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Steely Dan: Celebrating Bard’s Iconic Alumni
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
- 9/07Sunday1:00 pm – 2:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Bard Hall
Music Program Newsroom
Two Bard College Faculty Awarded New York State Council on the Arts Grants
Two members of the Bard College undergraduate faculty, Tanya Marcuse, associate professor of photography, and Sarah Hennies, assistant professor of music, have been awarded 2025 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowships, a highly competitive program of the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Two Bard College Faculty Awarded New York State Council on the Arts Grants
In Portent, Marcuse visualizes phenomena that defy the laws of nature by staging fantastical scenes in swamps, rivers, and orchards near her home in the Hudson Valley. Conceived during the Covid-19 pandemic, her project reflects the instability of our world while expanding photography’s ability to navigate the ambiguous terrain between fact and fiction. She is currently preparing a book and several exhibitions of the project. In addition, Marcuse has been named one of five Joy of Giving Something (JGS) Fellows, which supports contributors to the photographic arts.
Throughout her fellowship, Hennies will continue to develop new pieces that challenge conventional boundaries between music, sound art, and lived experience. Her compositions often take the form of immersive, durational works that foreground subtle shifts in rhythm, resonance, and timbre. Her projects engage themes of queer and trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the politics of listening, inviting audiences into heightened awareness of time and embodiment. In a separate honor, Hennies has been named the 2025 Composer in Residence for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, taking place in Huddersfield, England in November.
Each year, the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship provides a lens for contemporary artistic expression. The themes, ideas, and materials used by the 2025 Fellows reflect and respond to the larger social, political, and economic issues of today. Artists across categories are exploring topics including diasporic and immigrant identity; gender, race, and sexuality; environmental and disability justice; and civic engagement.
Post Date: 08-29-2025
Bard Alumnus and Jazz Pianist Ran Blake ’60 Profiled in the Boston Globe
Jazz pianist and Bard College alumnus Ran Blake ’60 was interviewed by the Boston Globe for an article covering the artist’s career, which has spanned more than 60 years, and how he at 90 is preparing to perform a solo concert in Brookline, MA, this September.Bard Alumnus and Jazz Pianist Ran Blake ’60 Profiled in the Boston Globe
Post Date: 08-27-2025
Annual Conference of the US–China Music Institute Featured in Xinhua
The seventh annual international conference of Bard Conservatory of Music’s US–China Music Institute was featured in Xinhua. The conference, titled “Exploration and Resonance: Chinese Music in the West,” took place from May 1–3 at the China Institute in New York City as a three-day series of scholarly, interactive, and musical events exploring the rich tapestry of Chinese musical heritage and its resonance in the West. “If you look at two countries, two regions, or two cultures through a political lens, you see conflict,” Jindong Cai, director of the U.S.-China Music Institute, told Xinhua. “But if you look at them through a cultural point of view, you find connection. Music, in particular, is impossible to decouple.”Annual Conference of the US–China Music Institute Featured in Xinhua
“If you look at two countries, two regions, or two cultures through a political lens, you see conflict,” Jindong Cai, director of the U.S.-China Music Institute, told Xinhua. “But if you look at them through a cultural point of view, you find connection. Music, in particular, is impossible to decouple.” The evening programs also featured concerts by the Bard East-West Ensemble, which played a program of Chinese musical compositions specially arranged for the unique instrumentation of a Western string quintet, seven traditional Chinese instruments, and percussion. “Right now, we're seeing deep divisions across the globe,” said Xiaogang Ye, dean of the School of Music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “In this increasingly polarized world, perhaps Chinese music can take on a new role, not just as an artistic tradition, but as a form of emotional mediation, a means of restoring clarity and calm.”
Post Date: 05-06-2025
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Two Bard College Faculty Members Named 2025 Guggenheim Fellows
Two Bard College Faculty Members Named 2025 Guggenheim Fellows
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded 2025 Guggenheim Fellowships to Bard College Assistant Professor of Photography Lucas Blalock ’02 and Bard College Visiting Artist in Residence Gwen Laster. Chosen through a rigorous application and peer review process from a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants, Blalock, who teaches in the Photography Program, and Laster, who teaches in the Music Program, were tapped based on both prior career achievement and exceptional promise. Bard MFA alum Jordan Strafer ’20 was also named Guggenheim Fellow for 2025. As established in 1925 by founder Senator Simon Guggenheim, each fellow receives a monetary stipend to pursue independent work at the highest level under “the freest possible conditions.” Blalock, Laster, and Strafer are among 198 distinguished individuals working across 53 disciplines appointed to the 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows.
