More than 50 years after Donald Fagen and Walter Becker first met at Bard College, the College’s elite musicians come together for a first-of-its-kind concert celebrating the music of Steely Dan. Featuring a full rhythm section, horns, and background singers, the band will perform a selection of Steely Dan’s high-fidelity hits in exacting detail. Streamed live from Olin Hall in 2023.
Music Program Events
4/18
Thursday
Thursday, April 18, 2024 The Power of a Feeling: Black Music, Literature, and the Creation of an Aesthetic.
Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space1:30 pm – 2:50 pm EDT/GMT-4 • A performance by Marcus Roberts (piano) with Marty Jaffe (bass), Dave Potter (drums), Boyce Griffith (alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet). • A class by Professors Donna Ford Grover and Marcus Roberts
This performance by Bard Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music Marcus Roberts showcases the blues in its many shades and colors and will demonstrate how the blues in jazz connects with other great art forms including literature. This performance grows from the spring 2024 class entitled “The Power of a Feeling: Black Music, Literature, and the Creation of an Aesthetic”. Some of the seminal literary works from the class include Sonny's Blues (James Baldwin), The Blacker the Berry (Wallace Thurman), and Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston).
The themes in these stories involve black life and identity in America and each author expresses their unique personality through their prose. Jazz musicians do the same. From Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington, and on to the present day, each jazz musician has an individual sound and identity. The blues also appears throughout American music and has as much variety as there are people who play it. This performance showcases the enduring influence of the blues in music and American life. Please join Professors Donna Grover and Marcus Roberts who, with his fellow musicians, will explore the connection between the blues and these great American literary works.
This class/performance is free and open to the public.
Friday, April 19, 2024 Olin Hall7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Antonio Vivaldi – Concerto in G minor “per l’Orchestra di Dresda,” RV 577 J. S. Bach – Brandenburg Concert No. 4, BWV 1049 J. S. Bach – Sinfonia in F, BWV 1046a J. S. Bach – Hunting Cantata, BWV 208: Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd
Renée Anne Louprette, director Christopher Nelson & Joas Erasmus, violins David Keringer & Kelsey Burnham, recorders David Zoschnick & Shawn Hutchison, oboes Adelaide Braunhill & HanYi Huang, bassoons Jaclyn Hopping & Megan Maloney, sopranos Sam Warshauer, tenor Joey Breslau, baritone Tyler Duncan, guest reader
Thursday, April 25, 2024 Chapel of the Holy Innocents7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Chapel of the Holy Innocents
4/25
Thursday
Thursday, April 25, 2024 Blum N211, the Jazz Room8:30 pm – 9:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
8:30 pm – 9:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Blum N211, the Jazz Room
Music Program Newsroom
Bard Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli Featured on NPR
Missy Mazzoli, composer in residence at Bard College, performed together with violinist Jennifer Koh for Tiny Desk Concerts at NPR’s headquarters. The two artists, who have collaborated on projects for 15 years, performed a set of pieces composed by Mazzoli and brought to life by Koh’s violin.
Bard Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli Featured on NPR
Missy Mazzoli, composer in residence at Bard College, performed together with violinist Jennifer Koh for Tiny Desk Concerts at NPR’s headquarters. The two artists, who have collaborated on projects for 15 years, performed a set of pieces composed by Mazzoli and brought to life by Koh’s violin. “Dissolve, O my Heart, the first piece Mazzoli wrote for Koh, spirals out into an emotional journey touched with spasms of joy and grief,” writes Tom Huizenga for NPR. He continues: “Hearing this set, in all its rugged delight, feels like we're eavesdropping on something personal—a fruitful, collaborative friendship between composer and performer that has yielded amazing music.”
At the 66th annual GRAMMY Awards ceremony, the Recording Academy honored first-time GRAMMY award winners Bard Composer in Residence Jessie Montgomery, who won Best Contemporary Classical Composition for “Rounds,” and Bard Conservatory of Music’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program alumna Julia Bullock MM ’11, who won Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for Walking in the Dark. Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe is featured on the album Blanchard: Champion, which won for Best Opera Recording.
Bard College Faculty and Alumna Win 2024 GRAMMY Awards
At the 66th annual GRAMMY Awards ceremony, the Recording Academy honored the 2024 GRAMMY winners. Among them, Bard Composer in Residence Jessie Montgomery won Best Contemporary Classical Composition, her first GRAMMY award, for her composition “Rounds.” Bard Conservatory of Music’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program alumna Julia Bullock MM ’11 also won her first GRAMMY award, winning Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for her album Walking in the Dark. Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe is featured on the album Blanchard: Champion, which won for Best Opera Recording.
