The Orchestra Now Announces 2026-27 Season Featuring Concerts at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan’s El Museo Del Barrio and Bohemian National Hall, the Fisher Center At Bard, and Three Free Performances in New York City

LAUNCH OF GERNSHEIM FESTIVAL: REDISCOVERING A MASTER, A NEW MULTI-YEAR PROJECT
SEPTEMBER 18 - 20

Seven Premieres Featuring Ignatz Waghalter’s Violin Concerto in A Major and Including Works by Friedrich Gernsheim, Lazare Saminsky, Manuel Ponce; and Rarely Heard Pieces by
Louis Gruenberg, Ernst Krenek, Vítězslav Novák and Ernst Toch

Special Events at the Fisher Center at Bard Include an
HD Screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark with Live Performance of the Score,
and a Performance with the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company
 
Conductors include James Bagwell, Charles Barker, Leon Botstein,
JoAnn Falletta, Kellen Gray, Leonardo Pineda, and Zachary Schwartzman;
Soloists Include Oboist Alexandra Knoll, Soprano Bibi Nguyen, Pianists Francis Chung-Yang Huang and Orion Weiss, and Violinists Mira Wang and Melissa White

New York, NY, July 30, 2026 — The Orchestra Now (TŌN), the innovative orchestra and master’s degree program founded by Bard College and led by conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein, begins its 12th season on September 18, 2026, and continues through May 21, 2027. Hailed for its fresh groupings of both well-known and seldom-heard repertoire, TŌN offers more than 20 performances this season, including two at Carnegie Hall; one Sight & Sound program at El Museo del Barrio and one at Bohemian National Hall; three free concerts in Manhattan at Symphony Space, the Julia Richman Educational Complex, and the Great Hall at Cooper Union; and several performances at the Orchestra’s home at Bard College’s Fisher Center.

The 2026-27 season also unveils the Gernsheim Festival: Rediscovering a Master, a new multi-year project that seeks to restore the legacy of German composer Friedrich Gernsheim, whose works were largely buried by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. This season’s programs include two full orchestral concerts, two chamber concerts, and a panel discussion featuring notable music scholars and historians, presented at Bard College from September 18 - 20.

The Orchestra welcomes 24 new members this season, for a total of 64 musicians from 16 countries around the globe: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Honduras, Hong Kong, Japan, Netherlands, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Highlights of the 2026-27 season: Leon Botstein conducts two concerts at Carnegie Hall, including a program featuring Gershwin’s An American in Paris alongside seldom-heard works by Jewish composers who wrote during the Jazz Age. While the Metropolitan Museum of Art undergoes construction, the popular Sight & Sound series moves to new Manhattan locations with two programs investigating the ties between fine arts and music: one focuses on Music and Art in the Mexican Revolution, and a second on Czech Modernism. The Fisher Center series at Bard College offers nine programs, including two all-Brahms and Beethoven programs, and one by European composers whose work was influenced by the horrors of World War II. Of note are two special events at Bard: a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark with a live performance of the film score, and a dance performance by members of the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company accompanied by TŌN. There are also three free concerts in Manhattan, led by TŌN resident conductor Zachary Schwartzman at  Symphony Space and the Great Hall at Cooper Union; and by conductor Leonardo Pineda at the Julia Richman Educational Complex with NYC’s All-City High School Orchestra.

Broadcasts
This year marks the 10th season of TŌN’s popular broadcast series on WMHT-FM, the classical music radio station of New York’s Capital Region, and the 8th season on WWFM, the Classical Network station serving New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, both featuring programs from the Orchestra’s Fisher Center series. TŌN’s performances are also heard regularly on American Public Media’s Performance Today.

GERNSHEIM FESTIVAL: REDISCOVERING A MASTER

This fall, TŌN embarks on a multi-year project exploring the music of 19th-century German composer Friedrich Gernsheim. Once a leading figure of the European music scene, his legacy was all but erased by the Nazi regime in the 1930s, leaving his extensive body of work largely unheard today. TŌN seeks to help restore his legacy through a series of orchestra and chamber concerts featuring three U.S. premieres and one NY premiere, in addition to a panel discussion. The Festival is underwritten by E&V ProArte.

