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
10/06
Tuesday
Monday, September 21, 2026 – Thursday, December 24, 2026 Various Campus Locations Visit our website to find out about free shuttles for Bard students, staff and faculty to the Poughkeepsie Metro North train station, Rhinecliff Amtrak, Target, Walmart, Red Hook, Tivoli, Montgomery Place, Massena Campus, JFK, Albany, and La Guardia airports.
Check our homepage for delays and cancellations to our services as well.
Photo courtesy of the Choir of the Music Education Institute, China. Friday, October 9, 2026 Chinese and American Folk Songs Chapel of the Holy Innocents2:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 The Choir of the Music Education Institute, Central Conservatory of Music, China is joined by guest chorus, the Xinsheng Chinese Choir of New York, for an afternoon in which Chinese folk songs and North American ballads share a stage.
Saturday, October 10, 2026 Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
The theme of this year’s China Now Music Festival, “Chasing Dreams,” celebrates America’s 250th anniversary. The program features Zhou Long’s Men of Iron and the Golden Spike, a powerful symphonic oratorio honoring the thousands of Chinese laborers who came to America in the 1860s to build the Transcontinental Railroad that connected our coasts and transformed our nation. This epic work by the Pulitzer Prize winning composer includes a full orchestra, 120 choristers, and six soloists. Also featured is the U.S. premiere of Li Shaosheng’s five-movement symphonic suite Chasing the Sky, honoring humanity’s pursuit of space exploration. The festival is presented by the US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music in collaboration with the Central Conservatory of Music, China.
Learn more at https://www.barduschinamusic.org/chasing-dreams
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater
10/10
Saturday
The Orchestra Now photo by Fadi Kheir. Festival graphics by Saboteur Studios, UK.Saturday, October 10, 2026 The Orchestra Now Celebrates America's 250th Anniversary - Bard College Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 The theme of this year’s China Now Music Festival, Chasing Dreams, celebrates America’s 250th anniversary. The program features Zhou Long’s Men of Iron and the Golden Spike, a powerful symphonic oratorio honoring the thousands of Chinese laborers who came to America in the 1860s to build the Transcontinental Railroad that connected our coasts and transformed our nation. This epic work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer includes a full orchestra, 120 choristers, and vocal soloists. Also featured is the U.S. premiere of Li Shaosheng’s five-movement symphonic suite Chasing the Sky, honoring humanity’s pursuit of space exploration. Conducted by Jindong Cai, The Orchestra Now is joined by the China Now Chorus and soloists including suona player Zhang Weiwei, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon, mezzo-soprano Ziqi Wang, tenor Li Yi, bass-baritone Yue Wu, bass Andrew Munn, and child soloist Wyatt Stephens.
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater
10/11
Sunday
The Orchestra Now photo by Fadi Kheir. Festival graphics by Saboteur Studios, UK.Sunday, October 11, 2026 The Orchestra Now Celebrates America's 250th Anniversary - NYC Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 The theme of this year’s China Now Music Festival, Chasing Dreams, celebrates America’s 250th anniversary. The program features Zhou Long’s Men of Iron and the Golden Spike, a powerful symphonic oratorio honoring the thousands of Chinese laborers who came to America in the 1860s to build the Transcontinental Railroad that connected our coasts and transformed our nation. This epic work by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer includes a full orchestra, 120 choristers, and vocal soloists. Also featured is the U.S. premiere of Li Shaosheng’s five-movement symphonic suite Chasing the Sky, honoring humanity’s pursuit of space exploration. Conducted by Jindong Cai, The Orchestra Now is joined by the China Now Chorus and soloists including suona player Zhang Weiwei, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon, mezzo-soprano Ziqi Wang, tenor Li Yi, bass-baritone Yue Wu, bass Andrew Munn, and child soloist Wyatt Stephens.
The festival is co-presented by the US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music and the Central Conservatory of Music, China. Follow this link for tickets to the closing night concert: https://ticketing.jazz.org/21583/21585
Use discount code FENGYA to receive 20% off tickets.
