Profile: New York Times Explores Composer and Percussionist Sarah Hennies’s “Highly Personal Explorations of ‘Queer and Trans Identity, Love, Intimacy and Psychoacoustics’”
“What Ms. Hennies’s disparate works have in common is their forthright yet subtle, moving evocation of queerness,” writes Steve Smith. “The idea of subverting identity is queer,” Hennies said. “There’s a spectrum of sexuality. There’s a spectrum of identity. And the representation of that is taking something that seems simple, and showing that it is a spectrum.”
Profile: New York Times Explores Composer and Percussionist Sarah Hennies’s “Highly Personal Explorations of ‘Queer and Trans Identity, Love, Intimacy and Psychoacoustics’”
“What Ms. Hennies’s disparate works have in common is their forthright yet subtle, moving evocation of queerness,” writes Steve Smith. “The idea of subverting identity is queer,” Hennies said. “There’s a spectrum of sexuality. There’s a spectrum of identity. And the representation of that is taking something that seems simple, and showing that it is a spectrum.”
The Fisher Center at Bard, long known for its memorable productions of rarely performed operatic works programmed and conducted by Maestro Leon Botstein, commemorates World Opera Day on October 25 with two special releases to its virtual stage, UPSTREAMING, highlighted by a conversation about opera today between Maestro Botstein and the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe.
Fisher Center at Bard Celebrates World Opera Day October 25 with Maestro Leon Botstein and Mezzo-Soprano Stephanie Blythe in Conversation
The Fisher Center at Bard, long known for its memorable productions of rarely performed operatic works programmed and conducted by Maestro Leon Botstein, commemorates World Opera Day on October 25 with two special releases, adding to an already robust selection of archival HD opera recordings and contextual materials available free of charge on UPSTREAMING, the Fisher Center’s virtual stage.
World Opera Day is an international campaign to raise awareness of the positive impact and value of opera for society. As part of World Opera Day, the Fisher Center will present a lively and wide-ranging virtual conversation about opera today between Maestro Botstein and the acclaimed mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, who recently assumed the directorship of the Vocal Arts Program at Bard College. Their conversation will be available for streaming here, beginning October 25. Bard Music Festival members will receive early access to the conversation on October 20.
“Opera is immune to technological reproduction and is a unique amalgam of the visual language and sound,” says Botstein. “It is perhaps the most resilient, alluring, and enduring genre of the human imagination.”
Offering one of the most unique opera programs in the country, Bard presents a new, fully staged production of a rarely performed opera each year as part of the renowned SummerScape Festival. The operas are programmed in conjunction with Bard Music Festival, a summer series led by Botstein, which focuses on one composer each summer for an intensive series of concerts, lectures, and panel discussions. “Some of the most important summer opera experiences in the U.S. are … at Bard SummerScape.”—Financial Times
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fisher Center has been streaming selections from its rich archive of HD video recordings over UPSTREAMING, the Fisher Center’s Virtual Stage. On October 19, Bard SummerScape’s 2016 production of Pietro Mascagni’s Iris joins a robust selection of Bard SummerScape productions of rarely-performed operatic treasures available for viewing. Operas produced in recent years at Bard SummerScape (all currently streaming on UPSTREAMING) include the U.S. premieres of such neglected treasures as Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane (2019); Richard Strauss’s Die Liebe der Danae (2012); Carl Maria von Weber’s Euryanthe (2014) and Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers (2015). These perfromances have been made available at no charge to ensure wider access to these rarely seen works. All of these programs can be viewed here.
About UPSTREAMING, the Fisher Center’s virtual stage. Archival Discoveries and New Commissions for the Digital Sphere. UPSTREAMING broadens the Fisher Center’s commitment to reaching audiences far beyond the physical walls of our building, and offers new ways for us to engage with artists. Launched in April 2020, UPSTREAMING has released new content, including digital commissions, virtual events, and beloved performances and rich contextual materials from the archives of the SummerScape Opera and Bard Music Festival’s 30-year history. UPSTREAMING highlights different aspects of the breadth of programming the Fisher Center offers. New releases are announced via the Fisher Center’s weekly newsletter. To receive those updates and stay connected to UPSTREAMING, join the mailing list here. #UPSTREAMINGFC
ABOUT THE FISHER CENTER The Fisher Center develops, produces, and presents performing arts across disciplines through new productions and context-rich programs that challenge and inspire. As a premier professional performing arts center and a hub for research and education, the Fisher Center supports artists, students, and audiences in the development and examination of artistic ideas, offering perspectives from the past and present, as well as visions of the future. The Fisher Center demonstrates Bard’s commitment to the performing arts as a cultural and educational necessity. Home is the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry and located on the campus of Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley. The Fisher Center offers outstanding programs to many communities, including the students and faculty of Bard College, and audiences in the Hudson Valley, New York City, across the country, and around the world. Building on a 159-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders.