Epic Narratives: Gernsheim and Brahms
Friday & Saturday, September 18 & 19, 2026, at 7 pm
Fisher Center at Bard
The Orchestra Now
Leon Botstein, conductor
Orion Weiss, piano
Friedrich Gernsheim: Zu einem Drama, Op. 82
Friedrich Gernsheim: Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 54 “Song of Miriam” (U.S. Premiere)
Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15
Gernsheim and Brahms were friendly contemporaries who championed each other’s music in performance. This concert celebrates some of their pivotal orchestral works: Gernsheim’s powerful tone poem Zu einem Drama and his dramatic third symphony, based on the legend of the Song of Miriam; alongside Brahms’s gigantic First Piano Concerto, written over a five-year period in the 1850s. The soloist is sought-after pianist Orion Weiss, who has performed with all of the major orchestras of North America. This concert will also be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube.

Tickets, priced at $15 - $35, will be available August 7 at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center box office at 845.758.7900.  

The Life and Legacy of Friedrich Gernsheim: A Panel Discussion
Saturday, September 19, 2026, at 11 am
Bard’s Olin Hall
Enrique Lombrozo, Gernsheim scholar
Leon Botstein, TŌN Music Director
Peter Laki, Associate Professor of Music, and others to be announced
Bard’s music scholars and historians explore the life, career, and cultural legacy of German composer, conductor, and pianist Friedrich Gernsheim, whose works were largely suppressed by the Nazi regime owing to his Jewish heritage.

Tickets: Admission is free, advance RSVP is requested, available August 7 at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center box office at 845.758.7900.  

Gernsheim at the Piano: A Chamber Concert
Saturday, September 19, 2026, at 1 pm
Bard’s Olin Hall
The TŌN Chamber Players
Francis Chung-Yang Hang, TŌN pianist
Friedrich Gernsheim:
Piano Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 47 (U.S. Premiere)
Piano Quintet No. 2 in B minor, Op. 63 (NY Premiere)
The TŌN Chamber Players and TŌN pianist Francis Chung-Yang Huang perform two works that composer Friedrich Gernsheim premiered himself in the late 1800s. Piano Quartet No. 3 is a lyrical work first heard in Bonn, Germany in 1883. The Second Piano Quintet was completed in 1896 and is at turns brooding and highly romantic.

Tickets: Admission is free, advance RSVP is requested, available August 7 at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center box office at 845.758.7900.  

The Romantic Arc: A Chamber Concert
Sunday, September 20, 2026, at 11 am
Bard’s Olin Hall
The TŌN Chamber Players
Friedrich Gernsheim:
String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 31
String Quintet No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 89 (U.S. Premiere)
This concert features the TŌN Chamber Players spotlighting two of Friedrich Gernsheim’s most Romantic chamber works for strings: the String Quartet No. 2, which displays some Brahmsian influence; and the lively String Quintet No. 2, one of the composer’s final works before his death in 1916.

Tickets: Admission is free, advance RSVP is requested, available August 7 at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center box office at 845.758.7900.  

CARNEGIE HALL SERIES, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage

Gershwin, Jazz, and the Music of Jewish Émigrés
Tuesday, November 17, 2026, at 7 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Mira Wang, violin
Louis Gruenberg: Jazz Suite, Op. 28
Ignatz Waghalter: Violin Concerto in A Major, Op. 15 (U.S. Premiere at Fisher Center, NYC premiere at Carnegie Hall)
Lazare Saminsky: Vigilae, Triad of Poems, Op. 4 (NY Premiere at Fisher Center, NYC premiere at Carnegie Hall)
Ernst Toch: Comedy for Orchestra in One Movement, Op. 42
George Gershwin: An American in Paris

This program compares the musical styles of five Jewish composers—many of whom were Eastern European émigrés to the U.S.—writing during the explosive rise of the Jazz Age in the early 20th century. Written pre-WWI, Ignatz Waghalter’s Violin Concerto exemplifies the European style before jazz took hold, while Lazare Saminsky, who was critical of the new musical form, gave us the mystical triad Vigiliae. The soloist is internationally acclaimed violinist Mira Wang, who is an Artist in Residence at the Bard Conservatory of Music. Composed at the height of the Roaring Twenties in Germany, Ernst Toch’s Comedy for Orchestra in One Movement incorporates a rhythmic pulse representing the impact jazz had on the European avant-garde. Louis Gruenberg’s 1925 Jazz Suite demonstrates the marriage of jazz with traditional classical form, which reached its pinnacle with George Gershwin’s An American in Paris, an American who captured the energy of Europe through a jazz-colored lens. This program will be recorded for a future release.