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center
Music Program Newsroom
Professor Joan Tower Profiled in WHMT and the Daily Catch
Professor Joan Tower, who has been a member of Bard’s faculty for 54 years, was profiled in the Daily Catch and featured on Classical music station WHMT. A free concert celebrating Tower’s work will be held on October 3, featuring her music performed by Bard faculty, students, the Cassatt Quartet, and musicians of The Orchestra Now (TŌN). Tower said her goal as a professor is to help writers develop their own perspective. “We don’t try to burden our students with our style,” she said. “They develop their own voice, which is something I’m very proud of.”
Professor Joan Tower Profiled in WHMT and the Daily Catch
Asher B. Edelman Professor of Music Joan Tower, who has been a member of Bard’s faculty for 54 years, was profiled in the Daily Catch and featured on Classical music station WHMT. Tower was interviewed by WHMT along with Alexandra Balog, director of the Atalena Artists Collective, who are presenting a concert celebrating Tower’s work on October 3. “Seeing [Joan] composing every day, after all she’s accomplished … her discipline and love for music has influenced my way of thinking about music and life in general,” Balog said.
“[Tower] was larger than life for me [as a child],” Bard Artist in Residence and cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, who will perform at the celebratory concert, told the Daily Catch. “[Her music can be] stormy, serene, humorous, nostalgic, tender, or violent.” Tower said her goal as a professor is to help writers develop their own perspective. “We don’t try to burden our students with our style,” she said. “They develop their own voice, which is something I’m very proud of.”
The October 3 concert marks Tower’s 54 years at Bard with an evening of her music performed by Bard faculty, students, the Cassatt Quartet, and musicians of The Orchestra Now (TŌN). This celebratory concert is free and open to the public.
Over the weekend, audiences at the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater heard music that had not been performed in New York since 1913. The music was that of Friedrich Gernsheim, a masterful composer whose work was spirited away from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and rarely heard since except in recordings.
The Orchestra Now at Bard College Revives Works of Composer Friedrich Gernsheim that Survived Destruction by Nazi Germany
Over the weekend, audiences at the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater heard music that had not been performed in New York since 1913. The music was that of Friedrich Gernsheim, a masterful composer whose work was spirited away from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, and rarely heard since except in recordings. The program included the Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 54, Song of Miriam (1887), which tells the Biblical story of Moses’s older sister, who rescued him as a baby.
“The Gernsheim Festival: Rediscovering a Master” ran from September 18-20, featuring orchestral and chamber concerts as well as a panel discussion exploring Gersheim’s life and legacy. The concerts represented the public debut of the Gernsheim Rediscovery Initiative, a multi-year project led by The Orchestra Now (TŌN) the graduate orchestra at Bard College, conducted by Leon Botstein, dedicated to recovering and presenting the composer’s work to new audiences, starting at Bard.
Friedrich Gernsheim was a German-Jewish composer, conductor, and pianist. His work was systematically destroyed by the Nazis. A prodigious pianist, he settled in Berlin where he taught composition at the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts, while gaining recognition for his own compositions. Gernsheim died in 1916; 20 years later, in their effort to erase the contributions of Jewish artists and intellectuals, the Nazis destroyed Gernsheim’s printing plates, sheet music, and the remaining copies of a 1928 biography of the composer. In recent years, Gernsheim’s work has been the subject of renewed interest.
“Since about 30 years ago, there have been studio recordings of Gernsheim’s work, but what has been lacking in his rediscovery are live performances,” musicologist and Bard Visiting Associate Professor in the Music Program at Bard Peter Laki told the Daily Catch. “That’s why this festival is very important: It’s a wonderful concentration of Gernsheim that’s rarely seen anywhere in the world.”
The Music Program, one of the largest programs on Bard’s campus, provides a wide range of musical concentrations, from classical composition and performance to jazz, electronic music, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory. The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a graduate program of Bard College that is training the next generation of music professionals to become creative ambassadors of classical music, offering a master’s degree or an advanced certificate.