Jessie Montgomery’s “Rounds” is a composition for piano and string orchestra inspired by the imagery and themes from T.S. Eliot’s epic poem Four Quartets, fractals (infinite patterns found in nature that are self-similar across different scales), and the interdependency of all beings.
Julia Bullock’s Walking in the Dark was recorded with her husband, conductor and pianist Christian Reif, and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. The album combines orchestral works by American composers John Adams and Samuel Barber with a traditional spiritual and songs by jazz legend Billy Taylor and singer-songwriters Oscar Brown, Jr., Connie Converse, and Sandy Denny.
The Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Terence Blanchard’s Champion, an opera about young boxer Emile Griffith who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, was conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and featured a cast including mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Kathy Hagen.
Artistic Director of the Bard College Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe
The GRAMMYs are voted on by more than 11,000 music professionals—performers, songwriters, producers, and others with credits on recordings—who are members of the Recording Academy.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Sarah Hennies; New Red Order, an Indigenous art collective whose core contributors are Bard alumni Adam Khalil ’11 (Ojibway) and Zack Khalil ’14 (Ojibway); and Trisha Baga MFA ’10 have received 2024 United States Artist (USA) Fellowships in the disciplines of Music and Visual Arts. USA Fellowships provide $50,000 in unrestricted money to artists across 10 creative disciplines.
Bard Music Professor Sarah Hennies and Alums Adam Khalil ’11, Zack Khalil ’14, and Trisha Baga MFA ’10 Win 2024 United States Artist Fellowships
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Sarah Hennies; New Red Order, an Indigenous art collective whose core contributors are Bard alumni Adam Khalil ’11 (Ojibway) and Zack Khalil ’14 (Ojibway); and Trisha Baga MFA ’10 have received 2024 United States Artist (USA) Fellowships in the disciplines of Music and Visual Arts. Hennies, New Red Order, and Baga are among this year’s 50 awardees, encompassing artists and collectives spanning multiple generations, who are dedicated to their communities and committed to building upon shared legacies through artistic innovation, cultural stewardship, and multifaceted storytelling. USA Fellowships provide $50,000 in unrestricted money to artists across 10 creative disciplines. In addition to the award, current fellows have access to financial planning, career consulting, legal advice, and other professional services as requested.
Sarah Hennies is a composer based in Upstate NY whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer and trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought.
New Red Order is a public secret society facilitated by core contributors Adam Khalil (Ojibway), Zack Khalil (Ojibway), and Jackson Polys (Tlingit) that collaborates with informants to create exhibitions, videos, and performances that question and rechannel subjective and material relationships to indigeneity.
Trisha Baga is a Filipino-American artist working in stereoscopic 3D video installation, paint, clay, consumer grade electronics, and community performance. Compelled by an interest in what they call “the stuff that makes things stick together,” Baga recombines objects and images into scenarios that address issues related to the environment, technology, and identity.
Representing a broad diversity of regions and mediums, the USA Fellows are awarded through a peer-led selection process in the disciplines of Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Film, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing.
Popular Science Names Pippa Kelmenson ’17’s Bone Conductive Instrument as One of the “Most Innovative Musical Inventions of the Past Year”
“Every year since 2009, a handful of artists, engineers, musicians, and hobbyists from around the world arrive in Atlanta, Georgia, with one-of-a-kind instruments in tow,” writes Andrew Paul for Popular Science. Among them is Pippa Kelmenson ’17, inventor of the Bone Conductive Instrument, or BCI. Popular Science named the BCI, which “emits sound signals to vibrate individual body resonant frequencies to aid hard-of-hearing users,” as one of 2023’s most innovative musical inventions. According to Kelmenson, the BCI “calls for an inclusive and innovative way for users across the hearing spectrum to interact with sound.”
Whitney Biennial 2024 to Feature Bard College Faculty and Alums
Bard College faculty members and alums will be among the 71 artists and collectives selected to participate in this year’s Whitney Biennial, the 81st installment of the landmark exhibition series. Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing opens on March 20. Works by Visiting Assistant Professor of MusicSarah Hennies; Assistant Professor of American and Indigenous Studies, Distinguished Artist in Residence in Studio Arts, and Bard MFA Faculty in Music/Sound KiteMFA ’18;andBard MFA Faculty in Sculpture Lotus Laurie Kang MFA ’15 will be featured alongside those by alums Diane Severin Nguyen MFA ’20, Carolyn Lazard ’10, and Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio ’12. The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College graduate Min Sun Jeon CCS ’22 helped to organize the exhibition.