In the Shadow of Catastrophe
Friday, May 21, 2027, at 7 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Alexandra Knoll, oboe
Ernst Krenek: Symphonic Elegy, Op. 105
Arthur Honegger: Symphony No. 3, H. 186, “Liturgique”
Richard Strauss: Oboe Concerto in D Major, TrV 292
Karl Amadeus Hartmann: Symphonic Hymns

The horrors and aftermath of World War II had a profound impact on the European composers who lived through it. German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann went so far as to bury his compositions in a tin box so they wouldn’t be discovered by the regime. His 1943 Symphonic Hymns was one of many pieces that were not uncovered and premiered until long after his death. Arthur Honegger chose to stay in France during the war, and portrayed the horrors of the conflict in his Third Symphony. Ernst Krenek’s Symphonic Elegy was written in memory of (and in the musical style of) his friend Anton Webern, who was accidentally killed by an American soldier shortly following the end of the war. Richard Strauss’s Oboe Concerto was originally suggested to him by another American soldier, an oboe player who visited him while stationed in Bavaria. The soloist is Alexandra Knoll, Associate Principal Oboist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra.

Tickets, priced at $25-$50, will be available starting in late August at carnegiehall.org, by calling 212.247.7800, or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57^th & 7th Avenue.

SIGHT & SOUND SERIES

TŌN’s popular music and visual art series, Sight & Sound, goes on the road to new locations this season while The Metropolitan Museum of Art is under construction. Each performance includes a discussion with conductor and music historian Leon Botstein, accompanied by on-screen images and live musical excerpts, followed by a full performance of the works.

Music and Art in the Mexican Revolution
Sunday, December 6, 2026, at 2 pm
El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street
Leon Botstein, conductor
Manuel Ponce: Poema elegiac (NY Premiere)
Carlos Chávez: Energía
Silvestre Revueltas (arr. Erich Kleiber): Redes Suite
José Pablo Moncayo: Sinfonietta

The Mexican Revolution birthed a fiercely proud, independent national identity. The government funded massive public art projects, directly sparking the famous Mexican Muralist Movement led by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco. This intense period of cultural nationalism also inspired the highly rhythmic, folklore-driven music of composers like Carlos Chávez, José Pablo Moncayo, Manuel Ponce, and Silvestre Revueltas later in the 1920s and 30s.

Tickets, priced at $15, will be available beginning in late August. Details available at ton.bard.edu.

Czech Modernism
Sunday, March 7, 2027, at 2 pm
Bohemian National Hall, 321 E 73rd Street
Leon Botstein, conductor
Josef Suk: Meditation on an Old Czech Hymn, "St Wenceslas," Op. 35a
Erwin Schulhoff: Concerto for String Quartet and Winds
Vítězslav Novák: Slovak Suite, Op. 32

Centered in Prague, the Czech Modernist movement flourished in the time between the world wars with an explosion of avant-garde creativity. Artists like Frantisek Kupka, Bohumil Kubista, and Toyen worked in abstraction, surrealism, and cubism, transitioning Central European art away from traditional representation. Meanwhile, composers including Vítězslav Novák, Erwin Schulhoff, and Josef Suk pushed the boundaries of traditional harmony, infusing Moravian folk music into their scores and creating rhythmic masterpieces.

Ticket details to be announced at ton.bard.edu.

THE FISHER CENTER SERIES AT BARD, Sosnoff Theater

The Orchestra Now performs nine different programs and 16 concerts at the Fisher Center at Bard College. Select performances will be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube as indicated below.

