoven
Concert
Celebrate Beethoven’s birthday with the illustrious Shanghai Symphony, featuring a selection of recent performances of some of Beethoven’s most iconic symphonic and chamber works, specially selected for the China Now Music Festival.

December 16, 7:30pm
Beethoven in Beijing: an American Orchestra’s Journey
Private Film Screening
Get early access to the new documentary Beethoven in Beijing, which follows the Philadelphia Orchestra on their first historic trip to China in 1973 and chronicles the opening of China to Western classical music since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

December 17, 8pm
Building Bridges through Music: Beethoven in Beijing
Roundtable Discussion (Zoom)
Hosted by Asia Society and moderated by author Sheila Melvin, this discussion with the filmmakers of the documentary Beethoven in Beijing plus special guests will look at the future of culture and diplomacy through classical music.

December 18, 7:30pm
Egmont in China
Orchestra Concert 
The 2020 China Now Music Festival closes with a landmark performance of Beethoven’s complete Egmont, his musical setting of the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in a new production by the China NCPA Orchestra in Beijing. Featuring narration in Mandarin, the concert was recorded live at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing on November 12, 2020.

Featured Artists and Speakers
  • Leon Botstein, president, Bard College
  • Tan Dun, dean, Bard College Conservatory of Music
  • Jindong Cai, artistic director, China Now Music Festival; director, US-China Music Institute
  • Shenyang, bass-baritone
  • Wu Man, pipa
  • The Orchestra Now
  • China NCPA Orchestra
  • Shanghai Symphony Orchestra
  • Shanghai Youth Philharmonic Orchestra
And more! Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-6822, or visit https://www.barduschinamusic.org/china-and-beethoven.
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Saw Kill Water Sampling

Friday, December 11, 2020
10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Saw Kill

As a member of one of our four sampling teams, you’ll collect water samples (from stream bank or bridges) from 3–4 sites on the Saw Kill and record the results.

Sampling is done on the second Friday of the month starting at 10:30 a.m. From start to finish, it takes about 2 hours.

Sampling is fun and easy—and you’re contributing to the science that helps keep your drinking water safe. If you wish, you can also help process the samples in the Bard Water Lab after collection.

Open to everyone. Free training is available.

If interested, please contact:
Lindsey Drew
Bard Water Lab Manager
[email protected]Sponsored by: Bard Center for the Study of Land, Air, and Water; Environmental and Urban Studies Program.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Percussion Studio Recital

Streamed concert of works by J. S. Bach, John Cage, Finola Merivale, Astor Piazzolla, and Jason Treuting

Friday, December 11, 2020
7:30–9 pm

Online Event
Program includes:
Falling Flames  by Finola Merivale
Go Placidly  by Jason Treuting 
Cello Suite No. 5  by J. S. Bach
Histoire du Tango  by Astor Piazzolla
with musicians:
Isabela Cruz-Vespa
Petra Elek
Matt Overbay
Juan Mora Rubio
João Melo
Jaelyn Quilizapa
Juliana Maitenaz
Arnav Shirodkar
Luis Herrera 
 Sponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-752-7196, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbnQlYMTdLIuQiR1l_i4ty1s.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Saturday, December 12, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Benjamin Hochman and Keiko Sekino Piano Studio Recital

Streamed recital with six students performing selections from works by Bartok, Brahms, Ravel, Schubert, and Schumann.

Saturday, December 12, 2020
10–11 am

Online Event
This recital will feature a combination of prerecorded videos from students in Moscow and China, and four live performances from the László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building.

Link for streaming this recital:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbmlUYr9opVBxaq42nmSv-6SSponsored by: Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information, call 845-758-7196, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLu7DsoHMEHbmlUYr9opVBxaq42nmSv-6S.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Sunday, December 13, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Adapting to the New Reality: Civically Engaged Universities and Long-Term Partnerships

Monday, December 14, 2020
9–10 am

Online Event
Join us via Zoom: https://bard.zoom.us/j/81662127894?pwd=NHJOK01odkdKa25xbnZXS2RudkMzZz09

Panelists:
  • Haifa Jamal Al-Lail, President, Effat University (Saudia Arabia)
  • Penn Loh, Senior Lecturer, Tufts University (U.S.)
  • Julian Skyrme, Director of Social Responsibility, The University of Manchester (England)
Moderated by Jonathan Becker, Vice-Chancellor of the Open Society University Network.