Opera Magazine’s Eric Myers wrote an admiring review of The Egyptian Helen, performed at the Sosnoff Theater as part of the 2026 Bard Summerscape Festival. The review noted “memorable” costume design and “impressive” production, and broadly praised the various vocal performances.
Fisher Center Performance of The Egyptian Helen reviewed in Opera Magazine
Opera Magazine’s Eric Myers wrote an admiring review of The Egyptian Helen, performed at the Sosnoff Theater as part of the 2026 Bard Summerscape Festival. The review noted “memorable” costume design and “impressive” production, and broadly praised the various vocal performances. “Hailey Clark displayed a strong, sinewy, developed instrument; her sound and her sense of emotional commitment made her seem nearly ready to take on Elektra,” Myers wrote.
The Strauss opera, described as difficult for performers and audiences alike, was staged by Christian Räth, conducted by Leon Bostein, and featured the American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Festival Choir. The review concludes by noting Botstein’s long association with this specific work, having written about and recorded it extensively, making for an “exciting” interpretation that, according to Myers, “overcame many of the work’s difficulties."
Bard Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli featured in the New York Times
Bard Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli was the subject of a New York Times feature article, on the occasion of the back-to-back world premieres for two operas she composed.
The Galloping Cure, cowritten with librettist Royce Vavrek, debuted as a Scottish Opera production at the Edinburgh International Festival; meanwhile, Lincoln in the Bardo is set to premier at the Metropolitan Opera—who also commissioned it—in October. The former opera has received rave reviews, according to the Times, for providing “politically urgent, musically eclectic works for a new generation of operagoers.” The Times of London labeled the latter opera as “one of the greatest operas of the century.”
The forthcoming Lincoln in the Bardo is based on George Saunders’s 2017 novel of the same name. Following the former American president through the Civil War while he is also grieving the death of his son, it engages themes of political polarization that remain relevant today. It will be the first world premiere opera at the Met that was written by a woman; Mazzoli is also one of two women to have been awarded Met commissions. Artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program, Stephanie Blythe, will also be featured in the new opera.
Mazzoli’s operas are written as much for new audiences as for traditional ones, she told the Times. “I don’t feel that opera has to stay stuck in the past,” Mazzoli said. “I really want my work to spark a conversation among the audience, with the critics, with the press. I just want people to come out asking more questions than they have answers.”
At 45, Mazzoli has already written seven operas, drawing from a wide range of musical styles and traditions that are expanding the definition of the operatic form. Mazzoli studied music in college and in graduate school, though she cites MTV as being as much an influence as anything from the operatic canon. The use of nontraditional instrumentation—including kazoos, in the case of Lincoln in the Bardo—further distinguishes Mazzoli as charting a new direction for opera. “The idea that opera is only for people in tuxedos, that is the perception we are fighting against,” she told the Times.
Mazzoli is faculty member in the Bard Music Program and the Bard College Conservatory of Music, whose mission is to provide the best possible preparation for a person dedicated to a life immersed in the creation and performance of music. She teaches classes on composition and new music, as well as giving private studio instruction for composition majors at Bard.
Bard College Presents an Evening of Jazz with Marilyn Crispell and Angelica Sanchez on September 8
Jazz at Bard, by the Bard College music program, will present an evening with two of the most distinctive voices in creative music, Marilyn Crispell, jazz pianist and composer, and Angelica Sanchez, assistant professor of music at Bard.
The performance will be held on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, at 6:30 pm in the László Z. Bitó ’60 Conservatory building on Bard’s Annandale campus. Tickets start at $60. The concert will be followed with a wine and cheese reception, and all proceeds will benefit Jazz at Bard. To purchase tickets, please visit here.