Epic Narratives: Gernsheim and Brahms
Friday & Saturday, September 18 & 19, 2026, at 7 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Orion Weiss, piano
Friedrich Gernsheim: Zu einem Drama, Op. 82
Friedrich Gernsheim: Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 54, “Song of Miriam” (U.S. Premiere)
Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15

This concert is part of the Gernsheim Festival: Rediscovering a Master; see description above.
This concert will be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube.

The American Spirit
Saturday, October 17, 2026, at 7 pm
Kellen Gray, conductor
Melissa White, violin
Aaron Copland: Symphony No. 2, "Short Symphony"
Florence Price: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major
Montgomery: Hymn for Everyone
William Grant Still: Symphony No. 4, "Autochthonous"

TŌN welcomes guest conductor Kellen Gray, artistic director of the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra in Indiana, and violinist Melissa White, a first-prize laureate in the Sphinx Competition and a founding member of the Grammy-winning Harlem Quartet, for a concert highlighting the music of four celebrated American composers. Aaron Copland’s rhythmically intricate 1933 “Short Symphony” will be performed alongside two works by Black composers of the same generation. The Violin Concerto No. 1 by Florence Price dates to 1939, but was never performed in the composer’s lifetime. It was found in 2009 and premiered in 2018. William Grant Still’s Fourth Symphony, “Autochthonous”, imagines America as a place of ingenuity and inclusivity. Also on the program is the recent work Hymn for Everyone by Jessie Montgomery, Performance Today’s 2025 Classical Woman of the Year.

Gershwin, Jazz, and the Music of Jewish Émigrés: A Carnegie Hall Preview Concert
Saturday, November 14, 2026, at 7 pm
Sunday, November 15, 2026, at 2 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Mira Wang, violin
Louis Gruenberg: Jazz Suite, Op. 28
Ignatz Waghalter: Violin Concerto in A Major, Op. 15 (U.S. Premiere at Fisher Center, NYC premiere at Carnegie Hall)
Lazare Saminsky: Vigilae, Triad of Poems, Op. 4 (NY Premiere at Fisher Center, NYC premiere at Carnegie Hall)
Ernst Toch: Comedy for Orchestra in One Movement, Op. 42
Gershwin: An American in Paris

TŌN performs this program at Carnegie Hall on November 17; see description above.
This concert will be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube.

Beethoven and Brahms: Part 1
Saturday, February 6, 2027, at 7 pm
Sunday, February 7, 2027, at 2 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55, “Eroica”

The first of TŌN’s two Beethoven & Brahms concerts offers both tragedy and triumph. Brahms’s bittersweet Fourth Symphony contrasts joyful and sorrowful moods throughout. In the final movement, he takes a chorale theme from J.S. Bach and builds 30 continuous variations, transforming the Baroque into the Romantic. Meanwhile, Beethoven’s Eroica moves through anguish and grief in its funeral march before a finale filled with a massive set of thematic variations that gradually layer in complexity before reaching a heroic climax. This concert will be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube.

Beethoven and Brahms: Part 2
Saturday, April 10, 2027, at 7 pm
Sunday, April 11, 2027, at 2 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92

The second of TŌN’s Beethoven & Brahms concerts pairs two symphonies of kinetic energy. Wagner called Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony “the apotheosis of the dance” for its relentless rhythms that give the listener a feeling of physical momentum. The outer movements of Brahms’s Third Symphony capture a similar energetic spirit. Upon hearing it for the first time, Clara Schumann wrote to the composer, “What a work! What a poem! What a harmonious mood pervades the whole!” This concert will be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube.

Falletta Conducts Rachmaninoff
Saturday, May 1, 2027, at 7 pm
JoAnn Falletta, conductor
Bibi Nguyen, soprano
Samuel Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Op. 24
Joaquin Turina: Danzas fantásticas, Op. 22
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44

Multiple Grammy-winning conductor JoAnn Falletta, longtime music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, marks her fifth appearance with TŌN. She conducts Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3, written over two summers at the composer’s Swiss villa nearly 30 years after his previous symphony. Also on the program are Barber’s nostalgic song Knoxville: Summer of 1915, which will be performed by Bibi Nguyen, a winner of the 2025 Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition; and Turina’s Danzas fantásticas, inspired by the novel La orgía (The Orgy) by José Más.

