THE CONDUCTORS INSTITUTE AT BARD COLLEGE ANNOUNCES ITS SUMMER 2004 PROGRAM AND FACULTY "No serious conductor should miss the opportunity to study at the Institute." -Marin Alsop, music director, Colorado Symphony Orchestra
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The Conductors Institute (CI) at Bard is pleased to announce its 2004 summer program, which will take place from June 28 to August 6. The Institute, founded and directed by conductor and composer Harold Farberman, offers programs for professional and student conductors and composers.
Twenty-four years ago, seeking to fill a void in the United States with a summer training program for conductors, Farberman founded the Conductors Institute. "I hit on a successful formula that remains the same to this day-vigorous technical training and promotion of American music in a cooperative atmosphere," he says. Participants in the six-week summer program work directly with Maestro Farberman, who anchors the faculty of conductors and composers. New visiting faculty and new repertoire each week assure all Institute participants of exposure to a variety of expert opinions. In addition, there are evening lectures with internationally known scholars, composers, and conductors.
Visiting maestri of the 2004 Institute include Leon Botstein, Karen Lynne Deal, Guillermo Figueroa, Raymond Harvey, and Apo Hsu; visiting composers are Stephen Paulus, Joseph Schwantner, and Roberto Sierra.
The Institute offers study combinations that enable students to tailor their own programs. These include Visual Score Study/Baton Placement and Body Movement Technique, offered from June 28 to July 2, which, using Maestro Farberman's innovative system, unites the study of Institute repertoire with instruction in the Alexander Technique as it relates to the enhancement of performance skills and expression. Maestro Farberman teaches visual score study and baton placement; Alexander Farkas teaches the Alexander Technique.
The Conducting Program for Fellows and Colleagues will be offered from July 5 to July 30. Fellows work with the Institute orchestra during morning sessions, while colleagues work with the Institute string quintet during afternoon sessions and with the Institute orchestra on Fridays.
The Discovery Program, offered from July 12 to 23, is directed by Eduardo Navega and designed for conductors with limited experience who wish to improve their skills. Participants work with a string quartet in afternoon sessions for two weeks and attend all morning and evening sessions of the Conducting Program.
As a coda to the main program, the Composer-Conductor Program is offered from July 26 to August 6. Each composer is paired with a conductor who is responsible for learning and preparing the composer's work for public performance by the Composer's Chamber Ensemble. The program is supervised by Maestro Farberman. Eduardo Navega teaches composers conducting techniques that apply to their works.
The Conductors Institute, now in its third decade of existence and its sixth year at Bard College, also offers a 15-month program leading to a master of fine arts degree in conducting. For two consecutive summers, M.F.A. candidates participate in the Institute's six-week program and serve as fellows with the Bard Music Festival. Candidates also complete required course work at Bard during the intervening academic year, including classes in composition, basic orchestral repertoire, languages, a second instrument (string or piano), and solfège. Participants in the 15-month program undertake master classes in technical score study and analysis with Maestro Farberman. The program also offers podium time, including conducting opportunities with orchestra and chorus during the academic year, and culminates in a completion concert with the Institute Orchestra.
Merit-based scholarships are available for a limited number of qualified applicants. The deadline for application to both the six-week Conductors Institute and the M.F.A. program in conducting is April 1, 2004. Bard College is located in New York's Hudson River Valley, 90 miles north of New York City and one hour from Tanglewood. For further information and an application, call the Conductors Institute at 845-758-7425, e-mail [email protected], or visit the website, www.bard.edu/ci.