Crispell, an NEA Jazz Master and 2025 and 2026 Mellon Foundation Jazz Legacy Fellow, has forged a singular musical language shaped by deep lyricism, fearless improvisation, and a lifelong commitment to artistic exploration. Her work with Anthony Braxton, Reggie Workman, Joe Lovano, Wadada Leo Smith, and many others has established her as one of the most influential pianists and composers in contemporary creative music. For more than four decades, Crispell has remained a pioneering force in avant-garde jazz, creating music that is both adventurous and deeply expressive.
Sanchez is an acclaimed composer, pianist, and educator whose music seamlessly integrates intricate compositional structures with the spontaneity of improvisation. A leading voice in modern creative music, Sanchez has collaborated with artists including Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Motian, Nicole Mitchell, Joe Lovano, Tim Berne, and Billy Hart. Her recordings have received widespread critical acclaim, with Sparkle Beings named one of The New York Times' Top Ten Jazz Recordings of 2022 and Nighttime Creatures selected among DownBeat's Best Recordings of 2023.
A centerpiece of this collaboration is their celebrated duo recording, How to Turn the Moon (Pyroclastic Records). Recognized in NPR's Critics Poll as one of the Top 50 Recordings of 2020, the album showcases an extraordinary musical dialogue between Crispell and Sanchez. Through expansive improvisations, subtle textures, and profound listening, the recording reveals the deep artistic connection shared by these two remarkable pianists. This performance brings that acclaimed partnership to the stage, offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience the artistry behind How to Turn the Moon live. Moving fluidly between composition and improvisation, Crispell and Sanchez create music of intimacy, intensity, and discovery, demonstrating the boundless expressive possibilities of the piano duo.
Bard Faculty Member Gwen Laster Awarded a MacDowell Fellowship
Gwen Laster, visiting artist in residence in music at Bard College, has been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship to the MacDowell Residency Program in the Music Composition category for spring/summer 2026. While in residence, Laster will complete work on her project, “Is My Black Still Beautiful: Reflections on a Childhood in Detroit,” a mixed-media staged play with original music, storytelling, dance, and projected visuals.
Laster’s project explores the global complexities of Colorism, a discriminatory practice within one’s own ethnic group based on a person’s complexion and skin tone, through the lens of a Black girl reared during the post–civil rights movement in Detroit. The music spans various genres from contemporary classical to Motown, blues, soul, R&B, and jazz—both free and traditional. “Is My Black Still Beautiful” will premiere in New York City on July 23 at Mabou Mines,and on September 26–27 at the Philipstown Depot Theater.
The Music Program, one of the largest programs on Bard’s campus, provides a wide range of musical concentrations, from classical composition and performance to jazz, electronic music, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory.
Franz Nicolay, visiting instructor of music at Bard College, spoke at a Congressional hearing about a Live Nation/Ticketmaster antitrust case, reported Chronogram. The case concerned the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster which has resulted in a monopoly on event ticket sales in the United States. “Live music hasn’t been a healthy competitive market,” said Nicolay during the hearing. “Instead, a vertically integrated corporation that controls venues and tour promotion and ticketing and artist management, to the almost total control of many music markets, is, to a comical degree, the epitome of the kind of monopolistic power that antitrust law was created to address.”
“We, as artists, simply don’t have the range of city-to-city, venue-to-venue choices that would constitute a healthy ecosystem,” Nicolay continued. “It’s a problem of affordability, in an economic climate which, through drastically increasing gas prices, airfare, postage and international shipping fees for merchandise, and hardening borders, is making the touring on which our livings depend increasingly unaffordable for musicians. And that increased overhead… has a corresponding effect on affordability and access for fans.”
The Music Program, one of the largest programs on Bard’s campus, provides a wide range of musical concentrations, from classical composition and performance to jazz, electronic music, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory.
Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli Profiled in the New York Times
Bard Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli was profiled in a New York Times article about the Luna Composition Lab, the mentorship program she founded with fellow composer Ellen Reid. They founded the lab after they realized they’d never experienced female mentorship in composing. “We took a good hard look at what we wished we had had,” said Mazzoli, and the two asked themselves, “What can we do to make this more diverse, more vital, more alive, more fun?” The Lab, which turns 10 this year, matches young and experienced composers who are female, nonbinary or gender nonconforming, and mentees receive eight months of mentorship and attend a music festival in New York. Now, Mazzoli and Reid are organizing musical events for LunaLab@10, an anniversary celebration of the program and its expanded reach. “We want the field to expand,” said Mazzoli, “and so bringing in gender diversity, racial diversity, economic income diversity, geographic diversity helps [the] field survive and thrive.”
Mazzoli is a Grammy-nominated composer and musician who has written operas including Lincoln in the Bardo and Proving Up that are based on contemporary literature. She teaches in the Bard College Conservatory of Music, which provides the best possible preparation for a person dedicated to a life immersed in the creation and performance of music.
James Bagwell Named Principal Conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra and Berkshire Bach Society
Professor of Music James Bagwell, director of the music program at Bard College and director of performance studies in the Bard College Conservatory of Music, has been announced as the principal conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, as well as principal conductor and director of choral music at the Berkshire Bach Society. Bagwell will assume a central artistic leadership role with Tulsa Symphony, helping shape programming and performances as the orchestra continues to expand its artistic vision and community impact. Bagwell was recognized by both organizations for the role he has played over the past two decades in creating a consistent record of excellence in choral performance. “These two appointments mark the culmination of a long artistic association with the Tulsa Symphony and Berkshire Bach,” said Bagwell. “I look forward to many more years of artistic collaborations with these two prestigious organizations.”
He has been a regular guest conductor for the Tulsa Symphony since 2007, leading it in performances of Mozart’s Requiem and Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, returning in subsequent seasons to conduct Britten’s War Requiem, and Mahler’s First Symphony. “We are thrilled to welcome James Bagwell as principal conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra,” said Morgan Walker, executive director of Tulsa. “His long-standing relationship with the orchestra, combined with his depth of experience and artistic leadership, makes him the ideal partner as we look ahead to an exciting new chapter.”
Bagwell, who additionally serves as codirector of the Bard Conservatory Graduate Program in conducting and is associate conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), also frequently appears as a guest conductor for orchestras around the country and abroad, including the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Interlochen Music Festival, and the Jerusalem Symphony. “I’ve long admired James Bagwell’s work as a choral conductor,” said Eugene Drucker, artistic director of Berkshire Bach, “specifically in the Berkshire Bach Society vocal concerts for which I’ve had the pleasure of serving as his concertmaster, and more generally in his meticulous preparation of the chorus for opera productions at Bard College’s Summerscape and for oratorio performances with the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.”
The Music Program, one of the largest programs on Bard’s campus, provides a wide range of musical concentrations, from classical composition and performance to jazz, electronic music, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory.
Steven Bonacci, lili m. namazi, Manar Hashmi, Zeke Morgan, Niall Ransford, Drew Frankenberg, Samuel Mutter, Emily Ta, Magdalena Teisler, Olivia Marhevka.
Sunday, December 17, 2023
Blum Hall1:30 pm – 2:30 pm EST/GMT-5
This is an opportunity for different “currents” in the Music Program to be in the same room for a minute and hear each other. Jazz groups, singers, violinists, oboists, cellists, flutists, pianists, musical saw artists—all are welcome and will perform.
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Blum Hall8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Bard Hall7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Acclaimed New York-based new music quintet NOW Ensemble makes a stop at Bard as part of their northeast tour, performing works by Judd Greenstein, Gabriella Smith, Mark Dancigers, Jonghee Kang, Patrick Burke, Bard composition faculty member Missy Mazzoli, and student Elena Hause. With a unique instrumentation of flute, clarinet, electric guitar, double bass, and piano, the ensemble brings a fresh sound and a new perspective to the classical tradition, infused with the musical influences that reflect the diverse backgrounds of its members. NOW Ensemble has brought some of the most exciting composers of their generation to national and international recognition, and has performed at venues including Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, as well as on NPR’s All Things Considered. Newsweek recently claimed that “NOW... imports a catchy inflection to classical forms... Striking a balance between the old and the new has rarely sounded this good.”