In the Shadow of Catastrophe: A Carnegie Hall Preview Concert
Saturday, May 15, 2027, at 7 pm
Sunday, May 16, 2027, at 2 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Alexandra Knoll, oboe
Ernst Krenek: Symphonic Elegy, Op. 105
Honegger: Symphony No. 3, H. 186 "Liturgique"
R. Strauss: Oboe Concerto in D Major, TrV 292
Karl Amadeus Hartmann: Symphonic Hymns

TŌN performs this program at Carnegie Hall on May 21; see description above.
This concert will be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube.

Tickets for the Fisher Center Series at Bard, priced at $15 - $35, will be available starting in late August at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center box office at 845.758.7900.  

SPECIAL EVENTS AT THE FISHER CENTER AT BARD

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark in Concert
Saturday, October 31, 2026, at 7 pm
Sunday, November 1, 2026, at 2 pm
James Bagwell, conductor
John Williams: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

John Williams’ Grammy Award-winning score performed live to the film
Celebrating the 45th anniversary of the 1981 film—originally released as a collaboration between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg—Raiders redefined the possibilities of adventure cinema and launched actor Harrison Ford to legendary status. Indiana Jones is the classic hero in this adventure set in the 1930s that follows the quick-witted archaeologist’s search for the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Often facing insurmountable odds, Indy always manages to succeed in the nick of time, joined by endearing companions and opposed by notorious villains.

With an impressive team of supporting actors including Karen Allen, John-Rhys Davies, Denholm Elliott, and Paul Freeman, combined with innovative special effects techniques by Industrial Light & Magic, Raiders has captured and inspired the spirits of movie-goers for generations.

Presentation licensed by Disney Concerts. All rights reserved.

Tickets, priced from $25 - $75, will be available starting in late August at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center box office at 845.758.7900.  

TŌN + ABT Studio Company
Saturday, February 27, 2027, at 7 pm
Sunday, February 28, 2027, at 3 pm
Charles Barker, conductor
American Ballet Theatre Studio Company
Program to be announced

Two of New York’s finest artistic training programs join forces once again as the dancers of American Ballet Theatre Studio Company return to the Fisher Center at Bard to perform with the graduate musicians of TŌN, presenting an exciting program of dance accompanied by full orchestra. 

Tickets, priced from $25 - $95, will be available starting in late August at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center box office at 845.758.7900.  

FREE CONCERTS

Fate: Love and Death
Sunday, September 27, 2026, at 4 pm
Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, New York, NY
Zachary Schwartzman, conductor
Verdi: La forza del destino Overture
Mahler: Totenfeier (Funeral Rite)
Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, WWV 90
Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32

TŌN and resident conductor Zachary Schwartzman continue their free concert series at Symphony Space with four symphonic tales of love and death. Three tales of doomed love from Verdi’s opera La forza del destino, Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, and Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini will be performed alongside Mahler’s Funeral Rite, the first movement of his Second Symphony in which a man in his grave questions his life and what lies ahead.

TŌN + All-City High School Orchestra
Sunday, December 20, 2026, at 3 pm
Julia Richman Educational Complex, 317 E 67th Street
Leonardo Pineda, conductor
David West, principal director
Selections performed with the All-City High School Orchestra
Program to be announced

TŌN continues its partnership with the musicians of NYC’s All-City High School Orchestra for the third year in a row, performing side-by-side in a concert led by Leonardo Pineda, Venezuelan conductor, violinist, and Music Director of The Orchestra San Antonio.

Haydn and Stravinsky
Sunday, March 21, 2027, at 4 pm
The Great Hall at Cooper Union, 7 E 7th Street between 3rd and 4th Avenues
Zachary Schwartzman, conductor
Felix Mendelssohn: The Fair Melusine Overture, Op. 32
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 88 in G Major, H.I:88
Igor Stravinsky: Pulcinella Suite
Darius Milhaud: Le Boeuf sur le toit (The Ox on the Roof), Op. 58

TŌN and conductor Zachary Schwartzman return to the Great Hall at Cooper Union for the first time in nine years for a free afternoon concert of audience favorites. The program comprises Mendelssohn’s emotional Fair Melusine Overture, Haydn’s sparkling Symphony No. 88, and two ballet works that debuted in Paris in 1920: Stravinsky’s suite of highlights from Pulcinella and Milhaud’s lively The Ox on the Roof.

