The Orchestra Now Begins 2026 Winter/Spring Season at Bard College with Six Concerts and Four Programs January 24 – May 10
Leon Botstein conducting TŌN. Photo by Matt Dine
The Orchestra Now (TŌN) begins its 11th winter/spring season of four different programs and six performances at the Fisher Center at Bard College on January 24, and continues through May 10.
Highlights are the U.S. premieres of Victoria Poleva’s Nova and Yevhen Stankovych’s The Vikings Suite as part of a program focusing on Ukrainian music and artists (Jan. 24); a performance spanning works from C.P.E. Bach to Stravinsky (Feb. 7-8); a return to the podium by internationally renowned composer/conductor Tan Dun (Apr. 18); and an all-Strauss Carnegie Hall preview concert including the composer’s Alpine Symphony alongside musicians from the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra (May 9-10).
Performances at the Fisher Center led by Leon Botstein will be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube.
THE 2026 WINTER/SPRING FISHER CENTER SERIES AT BARD, Sosnoff Theater
Dvořák and the Music of Ukraine
Saturday, January 24, 2026, at 7 pm
Tatiana Kalinichenko, conductor
Dmytro Tkachenko, violin
Victoria Poleva: Nova (U.S. Premiere)
Antonín Dvořák: Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53
Levko Kolodub: Ukrainian Carpathian Rhapsody No. 1
Yevhen Stankovych: The Vikings Suite (U.S. Premiere)
Ukrainian musicians Tatiana Kalinichenko, co-founder, music director, and conductor of the New Era Orchestra in Kyiv, and internationally-recognized violinist Dmytro Tkachenko, winner of the Carl Nielsen, Lysenko, and Wronski Solo Violin Competitions, come to the Fisher Center for a one-night-only concert. Tkachenko performs Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, which includes a uniquely Czech finale featuring two popular folk dances. The program also presents music by three Ukrainian composers: Kolodub’s Ukrainian Carpathian Rhapsody No. 1; the U.S. premiere of Stankovych’s suite from his ballet The Vikings; and the U.S. premiere of Poleva’s 2022 composition Nova, a salute to the courage of the Ukrainian people.
Stravinsky, Cage, and C.P.E. Bach
Saturday, February 7, 2026, at 7 pm
Sunday, February 8, 2026, at 2 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Ulysses Kay: Chariots: Orchestral Rhapsody
John Cage: Suite for Toy Piano (orch. Lou Harrison)
Igor Stravinsky: Symphony in C, K061
C. P. E. Bach: Symphony D Major, H. 663, W. 183/1
Albert Roussel: Symphony No. 3 in G Minor, Op. 42
Leon Botstein leads TŌN in a concert of music spanning over 200 years, with four 20th-century works presented alongside a brief symphony from 1776. The program comprises Ulysses Kay’s Chariots, inspired by the writings of poet William Blake and others; Lou Harrison’s orchestration of John Cage’s Suite for Toy Piano, which was initially used as music for Merce Cunningham’s choreographed piece A Diversion; Stravinsky’s Symphony in C, which he finished composing in America before he conducted the premiere with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; C.P.E. Bach’s Symphony in D Major, written in Hamburg and dedicated to Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia; and one of Albert Roussel’s most beloved works, his Third Symphony, composed for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930.
Tan Dun Conducts
Saturday, April 18, 2026, at 7 pm
Tan Dun, conductor
Program to be announced
Grammy and Academy Award-winning composer and conductor Tan Dun makes his fourth appearance with TŌN.
Strauss’s Alpine Symphony: A Carnegie Hall Preview Concert
Saturday, May 9, 2026, at 7 pm
Sunday, May 10, 2026, at 3 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Blair McMillen, piano
Members of the Bard Festival Chorale
James Bagwell, choral director
Members of the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra (for An Alpine Symphony)
All-Richard Strauss Program
Burleske in D Minor, TrV 145
Times of the Day, TrV 256, Op. 76 (Die Tageszeiten)
An Alpine Symphony, TrV 233, Op. 64 (Eine Alpensinfonie)
After a string of successful tone poems, An Alpine Symphony was Richard Strauss’s first such composition after nearly a dozen years of focusing on opera. Written for a massive orchestra that includes such rarities as the heckelphone, thunder sheets, and a wind machine, this rich masterpiece takes listeners through the ascent and descent of a mountain in the Alps, with meadows, streams, storms, and vistas along the way. Strauss’s Burleske for piano and orchestra is performed by Blair McMillen. Hailed as “prodigiously accomplished and exciting” (New York Times), he is co-founder and co-director of the Rite of Summer Music Festival at New York City’s Governors Island. Also on the program is Times of the Day, a setting of four nature poems by Joseph von Eichendorff.
TŌN performs this program at Carnegie Hall on May 12.