“I’m in my second year of teaching history of electronic music, and it’s been really fun to develop a syllabus for that that encompasses all of these things that I just never, ever would have encountered in a class at either of the schools I went to, even though one of them was a very progressive experimental school.”
Interview: Composer, Percussionist Sarah Hennies on Her New Duet The Reinvention of Romance, Her Working Process, and Teaching at Bard
“I’m in my second year of teaching history of electronic music, and it’s been really fun to develop a syllabus for that that encompasses all of these things that I just never, ever would have encountered in a class at either of the schools I went to, even though one of them was a very progressive experimental school. But nobody was telling me about Kool Herc or Coil or Tangerine Dream or any of these more DIY underground, nonacademic things that, to me, are just as important as the West German Radio Studio [for Electronic Music]. I really like it quite a lot, despite being a very hesitant academic. Bard is a very peculiar place with a really diverse array of students. So the program that we’re in is not at all like a typical music school program. I feel really at home there.”
Bard Student Tobias Hess ’22 and Other Local Gen Z-ers Weigh In On an Unprecedented Year
Hess, who’s majoring in music at Bard, joined other local Gen Z-ers to share their views on racial inequity, social isolation, climate change, and higher education in the time of COVID-19. A voting rights advocate and proponent of the Green New Deal, Hess became involved in the climate movement in his native California. Last fall, he founded a chapter of the Sunrise Movement at Bard, a youth-led political movement that addresses the need for comprehensive climate change reform. Hess is not alone in his determination to save the planet: a survey of Generation Z from Amnesty International found that climate change was a vital issue for 41 percent of respondents.
Bard Conservatory of Music Presents Student and Faculty Showcase Weekend, Two Free, Live-Streamed Concerts October 24-25, including Performances by Celebrated Violinists and New Faculty Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony
Concerts will Feature the World Premiere of Artist in Residence Erica Lindsay’s Adagio for String Orchestra (2020) and Works by Casals, Vivaldi, Mozart, Mahler, and Elgar
October 24 Event Will Honor Cellist and Faculty Member Luis Garcia-Renart (1936–2020)
The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents a student and faculty showcase weekend, October 24–25, two free, live-streamed concerts featuring the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor, showcasing performances by celebrated violinists and new Conservatory faculty Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony, as well as students and other faculty from the BardMusic Program, Conservatory, and The Orchestra Now.The October 24 concert, at 7:30 p.m., is in honor of cellist and faculty member Luis Garcia-Renart (1936–2020), and features the world premiere of Artist in Residence Erica Lindsay’s Adagio for String Orchestra (2020), as well as works by Casals and Vivaldi. Garcia-Renart, who taught at Bard from 1962 until his death earlier this year, was a former student of Casals. The October 25 concert, at 3 p.m., includes performances of works by Mozart, Mahler, and Elgar. Both concerts are free and will be live streamed from the Fisher Center atBard’s Sosnoff Theater. Reservations are required. Proceeds support the Conservatory Scholarship Fund. For more information, visit fishercenter.bard.edu.
October 24 at 7:30 p.m. Bard College Conservatory Orchestra Leon Botstein, Music Director Concert in honor of cellist and faculty member Luis Garcia-Renart (1936–2020)
Pablo Casals “The Song of the Birds” (El cant dels Ocells)
La Sardana, Cello choir with faculty members Peter Wiley and Raman Ramakrishnan and cellists from the Conservatory, The Orchestra Now, and the Music Program
Erica Lindsay Adagio World Premiere Conservatory Orchestra with Erica Kiesewetter, conductor
Antonio Vivaldi The Four Seasons Conservatory Orchestra with faculty soloists Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony, violins
October 25 at 3 p.m. Bard College Conservatory Orchestra Leon Botstein, Music Director
W. A. Mozart Serenade No. 6 in D Major, KV 239 “Serenata notturna”
Gustav Mahler Adagietto from Symphony No. 5
Edward Elgar (1857–1934) Introduction and Allegro, for string quartet and string orchestra in G Major, Op.47
BARD COLLEGE CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC
Tan Dun, Dean
Frank Corliss, Director
Marka Gustavsson, Associate Director
The Bard College Conservatory of Music expands Bard’s spirit of innovation in arts and education. The Conservatory, which opened in 2005, offers a five-year, double-degree program at the undergraduate level and, at the graduate level, programs in vocal arts and conducting. At the graduate level the Conservatory also offers an Advanced Performance Studies program and a two-year Postgraduate Collaborative Piano Fellowship. The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, established in 2017, offers a unique degree program in Chinese instruments.