Tickets are free. Advance RSVP requested at ton.bard.edu, available starting in late August.

The Orchestra Now
Founded in 2015 by Bard College, The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a graduate program of Bard College that trains the next generation of music professionals to become creative ambassadors of classical music. Led by conductor and educator Leon Botstein, TŌN offers accomplished young musicians a full-tuition fellowship toward a master’s degree in curatorial, critical, and performance studies or an advanced certificate in orchestra studies. TŌN’s innovative curriculum combines rehearsal, performance, recording, and touring with seminars, masterclasses, professional development workshops, teaching, and more. The members of the Orchestra are graduates of the world’s leading conservatories, and hail from countries across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Many have gone on to careers in the Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Vancouver, and National symphony orchestras; Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia; the United States military bands; and many others. In the 2026-27 season, the Orchestra welcomes 24 new members, for a total of 64 musicians from 16 countries around the globe.

TŌN performs dozens of concerts a year at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fisher Center at Bard. Specializing in both familiar and rarely heard repertoire, the Orchestra has given numerous New York, U.S., and world premieres, and performed the work of living composers including Joan Tower and Tania León. In May 2025, TŌN performed two concerts in Koblenz and Nuremberg, Germany marking 80 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany. In 2023, TŌN appeared with Bradley Cooper in the Academy Award-nominated film Maestro, and was featured on the Grammy-winning Deutsche Grammophon soundtrack, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Orchestra has performed with many other distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Leonard Slatkin, Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi, Stephanie Blythe, Fabio Luisi, Vadim Repin, Peter Serkin, Tan Dun, and JoAnn Falletta.

TŌN has released several albums on the Hyperion, Sorel Classics, and AVIE labels. Fall 2025 releases include Premieres with violinist Gil Shaham and Transcription as Translation. Other highlights include 2024’s The Lost Generation and Exodus, and rare recordings of Othmar Schoeck’s Lebendig begraben and Bristow’s Arcadian Symphony. Recordings of TŌN’s live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard regularly on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and the Orchestra has appeared more than 100 times on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide.

Visit ton.bard.edu to find out more about TŌN’s academic program, concerts, musicians, albums, and broadcasts; sign up for the email list; and support the orchestra with a donation.

Leon Botstein
Leon Botstein is founder and music director of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), artistic co-director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, and conductor laureate and principal guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (JSO), where he served as music director from 2003 to 2011. He has been guest conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre, Russian National Orchestra in Moscow, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Taipei Symphony, Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, and Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas in Venezuela, among others. In May 2025 he led two concerts with TŌN in Koblenz and Nuremberg, Germany marking 80 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany. With ASO he has revived numerous neglected operas and rare repertoire, such as Schoenberg’s massive Gurre-Lieder, Richard Strauss’s first opera, Guntram, and the U.S. premiere of Sergei Taneyev’s final work, At the Reading of a Psalm.

Albums include The Lost Generation and Exodus, two 2024 releases with TŌN; Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner with the ASO; a Grammy-nominated recording of Popov’s First Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra; and other various recordings with TŌN, ASO, the London Philharmonic, NDR Orchestra Hamburg, and JSO, among others. Fall 2025 releases include Premieres with violinist Gil Shaham and Transcription as Translation, both with TŌN. He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and author of numerous articles and books, including The Compleat Brahms (Norton) Jefferson’s Children (Doubleday), Judentum und Modernität (Bölau), and Von Beethoven zu Berg (Zsolnay). His many honors include Harvard University’s prestigious Centennial Award; the American Academy of Arts and Letters award; and Cross of Honor, First Class, from the government of Austria, for his contributions to music. Other distinctions include the Bruckner Society’s Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor for his interpretations of that composer’s music, the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, and Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Philosophical Society.

For detailed information about The Orchestra Now, visit ton.bard.edu.

Press Contacts
Pascal Nadon
Pascal Nadon Communications
Phone: 646.234.7088
Email: [email protected]

Jennifer Strodl 
Director of Communications
Bard College
Phone: 845.758.7015
Email: [email protected]        

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This event was last updated on 07-30-2026

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