“At a time when intellectual life is under attack, the Guggenheim Fellowship celebrates a century of support for the lives and work of visionary scientists, scholars, writers, and artists,” said Edward Hirsch, award-winning poet and president of the Guggenheim Foundation. “We believe that these creative thinkers can take on the challenges we all face today and guide our society towards a better and more hopeful future.”
In all, 53 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 83 academic institutions, 32 US states and the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces are represented in the 2025 class, who range in age from 32 to 79. More than a third of the 100th class of fellows do not hold a full-time affiliation with a college or university. Many fellows’ projects directly respond to timely themes and issues such as climate change, Indigenous studies, identity, democracy and politics, incarceration, and the evolving purpose of community. Since its founding in 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has awarded over $400 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 fellows. The 100th class of Fellows is part of the Guggenheim Foundation’s yearlong celebration marking a century of transformative impact on American intellectual and cultural life.
Lucas Blalock is a Brooklyn-based photographer whose work is in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Hammer Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Portland Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many others. Recent solo exhibitions include Florida, 1989, at Galerie Eva Presenhuber, New York; Insoluble Pancakes, Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels; and An Enormous Oar, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; recent group exhibitions include venues in Oslo, Miami, Moscow, Berlin, Beirut, Minneapolis, and New York, where his work was selected for the Whitney Biennial 2019. He and his art have been profiled in publications including Arforum, the New York Times, New Yorker, Art in America, Brooklyn Rail, BOMB Magazine, W Magazine, British Journal of Photography, and Time. He has published essays and interviews as author in the journal Objectiv, IMA Magazine, BOMB, Foam, and Mousse, among others. He previously taught at the School of Visual Arts; Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University; Sarah Lawrence College; and the MFA Program at Ithaca College. He also served as visiting lecturer on visual and environmental studies at Harvard University. He received his BA from Bard College and MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Gwen Laster is a nationally acclaimed musician who has been the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Jubilation Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Arts Mid Hudson, Lila Wallace, and the Cognac Hennessey 1st place Jazz Search. A native Detroiter, her creative influences come from the Motor City’s exciting urban and classical music culture. Laster started improvising and composing because of her parents’ love of jazz, blues, soul, and classical music, and her inspiring music teachers from Detroit’s public schools. Laster relocated to New York City after earning two music degrees from the University of Michigan. Laster is many things: A virtuoso violinist with exquisite taste. An adventurous composer, arranger and orchestrator. A classically-trained artist with a deep appreciation for America's musical history, and a scholar of African-American musical heritage. A socially conscious activist and educator who understands the power of music to reach and touch everyday people.
Post Date: 04-15-2025
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Bard Baroque Ensemble Presents Concert in Memory of Frederick Fisher Hammond on April 19
Bard Baroque Ensemble Presents Concert in Memory of Frederick Fisher Hammond on April 19
The Bard Baroque Ensemble, under the direction of Renée Anne Louprette, presents a concert dedicated to the memory of Frederick Fisher Hammond (1937–2023), Professor Emeritus, Irma Brandeis Chair of Romance Cultures and Music History at Bard College. Presented with the Bard Chamber Singers, Bard Preparatory Division Chorus, and the Graduate Vocal Arts Program, the program includes works by Bach, Handel, and Mozart and features the rededication of Frederick Hammond’s two restored William Dowd harpsichords. The performance will be held on Saturday, April 19 at 7 pm in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. This is the Bard Baroque Ensemble’s debut concert in the Sosnoff Theater. The concert is free and open to the public. For information visit fishercenter.bard.edu/whats-on/ or call 845-758-7900 (Mon–Fri 10 am–5 pm).