Tickets, priced at $15 - $35, are available at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center at 845.758.7900.
Post Date: 01-20-2026
Highlights are the U.S. premieres of Victoria Poleva’s Nova and Yevhen Stankovych’s The Vikings Suite as part of a program focusing on Ukrainian music and artists (Jan. 24); a performance spanning works from C.P.E. Bach to Stravinsky (Feb. 7-8); a return to the podium by internationally renowned composer/conductor Tan Dun (Apr. 18); and an all-Strauss Carnegie Hall preview concert including the composer’s Alpine Symphony alongside musicians from the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra (May 9-10).
Performances at the Fisher Center led by Leon Botstein will be livestreamed on TŌNtube at ton.bard.edu/tontube.
THE 2026 WINTER/SPRING FISHER CENTER SERIES AT BARD, Sosnoff Theater
Dvořák and the Music of Ukraine
Saturday, January 24, 2026, at 7 pm
Tatiana Kalinichenko, conductor
Dmytro Tkachenko, violin
Victoria Poleva: Nova (U.S. Premiere)
Antonín Dvořák: Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 53
Levko Kolodub: Ukrainian Carpathian Rhapsody No. 1
Yevhen Stankovych: The Vikings Suite (U.S. Premiere)
Ukrainian musicians Tatiana Kalinichenko, co-founder, music director, and conductor of the New Era Orchestra in Kyiv, and internationally-recognized violinist Dmytro Tkachenko, winner of the Carl Nielsen, Lysenko, and Wronski Solo Violin Competitions, come to the Fisher Center for a one-night-only concert. Tkachenko performs Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, which includes a uniquely Czech finale featuring two popular folk dances. The program also presents music by three Ukrainian composers: Kolodub’s Ukrainian Carpathian Rhapsody No. 1; the U.S. premiere of Stankovych’s suite from his ballet The Vikings; and the U.S. premiere of Poleva’s 2022 composition Nova, a salute to the courage of the Ukrainian people.
Stravinsky, Cage, and C.P.E. Bach
Saturday, February 7, 2026, at 7 pm
Sunday, February 8, 2026, at 2 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Ulysses Kay: Chariots: Orchestral Rhapsody
John Cage: Suite for Toy Piano (orch. Lou Harrison)
Igor Stravinsky: Symphony in C, K061
C. P. E. Bach: Symphony D Major, H. 663, W. 183/1
Albert Roussel: Symphony No. 3 in G Minor, Op. 42
Leon Botstein leads TŌN in a concert of music spanning over 200 years, with four 20th-century works presented alongside a brief symphony from 1776. The program comprises Ulysses Kay’s Chariots, inspired by the writings of poet William Blake and others; Lou Harrison’s orchestration of John Cage’s Suite for Toy Piano, which was initially used as music for Merce Cunningham’s choreographed piece A Diversion; Stravinsky’s Symphony in C, which he finished composing in America before he conducted the premiere with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; C.P.E. Bach’s Symphony in D Major, written in Hamburg and dedicated to Friedrich Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Prussia; and one of Albert Roussel’s most beloved works, his Third Symphony, composed for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930.
Tan Dun Conducts
Saturday, April 18, 2026, at 7 pm
Tan Dun, conductor
Program to be announced
Grammy and Academy Award-winning composer and conductor Tan Dun makes his fourth appearance with TŌN.
Strauss’s Alpine Symphony: A Carnegie Hall Preview Concert
Saturday, May 9, 2026, at 7 pm
Sunday, May 10, 2026, at 3 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Blair McMillen, piano
Members of the Bard Festival Chorale
James Bagwell, choral director
Members of the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra (for An Alpine Symphony)
All-Richard Strauss Program
Burleske in D Minor, TrV 145
Times of the Day, TrV 256, Op. 76 (Die Tageszeiten)
An Alpine Symphony, TrV 233, Op. 64 (Eine Alpensinfonie)
After a string of successful tone poems, An Alpine Symphony was Richard Strauss’s first such composition after nearly a dozen years of focusing on opera. Written for a massive orchestra that includes such rarities as the heckelphone, thunder sheets, and a wind machine, this rich masterpiece takes listeners through the ascent and descent of a mountain in the Alps, with meadows, streams, storms, and vistas along the way. Strauss’s Burleske for piano and orchestra is performed by Blair McMillen. Hailed as “prodigiously accomplished and exciting” (New York Times), he is co-founder and co-director of the Rite of Summer Music Festival at New York City’s Governors Island. Also on the program is Times of the Day, a setting of four nature poems by Joseph von Eichendorff.
TŌN performs this program at Carnegie Hall on May 12.
Tickets, priced at $15 - $35, are available at fishercenter.bard.edu, or by calling the Fisher Center at 845.758.7900.
Post Date: 01-20-2026