Albany Times-Union: Bard Music Festival’s Livestreamed Concert Series “Out of the Silence” Speaks to Our Times
“Over the last four weekends, the Fisher Center at Bard College presented four live-streamed concerts of The Orchestra Now, which comprises young postgraduate players and is led by Leon Botstein, who is also the college president. The series was titled Out of the Silence, a name that speaks to our times on at least two levels. First, the concerts were a valiant effort at offering live music amidst the Covid pandemic and with all of the necessary safety strictures. Second, the programming focused on music by Black composers, a group whose talents and voices have been muffled if not squelched for centuries.”
Bard Conservatory Students Sophia Jackson ’25 and Aleksandar Vitanov ’25 Launch Music Mentorship Initiative
First-year instrumentalists Sophia Jackson, cello, and Aleksandar Vitanov, trumpet, have launched a new program called the Music Mentorship Initiative (MMI). The program offers tutoring and free private lessons to music students who otherwise cannot afford them, while allowing mentors—current Conservatory students who have completed a pedagogical training seminar—to gain teaching experience.
Ran Blake ’60 Named a Jazz Hero by the Jazz Journalists Association
Pianist and composer Ran Blake ’60 is the 2020 recipient of the Boston Jazz Hero award from the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA). Blake is one of 27 jazz heroes in 23 cities across the country chosen as “activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz.”
Without That Challenge, It’s Kind Of Dull: An Interview with Composer and Professor Joan Tower
GRAMMY Award–winning composer and longtime Bard professor Joan Tower’s first composition was “a total disaster.” Sixty years later, Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts at Bard, is one of the most celebrated composers in the world. Here, she talks with Kai Talim for Skip the Repeat about her wonderful childhood in Bolivia, her drive to compose, and how she, reluctantly at first, began to teach. “I came up here [to Bard] and I fell in love with this campus.... I love to teach. I didn’t know about that at the time. You have to start teaching to know whether you like it or not.”
Tuesday, October 27, 2020 Online Event6:30 pm – 7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Bard College is delighted to announce the appointment of jazz pianist and composer Marcus Roberts, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music. Professor Whitney Slaten will host him in an interview, which is the beginning of a series of online masterclasses that Roberts will offer. This discussion will highlight features of Roberts work, as well as invite Roberts to address inquires from students across divisions of the College and the Conservatory.
Pianist/composer, Marcus Roberts, has been hailed “the genius of the modern piano." In 2014, the celebrated CBS News television show, 60 Minutes, profiled his life and work on a segment entitled “The Virtuoso.” The show traced Roberts’ life to date from his early roots in Jacksonville and at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind to his remarkable career as a modern jazz musician. In addition to his renown as a performer, Roberts is also an accomplished composer who has received numerous commissioning awards, including ones from Chamber Music America, Jazz at Lincoln Center, ASCAP, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Savannah Music Festival who co-commissioned him to write his first piano concerto—Spirit of the Blues: Piano Concerto in C-Minor (2013). In 2016, Roberts premiered his second piano concerto (Rhapsody in D for Piano and Orchestra) at the Ozawa Music Festival in Matsumoto, Japan, which was commissioned by the Seiji Ozawa and the Saito Kinen Orchestra. Roberts is an associate professor of music at the School of Music at Florida State University. He holds an honorary Doctor of Music degree from The Juilliard School.
6:30 pm – 7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Online Event
11/16
Monday
Monday, November 16, 2020 Olin Hall8:00 pm – 10:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 In a live-streamed concert from Olin Hall
Featuring Maeve McKaig, violin soloist in Max Bruch's Kol Nidrei and music of Elgar, Mendelssohn, and Mozart
Conductors: Zachary Schwartzman and Erica Kiesewetter
A Streaming Lecture-Workshop with Victoria Hanna Online Event2:00 pm – 3:15 pm EDT/GMT-4 The Jerusalem-based, international voice artist Victoria Hanna will discuss the physical and sensual explorations that she has been pursuing in her art. This is a living exploration, anchored in the human voice, its location in the body, and its relation to speech. Building on ancient Kabbalistic traditions that see language, the voice, and the mouth as tools of creating worlds, Victoria will reveal the Hebrew alphabet as an instrument for playing with the mouth. By thinking with foundational Kabbalistic texts, such as the Book of Creation (Sefer Yetzirah) and the writings of Abraham Abulafia, we will come to understand how the letters have been, and can be, used for daily work with speech and the body.
conducted by Associate Conductor Erica Kiesewetter and David Banoczi-Ruof
Olin Hall6:00 pm – 10:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Friday, May 22, 2020
on Twitch TV!7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Members of the Bard electronic music senior group will perform tonight, May 22 from 7-9 PM, streaming live on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/bardelectronicmusic.
Please come join on Zoom to celebrate our seniors and their work that they will present!