The evening’s program celebrates the restoration of Professor Hammond's French double-manual and Italian single-manual harpsichords—now a part of Bard College’s collection of early keyboard instruments—featuring them in the Concerto for Two Harpsichords, Strings, and Continuo in C Minor, BWV 1060 by Johann Sebastian Bach, with Sophia Cornicello and Raymond Erickson as harpsichord soloists. One of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's most popular and enduring works, Symphony No. 40 in G Minor, K. 550, opens the program, interpreted by the Ensemble with a Baroque sensibility. Bard faculty member and distinguished tenor Rufus Müller presents the ravishing opening aria from Handel’s Serse: Ombra mai fu (Never was a shade). The program concludes with Bach's Cantata No. 1: Wie schön leuchtet Der Morgenstern (How brightly shines the Morningstar), featuring the Bard Chamber Singers, Preparatory Division Children's Chorus, and soloists from the Graduate Vocal Arts Program. This luminous chorale-cantata—originally conceived for the Feast of the Annunciation—is presented here in the context of transition from darkness to light, on the date of Holy Saturday within the Christian Church. Valentina Grasso, assistant professor of history at Bard, will present a reading from Dante’s Divine Comedy—in lieu of the traditional Lutheran sermon—at the center of Bach’s 1724 masterpiece.
Post Date: 03-27-2025
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Book by Franz Nicolay One of the “Best Music Books of 2024” by Rolling Stone
Book by Franz Nicolay One of the “Best Music Books of 2024” by Rolling Stone
A book by Franz Nicolay, visiting instructor of music at Bard College, has been included in Rolling Stone’s list of “Best Music and Books of 2024.” Nicolay’s Band People: Life and Work In Popular Music offers a close look at the lives of working musicians, like backup singers and support musicians, whose creative collaboration plays an irreplaceable role in popular music. In interviews and through cultural critique, Nicolay explores how these artists approach their craft and elevates the voices of many freelancers and non-leads members who are often on the sidelines in the music industry. “From cult heroes like guitarist Nels Cline and bassist Mike Watt to band stalwarts like Fugazi bassist Joe Lally and Babes in Toyland drummer Lori Barbero to studio first-calls like drummer Josh Freese and bassist Melissa Auf Der Mar, Band People shows the nuts and bolts of what they do and how they do it,” Rolling Stone writes. “These players out of the spotlight have memorable things to say about every aspect of their trade.”
Post Date: 01-28-2025
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New Summer Program for Transfeminine Composers
New Summer Program for Transfeminine Composers
The inaugural GLISS Composition Residency, a new summer program for transfeminine composers led by Sarah Hennies, visiting assistant professor of music at Bard College, and composers inti figgis-vizueta and Andrew Yee, will take place at Bard in August 2025. The GLISS residency, open to three transfeminine composers aged 18–30, will provide support through a series of lessons, workshops, masterclasses, recordings, barbecues, and hangouts in a transwoman-only space. The program will culminate in each participating composer writing a piece for cello and percussion to be performed and recorded by Hennies and Yee. The program aims to build and strengthen the community of transfeminine composers and support participants in a lasting way that extends beyond the residency.
Post Date: 01-06-2025
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Joan Tower’s Cello Concerto A New Day Featured in Times Union
Joan Tower’s Cello Concerto A New Day Featured in Times Union
A New Day, a cello concerto released in 2021 by Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts at Bard College, was featured in Times Union. The work, which began as a commission by the Colorado Music Festival, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra, was written while Jeff Litfin, her late husband of 50 years, was dying. “I was in real bad shape,” Tower said. “So I decided to write. In fact, all the music I've been writing since then is about him.” The concerto, which will be performed by Albany Symphony in Troy on November 16 and 17, contains four movements: “Daybreak,” “Working Out,” “Mostly Alone” and “Into the Night.” The titles are intentionally simple, allowing for many interpretations of a single day, she told Times Union.
Post Date: 11-12-2024
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Bard College Conservatory Receives $50,006 Grant from New York State
Bard College Conservatory Receives $50,006 Grant from New York State
Bard College will receive a $50,006 grant as part of New York State’s Higher Education Capital Matching Grant Program, which supports projects at colleges and universities across the state by providing construction and renovation of laboratory and research spaces, the purchase of instructional technologies and equipment, and other significant investments. The grant will support the purchase of pianos and equipment for Bard’s László Z. Bitó Conservatory building. The equipment will be available to Bard’s community of students, faculty, and staff, as well as to the greater Hudson Valley community that participates in the opportunities Bard provides for learning, enrichment, and enjoyment. “New York’s colleges and universities are second to none, offering students unparalleled opportunities to learn, explore, and prepare to launch their careers,” Governor Hochul said. “With this funding, my administration is reaffirming our commitment to providing our students—including those at our private, not-for-profit institutions—with a top-tier, New York education with the best possible resources and facilities that will help them succeed inside and outside of the classroom.”
Post Date: 07-08-2024