Dear Bardian,

I just returned from my 'hols' in Lewes in Sussex on the south coast of England. It's a lovely old market town that was once home to Virginia Woolf and was where Thomas Paine expounded his revolutionary politics (so says the sign on the wall of the White Heart Hotel). It was still filled with school kids in uniforms eating chips on the high street when I was there—UK schools don't break up until the end of July! Here in the HV, summer is in full swing: peaches, blueberries, pie contests, yard sales, flea markets and of course Bard's own SummerScape. We have two more performances of the highly-acclaimed Henri VIII opera and the 33rd Bard Music Festival is just about to start. There are plenty of late nights at the Spiegeltent to come—including this Saturday night with Lola Kirke '12.

For the last 2 weeks the campus has been busy with the OEI summer program, which brings together all the Posse students, ECO scholars, BOP, and HEOP students to get to know the campus and each other. One of the goals of OEI is to connect current students with alumni/ae who were part of these programs in the past - if you would like to help we would love to hear from you. 

The rest of the Class of 2027 will arrive on August 11th. Their schedule is already jam-packed: SMOG shows, drag shows, bingo, trivia, scavenger hunts, Target trips plus Antigone and Frankenstein. (My son is finally going to be a Bardian—he's beginning in Berlin at Bard College Berlin.)

Affinity groups have been meeting all summer and will continue to gather steam—upcoming meetings are Bardians in Food and Bardians in Tech, email us if you want to know more.

Thank you to everyone who supported us at the end of year. We just finished packing up all the Bard swag so it's on its way to you. If you missed the swag, there's a new L&T themed special offer coming up—stay tuned. 

Shout out to MFA alumnus Todd Haynes for being one of the first to use Barbie dolls as actors in his groundbreaking (and banned) film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. Filmed on campus in the summer of 1985 he built a perfect 1970's California ranch house, complete with a sunken living room, chrome arc floor lamp and a grand piano. Haynes recalled he bought the materials at the now sadly closed A.L Stickle in Rhinebeck. I'm working on a Bardie doll and looking for suggestions on accessories they would need? 

The newest alum to come back to work at Bard is Jack Smith ’16, who has been named the Head Men’s and Women’s Squash Coach for the Bard College Raptors. Jack would love to hear from any squash alumni/ae out there who want to get involved. 

I think that's it from me. Hope you have a great summer. Save the date for Family and Alumni/ae Weekend: October 27-29, 2023. And all classes ending in 4s and 9s (that's me) save the date for Alumni/ae Reunion Weekend: May 24-26, 2024. We will be reaching out soon. 

Be seeing you,

Jane Brien '89

P.S. Highlights of Bard news below, sign up for the weekly newsletter "What's New at Bard'" and follow us on social.

P.P.S. If you are in NYC this summer and fancy some theater, thanks to an anonymous alum, all Bardians can have complimentary tickets to The Saviour by Deirdre Kinahan, starring Marie Mullen (The Music Man, Broadway; The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Druid, for which she won a Tony Award) and Jamie O’Neill! Please fill out this form for tickets. 

Bard Faculty Member and Multimedia Artist Jeffrey Gibson Will Represent the United States at the 2024 Venice Biennale

Jeffrey Gibson, artist in residence at Bard College, will represent the United States at the 60th Venice Biennale Arte in 2024. Gibson, who is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, is one of the first Indigenous artists to represent the country at the Biennale. The Biennale Arte 2024 is being curated by Adriano Pedrosa, who received this year’s CCS Bard Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence.

New York Times Profiles Bard’s Fisher Center: At 20, an Upstate Arts Haven Keeps Breaking New Ground

The Fisher Center at Bard has become an incubator for commercially promising new work like Justin Peck’s Illinois, while holding tight to its experimental roots.
For the New York Times, Jennifer Schuessler visits Bard’s Fisher Center in its 20th anniversary season, on the heels of a sold-out, extended run of Illinois, to talk with Fisher Center Artistic Director Gideon Lester, Illinois director Justin Peck, choreographer Pam Tanowitz, President Leon Botstein, and others about the Fisher Center’s past and future. “Since opening 20 years ago,” she writes, “the center’s Frank Gehry building has emerged as a hothouse for the creation of uncompromising, cross-disciplinary, and sometimes hard to describe hits.”

Interview: Bard Alumnus John Yau ’72 Talks about His Latest Book Please Wait by the Coatroom on the LA Review of Books Radio Hour

Poet and art critic John Yau ’72 talks with LA Review of Books Radio Hour about his process and experiences writing about artists and art in New York City. He discusses the complexities of how biracial, multiracial, and transcultural identities influence artists’ work within American art, and the ways those identities have been traditionally and historically ignored by the art world.

Bard Alumna Stephanie Harris ’08 CCS ’13 Serves as US Diplomatic Security Service Liaison at FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand

Stephanie Harris ’08 CCS ’13 is a special agent with the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) currently serving as a liaison at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Harris is embedded with the US Women’s National Team and is responsible for ensuring the safety of players as they travel across the region to compete with teams from around the world.

EGOT Winner and Bard Alumnus Jonathan Tunick ’58 Spoke with Playbill about Two Phone Calls That Changed His Life

As part of “How Did I Get Here,” a series of interviews by Playbill, Bard alumnus Jonathan Tunick ’58 spoke about his long, EGOT-winning career as an orchestrator and two phone calls that changed his life. The first was an early career call Tunick made to Milton Greene, who needed an arranger—and soon. “He was over a barrel; he couldn’t find anyone,” said Tunick. “And so, not without trepidation, he gave me the job.”

Bard College Receives $2,000,000 from the Mellon Foundation to Support the Work of Artist Tania El Khoury

Funding Will Allow the Fisher Center at Bard, the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts, and El Khoury to Implement a New Model in Which the Institution Provides Infrastructure for Holistic Supports of El Khoury’s Creative Practice and Research

The Fisher Center at Bard (Gideon Lester, artistic director and chief executive; Aaron Mattocks, chief operating officer) today announces that, in partnership with the OSUN Center for Human Rights and the Arts at Bard (CHRA), it has received a $2,000,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to support the work and livelihood of Tania El Khoury, a commissioned artist and guest cocurator at the Fisher Center, founding director of CHRA, and a distinguished artist in residence at Bard’s Theater and Performance Program.