The 2024 Whitney Biennial is organized by Chrissie Iles (Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator) and Meg Onli (Curator at Large), with Min Sun Jeon CCS ’22 and Beatriz Cifuentes. The performance program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curator Taja Cheek. The film program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curators Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr, and Zackary Drucker.
“After finalizing the list of artists last summer, we have built a thematic Biennial that focuses on the ideas of ‘the real,’” write the curators. “Society is at an inflection point around this notion, in part brought on by artificial intelligence challenging what we consider to be real, as well as critical discussions about identity. Many of the artists presenting works—including via robust performance and film programs—explore the fluidity of identity and form, historical and current land stewardship, and concepts of embodiment, among other urgent throughlines, and we are inspired by the work they are creating and sharing.”
Joan Tower’s Concerto for Piano (Homage to Beethoven) and Missy Mazzoli’s Dark with Excessive Bright Included in NPR’s Top Ten Classical Albums of 2023
Concerto for Piano (Homage to Beethoven) by Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts and composition faculty of the Conservatory of Music at Bard, and Dark with Excessive Bright by Missy Mazzoli, Bard composer in residence, were both included in NPR's roundup of top ten classical albums of 2023. NPR music producer and classical music reviewer Tom Huizenga writes, "Now 85, Tower could rest on her achievements, but she's still fulfilling commissions with her singular, sturdy music," noting the many leading contemporary composers revere her, including Missy Mazzoli, whose album was also selected in this year's top ten. "[T]he album is tonal — in a Bartók or Joan Tower kind of way — with notes stacked to produce fresh, often unusual sounds," writes Huizenga, who says this album proves Mazzoli "can create shimmering instrumental music with large forces."
Symphony No. 107 – The Bard, a Posthumous Album by Richard Teitelbaum, Announced in Bandcamp’s Best Contemporary Classical Music of 2023
A posthumous album by Richard Teitelbaum, a member of Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) and former Bard College professor of music, has been included in Bandcamp’s 2023 list of Best Contemporary Classical Music. Symphony No. 107 — The Bard, a previously unreleased live recording, was performed in Olin Hall at Bard College in 2012, and was edited, mixed, and mastered by Matt Sargent, assistant professor of music at Bard, in October 2022. “The music builds from near-silence to unleash a spirited collage of texture and gesture, constantly mutating and blending, with live instrumental bits—on piano, shofar, or harmonica—seeping in, sometimes taking over, or blending within electronic soundscapes,” writes Peter Margasak for Bandcamp. Teitelbaum taught electronic and experimental music at Bard for over 30 years, and cochaired the music department of the Master of Fine Arts program. He was one of the founding members of the pioneering electronic music group MEV, created in Italy in 1966, together with Alvin Curran and Frederic Rzewski.
Stranger Love by Dylan Mattingly ’14 and Professor Thomas Bartscherer Among New York Times Best Classical Music Performances of 2023
The one-night-only, six-hour-long opera Stranger Love by composer and Bard alumnus Dylan Mattingly ’14 and librettist Thomas Bartscherer, Bard’s Peter Sourian Senior Lecturer in the Humanities, has been selected as one of the best classical music performances of 2023 by the New York Times. The performance was conducted by Mattingly’s fellow Bard alumnus David Bloom ’13. “For all its abstraction and timelessness — what is more ageless than the opera’s themes of love and beauty? — this work is absolutely of its time, slowing down emotion in a world that moves uncontrollably fast,” writes Joshua Barone. “The premiere run, at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in May, was just a single evening, but Stranger Love deserves a life far beyond that.”
Interview: President Botstein with David Krauss for Speaking Soundly Podcast
Bard President Leon Botstein spoke with David Krauss for the podcast Speaking Soundly, where he discussed the current state of the arts and classical music, the perspectives that informed his journey as a musician, and his approach to leading Bard for nearly 50 years. “Music is part of life, it’s not a segregated technical enterprise,” Botstein told Krauss. “So I thought, if I’m going to contribute something as a musician, I have to bring something different to the table.” He continues, “I focused early on the reclaiming effort of the history of music, to rewrite the history of music on the concert stage.” In conversation with Krauss, Botstein goes on to examine the practical and emotional challenges faced by a conductor while leading an orchestra, the role of broader education in becoming an instrumentalist and composer, and the importance of having an inquiring mind as a musician.