Join us via Zoom

Webinar ID: 816 6212 7894
Passcode: 363782
Or iPhone one-tap : US: +16465588656,,81662127894#,,,,,,0#,,363782#  or +13017158592,,81662127894#,,,,,,0#,,363782#
Or Telephone: Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):
        US: +1 646 558 8656  or +1 301 715 8592  or +1 312 626 6799  or +1 253 215 8782  or +1 346 248 7799  or +1 669 900 9128
International numbers available: https://bard.zoom.us/u/kcXiFiLXUx


The COV-AID webinar series Adapting to the New Reality: Civically Engaged Universities Offer Strategies and Hope collects and shares stories of institutions and individuals who are taking action to mitigate the crisis, and documents practical steps and strategies that may be of use elsewhere. The series is a collaboration between the Open Society University Network and the Talloires Network of Engaged Universities.
For more information, call 845-758-6822, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://bard.zoom.us/j/81662127894?pwd=NHJOK01odkdKa25xbnZXS2RudkMzZz09.
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Bard Graduate Programs in Sustainability: Virtual Open House

Monday, December 14, 2020
7–8:30 pm

Online Event


Attendees receive a $65 application fee waiver!
>>>RSVP HERE<<<


Join us for an online Open House hosted by the Bard MBA in Sustainability and Center for Environmental Policy.

Attendees will hear from a panel of current students and alumni of Bard's MBA in Sustainability and Center for Environmental Policy. Our panel of student/alum experts will discuss topics such as:
  • career outcomes -- how the MS degrees at CEP and MBA in Sustainability have led to impactful sustainability careers
  • the program experience -- highlights on courses and key features at Bard (including the NYCLab course and the CEP internship)
  • how to get the most of your graduate school journey -- career development + student engagement opportunities at Bard
  • how to make your application stand out -- tips on perfecting your application materials, advice on getting through the graduate school admissions process
In addition: Program Director Eban Goodstein will provide an overview of the program offerings at Bard CEP and the MBA in Sustainability.

Our Admissions staff will also be on hand to provide information on the application process and answer questions regarding:
  • financial aid opportunities
  • successfully completing program prerequisites 
>>>RSVP HERE<<<

Event Location: This event will be held via Zoom. Access details will be shared with attendees upon event registration.

Email Katie Boyle with any additional questions.Sponsored by: Bard Center for Environmental Policy; Bard MBA in Sustainability.

For more information, call 845-758-7073, or e-mail [email protected].
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Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 17, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Friday, December 18, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Completion Days—Regular Classes and Final Exams

Monday, December 14, 2020 – Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Last Day of fall Classes

Friday, December 18, 2020

Bard College Campus
Sponsored by: Registrar's Office.

For more information, call 845-758-6822.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Saturday, December 19, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Sunday, December 20, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 24, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
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Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Friday, December 25, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Saturday, December 26, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Sunday, December 27, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File

Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere

Thursday, December 31, 2020
12–5 pm

CCS Galleries
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), will present Sky Hopinka: Centers of Somewhere, opening October 17, 2020, a focused look at key ideas, preoccupations, and methods in the work of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. Hopinka (born 1984 in Ferndale, Washington) is recognized for video work that centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and that explores language as a container of culture. 

Centers of Somewhere will present a newly commissioned multichannel work, Here you are before the trees (2020), that will explore Indigenous histories of the Hudson Valley as they are connected to other regions in the United States. Centers of Somewhere will also present a selection of recent videos and photography, including a new series of 16 photographs entitled Breathings (2020) that were shot throughout the United States in 2020,  and several short video works by Hopinka, including Dislocation Blues (2017), Jáaji Approx (2015), and I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become (2016).

Visitor information available here: https://ccs.bard.edu/visit/reservationsSponsored by: Center for Curatorial Studies.

For more information, call 845-758-7598, e-mail [email protected], or visit https://ccs.bard.edu/museum/exhibitions/560-sky-hopinka-centers-of-somewhere.
Read More  |  Save this event: Subscribe / .ics File
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