About the Faculty: Harold Farberman,
Eduardo Navega
, director of the Discovery Program, is a native of Brazil. He began his music studies at an early age in São Paulo and received his bachelor's degree in composition and conducting from the State University of Campinas and his master's degree in music from the University of Sheffield (England). He is currently completing his doctor of musical arts degree in conducting at the Hartt School of Music. He has studied with Benito Juarez, Henrique Gregori, and Harold Farberman. From 1978 to 1989, he was conductor of the University of São Paulo choir. During this time he wrote a number of arrangements of Brazilian popular songs, most of which are still in the repertoire of choirs throughout Brazil. Navega was assistant conductor of the Campinas Symphony Orchestra and was an assistant professor of choral and orchestral conducting at the University of Campinas. From 1992 to 1993, he was the conductor of the University of Sheffield Chamber Orchestra and received public and critical acclaim for his performances. Navega was awarded the prize of Up-and-Coming Conductor of the Year in 1995 by the APCA, a prestigious critics association in the state of São Paulo. He is a visiting assistant professor and director of orchestral activities at Vassar College.Conductors in Residence Leon Botstein
Karen Lynne Deal
marks her fourth season as music director and conductor of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra and the Illinois Chamber Orchestra. The Tennessean notes that Deal "has been extremely effective in creating symphony programs that draw in new audiences . . . making the symphony accessible to thousands." She was the associate conductor of the Nashville Symphony, music director and conductor of the Nashville Ballet, and associate conductor of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, as well as the founding music director of Sinfonia Concertante, a professional chamber orchestra noted for its commitment to living composers. She pursued her doctoral studies at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore and postgraduate studies in Vienna at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. While in Vienna, Deal made her European debut with the Pro Arte Orchestra in 1984. At home in a wide variety of styles and concert formats, she has conducted orchestral performances with soloists Itzhak Perlman, Sir James Galway, William Warfield, and Donald Peck, as well as Chet Atkins, Kathy Mattea, Mercedes Ellington, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.Guillermo Figueroa
is a member of one of Puerto Rico's most distinguished musical families. "An instinctive musical aristocrat, he gives a polished turn to every phrase," writes Joanne Sheehy Hoover in the Albuquerque Journal. Both a conductor and violinist, Figueroa is the director of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra; in 2001, he was also named the 10th music director of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, becoming the first Puerto Rican-born conductor to lead an important orchestra in the United States. In 1994, he made his Lincoln Center conducting debut with the New York City Ballet, where he was also the concertmaster for 10 years, appearing in more than a hundred performances of violin concerti by Stravinsky, Berg, Prokofiev, Brahms, Barber, Adams, and Glass. In his dual role as soloist and conductor, he has appeared with the Kansas City, Colorado, and Iceland symphonies. He has been a guest conductor of the New Jersey, Memphis, and El Salvador symphonies, as well as the Orquesta del Teatro Municipal de Rio de Janeiro, Ballet Memphis, and Ballets de San Juan, and has performed with such distinguished soloists as Itzhak Perlman, Janos Starker, Hilary Hahn, Ruth Laredo, Gary Graffman, Elmar Oliveira, Carol Wincenc, Marcelo Alvarez, Florence Quivar, Pepe Romero, Vladimir Feltsman, Horacio Gutierrez, Barry Douglas, Glen Dicterow, and Paul Neubauer. A founding member of the world-renowned conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Figueroa has served as concertmaster and soloist in acclaimed performances with the orchestra throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. With the New Mexico Symphony, Figueroa has created the most comprehensive Berlioz Festival in the United States, this year commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of that passionate musician. Committed to the music of his native Puerto Rico, he has given the world premiere of works by such composers as Ernesto Cordero, Raymond Torres, Carlos Vazquez, Mariano Morales, and Roberto Sierra, the composer-in-residence at the Philadelphia Orchestra. Figueroa began violin studies with his father, Guillermo, and later with his uncle, José, at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, where he also worked with Pablo Casals. He attended The Juilliard School, where his teachers were Oscar Shumsky and Felix Galimar. His conducting studies were with Harold Farberman in New York.Raymond Harvey
has been called "one of a welcome new breed of American-born-and-trained conductors currently enriching our national musical scene," and is in his fourth season as music director of the Kalamazoo Symphony. He has also been music director of the Fresno Philharmonic and the Springfield Symphony, and associate conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic. Equally at home in the world of opera, Harvey serves as music director of the El Paso Opera and has conducted the company's productions of Tosca, Carmen, Madama Butterfly, Don Giovanni, La Bohème, and Aida. An excellent pianist and accomplished choral conductor, Harvey holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a doctor of musical arts degree from the Yale School of Music. He has been featured in Ebony and Symphony magazines, and his profile is in Antoinette Handy's book Black Conductors.Apo Hsu