Monday, May 18, 2020
Blum Hall7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Bard Hall7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Chapel of the Holy Innocents7:30 pm – 9:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Saturday, May 16, 2020
Bard Hall3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Friday, May 15, 2020
László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Spring concert Olin Hall7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Chapel of the Holy Innocents6:00 pm – 7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Performing Jazz Piano Music László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building8:00 pm – 10:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Bard Hall8:30 pm – 9:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Campus Center, Cafe8:00 pm – 10:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Chapel of the Holy Innocents7:00 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 A song recital featuring art songs and spirituals by 12 brilliant American composers. Singers Meroe Khalia Adeeb, Taylor-Alexis Dupont, and Elliott Paige along with pianist Michael Lewis will perform the music of H. Leslie Adams, Margaret Bonds, John Carter, Jacqueline Hairston, Colin Lett, Charles Lloyd Jr., Undine Smith Moore, Robert Owens, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and Julius P. Williams.
This event is cosponsored by the Bard College Chaplaincy and the Bard College Gospel Choir.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Blum N2115:00 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Sunday, March 15, 2020
László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Saturday, March 14, 2020
Blum Hall7:30 pm – 9:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Bent Duo, a New York–based piano and percussion duo of David Friend and Bill Solomon, perform new work by Bard electronic music faculty Matt Sargent and Sarah Hennies, as well as a premiere of a new composition by Bard senior Meghan Mercier.
David Friend has been hailed as “astonishingly compelling” (Washington Post), “spooky precision” (London Times), and “[one] of the finest, busiest pianists active in New York’s contemporary-classical scene” (New York Times). Bill Solomon has been called a “fine soloist” (New York Times) and “a stand out” (Boston Globe).
This concert is free and open to the public.
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
László Z. Bitó '60 Conservatory Building8:00 pm – 10:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 The Da Capo Chamber Players and guest artists perform works by Bard faculty, alumni/ae, and composers from the region. CELEBRATE BARD!
Tan Dun, In Distance (1987) Joan Tower, String Force (2010) Kyle Gann, Hovenweep (2000) John Halle, A Free People (2006) Corey Chang, ‘19, Foreshadowed Flashback (2017) Peri Mauer, ‘76, Pixeliance (2011/2017) Elizabeth Brown, Liguria (1999)
Da Capo Chamber Players Guest Artists Curtis Macomber, violin Margaret Kampmeier, piano Chris Gross, cello Sara Cutler, harp Patricia Spencer, flute Jon Clancy, percussion Marianne Gythfeldt, clarinet John Halle, narrator
Elizabeth Brown, Liguria Corey Chang, Foreshadowed Flashback John Halle, A Free People Kyle Gann, Hovenweep Joan Tower, String Force Tan Dun, In Distance Peri Mauer, Pixeliance
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Blum Hall7:30 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Doctoral students and faculty from the Electronic Arts program of Rensselaer Polytechnic present a concert of electronic, experimental, and live coded music.
Friday, February 21, 2020
Blum Hall8:00 pm – 10:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Performing the works of Davila, Lindsay, and Taylor, with special guest artist Dylan Canterbury and Bard alum Alden Slack.
Friday, February 7, 2020
Sculpture/video by Lothar Osterburg; music by Elizabeth Brown; Elizabeth Brown, shakuhachi
Blum Hall7:30 pm – 9:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Lothar Osterburg and Elizabeth Brown’s latest collaboration, “Babel,” for string quartet, soundscape, and sculpture/video, which celebrates New York’s constant influx of immigrants, the source of its life and beauty. Preview of “Babel.”
The wonderful Momenta Quartet will also play Elizabeth’s string quartet “Just Visible in the Distance,” and she will play her solo shakuhachi piece “Dialect.” The program includes beautiful music by Elizabeth’s close friend and colleague Frances White: “and so the heavens turned,” with text by James Pritchett, and “the book of evening,” for shakuhachi and strings.
A sponsored project of NewMusicUSA.
Sunday, February 2, 2020
An Opera Workshop Performance Fisher Center, LUMA Theater3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Characters from thirteen different operas come alive for an intimate and unique experience exploring themes of love, separation, and the adversity of womanhood.
Saturday, February 1, 2020
An Opera Workshop Performance Fisher Center, LUMA Theater8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Characters from thirteen different operas come alive for an intimate and unique experience exploring themes of love, separation, and the adversity of womanhood.
Friday, January 31, 2020
An Opera Workshop Performance Fisher Center, LUMA Theater8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Characters from thirteen different operas come alive for an intimate and unique experience exploring themes of love, separation, and the adversity of womanhood.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Presented by the US-China Music Institute Chapel of the Holy Innocents7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 The 2019–20 US-China Music Fellows at the Bard Conservatory present a concert of music for Chinese instruments erhu, guzheng, ruan, and pipa, with guest performers on Chinese and Western instruments.