Chapel of the Holy Innocents7:15 pm – 8:15 pm EDT/GMT-4
Friday, April 12, 2024 – Sunday, April 14, 2024
Book and Lyrics by Greg Kotis Music and Lyrics by Mark Hollmann Directed by Liz Peterson Music Direction by David Sytkowski Fisher Center, LUMA Theater Set in a Gotham-like city in the not-so-distant future, Urinetown is a scathing satire with a tragic love story at its heart. In it, we see how a community is torn apart by an oppressive for-profit system, how figures of liberation rise up, and the impossible choices they are left with. Featuring music inspired by so many other musicals, this is a show that both celebrates and satirizes the tradition of musical theater.
April 12 at 7:30 pm, April 13 at 2:00 pm AND 7:30 pm, April 14 at 4:00 pm Fisher Center, LUMA Theater https://fishercenter.bard.edu/events/urinetown/
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Chapel of the Holy Innocents6:00 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Sunday, April 7, 2024
Olin Hall12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Bard Hall7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 A performance anxiety and mindfulness workshop. For musicians, but open to everyone!
Saturday, March 9, 2024
Seven pianists perform works by Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) and Fryderyk Chopin (1810-49). Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space7:00 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Free and open to the public.
Debussy in Paris: Poets, Politics, and the Piano Intertwined Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space4:00 pm – 5:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Pianist Catherine Kautsky presents a lecture-recital placing Debussy's piano music in the context of fin-de siècle Paris. We’ll look at fairies and clowns, writers and painters, arabesques and castanets, and along the way we’ll encounter the many issues of race, gender, colonialism, and nationalism that affected (and afflicted) Paris c. 1900.
Catherine Kautsky, Chair of Keyboard at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, has been lauded by the New York Times as “a pianist who can play Mozart and Schubert as though their sentiments and habits of speech coincided exactly with hers … The music spoke directly to the listener, with neither obfuscation nor pretense.” Her recording of the Debussy Preludes, released by Centaur in September, 2014, was said to “bring out all the power, majesty, and mystery of Debussy’s conception.“ Ms Kautsky has just released a 24 video set, “Great Works for the Piano” for Great Courses/Wondrium, and is also presenting courses on piano literature for the Juilliard Extension Division and the 92nd Street Y of New York City.
Wind quintet performs recent works by contemporary women composers. Olin Hall4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The one-hour program includes: Alyssa Morris, Dumbarton Oaks Amanda Harberg, Suite for Winds Jennifer Higdon, Autumn Music Valerie Coleman, Afro Cuban Concerto Grace Ann Lee (Heritage Winds Commission), The Woman Air Force Service Pilots
Free and open to the public.
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Olin Hall7:00 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Free and open to the public.
The West Point Brass Quintet is the primary chamber ensemble of the Army’s oldest musical organization, the West Point Band. Stationed at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Quintet provides support for West Point ceremonies as well as other outreach events throughout the Northeast.
Monday, February 12, 2024
Blum Hall8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Sunday, February 11, 2024
Works by Beethoven, Iman Habibi, Jocelyn Morlock, and Jeffrey Ryan. Olin Hall3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5 This is not your typical St. Valentine’s concert. Our partnership began with Lieder, drawing us away from our home of British Columbia, Canada, to pursue studies in Germany. Through the veil of an unfamiliar language and culture, we felt the pull of home, and a wish to express our feelings of connection to each other and our shared geography through music. These song cycles reflect the quarter century we have spent together on and off the stage. They tell a story of a complicated, messy, lasting, and wonderful collaboration, through the incredible music of Beethoven, Habibi, Morlock, and Ryan and the inspiring poetry of Zwicky, Ashton, Khayyãm, and Jeitteles.
“Home, the ache of the invisible” – Jan Zwicky.
Free and open to the public.
Sunday, February 4, 2024
Disco and Deception at the Opera Fisher Center, LUMA Theater2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The popular Bard Opera Workshop returns again this year with student singers performing a selection of scenes from the operatic canon. The performance is directed by Bard alum Emily Cuk ’11 and accompanied by an orchestra of Bard students.
Saturday, February 3, 2024
Disco and Deception at the Opera Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 The popular Bard Opera Workshop returns again this year with student singers performing a selection of scenes from the operatic canon. The performance is directed by Bard alum Emily Cuk ’11 and accompanied by an orchestra of Bard students.
Friday, February 2, 2024
Disco and Deception at the Opera Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 The popular Bard Opera Workshop returns again this year with student singers performing a selection of scenes from the operatic canon. The performance is directed by Bard alum Emily Cuk ’11 and accompanied by an orchestra of Bard students.