"generates electricity from the podium in two directions: into the orchestra and into the audience," according to the Oregonian. Appointed to the position of orchestra director at the National Taiwan Normal University in December 2003, Hsu conducts the National Taiwan Symphony during the symphony's 58th anniversary celebration concert. She served as music director of the Springfield Symphony for eight seasons, as well as artistic director of the Women's Philharmonic in San Francisco and the Oregon Mozart Players in Eugene, Oregon. Avon Women in Concert 2001 presented Hsu on tour in Brazil with the Women's Philharmonic, performing bossa nova programs. In spring 2000, producer Debbie Allen included Hsu with the Women's Philharmonic in a series entitled Cool Women, which was broadcast on cable TV during the 2000-01 season. Hsu's first CD with the orchestra, which was released on the Koch International Classics label in spring 2001, featured the symphonic music of African American composer Florence Price. Hsu has served on the faculty of the American Symphony Orchestra League Conducting Workshops and the National Youth Orchestra Festival 2000 and has been a music review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. Hsu and the Women's Philharmonic received ASCAP's Award for Adventurous Programming four consecutive times.Composers in Residence
"Paulus often finds melodic patterns that are fresh and familiar at the same time . . . His scoring is invariably expert and exceptionally imaginative in textures and use of instruments," writes the New York Times of composer Stephen Paulus. His prolific output of more than 200 works is represented by many genres, including music for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, solo voice, keyboard, and opera. His works have been championed by such eminent conductors as Sir Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Christoph von Dohanyi, Leonard Slatkin, Yoel Levi, the late Robert Shaw, and numerous others. A preeminent composer of opera, Paulus has written eight works for the dramatic stage. The Postman Always Rings Twice was the first American production to be presented at the Edinburgh Festival. Commissions and performances have come from such companies as the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Washington Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Berkshire Opera Company, Minnesota Opera, and Fort Worth Opera, among others, as well as many universities and colleges. Paulus is one of the most frequently recorded contemporary composers, with his music being represented on more than 50 recordings. A recipient of both Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, Paulus is also a strong advocate for the music of his colleagues. He is cofounder and a current board vice president of the highly esteemed American Composers Forum, the largest composer service organization in the world. Paulus serves on the ASCAP Board of Directors as Concert Music Representative, a post he has held since 1990.
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Joseph Schwantner received his musical and academic training at the Chicago Conservatory and Northwestern University, completing his doctorate in 1968. In addition to performing worldwide at countless festivals, including the New York Philharmonic Festival and the 1993 Sonoklect New Music Festival, Schwantner has also played with numerous orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the London Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestra 2001, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. His work has been performed by major artists and commissioned by renowned orchestras, including the Boston Symphony and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The first recipient of the Charles Ives Scholarship presented by the American Academy of Arts, Schwantner has received many awards, including a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and First Prize-Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards. His piece A Sudden Rainbow, recorded on Nonesuch by the Saint Louis Symphony, earned him a 1987 Grammy nomination for Best Classical Composition. Schwantner was elected in 2002 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has served on the faculties of Yale, Eastman, and Juilliard.
"This Puerto Rican composer is a master of rhythm and atmosphere, gathering Caribbean, Latin American, and jazz elements into a classical idiom rooted in Bartók," wrote Alex Ross in the New York Times of Roberto Sierra's composition Trio Tropical. Sierra came to prominence in 1987 when his first major orchestral composition, Jubilo, was performed at Carnegie Hall by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Since then his works have been performed by the major orchestras of Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and San Antonio and by the Kronos Quartet, the BBC Symphony, the National Symphony, and at various festivals, including Wolf Trap. Recent commissions include Con madera, metal y cuero for Evelyn Glennie, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Casals Festival; Cuentos, commissioned by Camerata de las Americas; Fanfarria, aria y movimiento perpetuao for violin and piano, commissioned by the Library of Congress to celebrate Copland's centennial; and Concerto for Orchestra for the centennial celebrations of the Philadelphia Orchestra, commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 2003, Sierra received the prestigious Award in Music of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music may be heard on releases from New World Records, Newport Classic, New Albion, ADDA, Musical Heritage Society, Koss Classics, CRI, BMF, Fleur de Son, Albany, Ondine, Urtext, and Dorian Records. He is the composer-in-residence for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and professor of music at Cornell University.
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(12.3.03)