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Blum N211, the Jazz Room6:00 pm – 7:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
senior concert Blum N211, the Jazz Room8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
Symphonic Chorus and Chamber Singers Olin Hall8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Mendelssohn's Magnificat & other works by siblings Fanny and Felix
Performed by:
Members of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program Bard Conservatory Instrumentalists Conservatory Piano Fellows Bard Chamber Singers and Symphonic Chorus
Bard Hall6:30 pm – 7:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Performing traditional works for the Balinese Gong Kebyar ensemble and featuring a hands-on demonstration for audience members.
Friday, December 8, 2023
Blum Hall4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Chapel of the Holy Innocents7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Blum Hall8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Monday, December 4, 2023
Blum Hall8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Sunday, December 3, 2023
Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space7:30 pm – 9:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Chamber music with Ya-Yin Yu, violin Sarah Martin, cello Shao-Chu Pan, piano
Free and open to the public.
Saturday, December 2, 2023
Olin Hall7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Thursday, November 30, 2023
Fisher Center, Resnick Theater Studio7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 Join us for an evening of scenes from Into The Woods, Spring Awakening, The Fantasticks, City of Angels, and many more, including new works by students.
Saturday, November 18, 2023
Students of Erica Kiesewetter
Bard Hall8:00 pm – 9:30 pm EST/GMT-5 The music of Bach, Biber, Bruch, Kreisler, Tartini and Sarasate
Saturday, November 18, 2023
Olin Hall7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
With Erica Kiesewetter Bard Hall7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Open to ALL MUSICIANS!!!
Wear comfortable clothes. We will do a combination of mindfulness training, creative visualization, discussion, and I hope/know we will be enriched by each others’ ideas also. (It is a good idea to come with an idea of a small excerpt of a piece you might like to work on, in your mind!!)
Saturday, October 28, 2023
Bard Hall11:30 am – 1:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Akua Dixon - cello John Esposito - piano Gwen Laster - violin & viola Peter O'Brien - drums Pamela Pentony - voice Eric Person - saxes & flute Marcus Roberts - piano Angelica Sanchez - piano Rich Syracuse - bass Francesca Tanksley - piano
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Baroque Violinist and Pedagogue Olin Hall5:00 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Featuring the Bard Baroque Ensemble in works by Élisabeth de la Guerre, Ignatius Sancho (arr. Nicola Canzano), and J. S. Bach.
Free admission. All are welcome.
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Bard Hall5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 A conversation about the Music Program (classical, jazz, vocal, instrumental, and electronic, and experimental music), lessons, ensembles, auditions, practice rooms, storage lockers, performance venues, and much more.
Saturday, May 20, 2023
Cherry Wu Tristan Geary Michael Knox Rodney Clark Jr. Arnav Shirodkar Francisco Verastegui Angel Ruiz Vigilance Brandon Steve Bonacci Ameya Natarajan
Special guests: Katherine Chernyak & Alden Szlack Blum Hall8:00 pm – 10:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Featuring works by:
Baikida Carroll Vigilance Brandon Erica Lindsay Samantha Boshnack Steve Bonacci
Followed by a set from alumni band Pocket Merchant!
Friday, May 19, 2023
Bard Hall4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 This is an opportunity for different “currents” in the Music Program to be in the same room for a minute and hear each other. Jazz groups, singers, violinists, oboists, cellists, flutists, pianists, musical saw artists—all are welcome and will perform.
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Blum N211, the Jazz Room 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Chapel of the Holy Innocents7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Featuring members of: The Bard Conservatory Vocal Arts Program The Bard Chamber Singers The Bard Symphonic Chorus James Bagwell - Conductor Olin Hall7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Blum Hall7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Monday, May 15, 2023
Bard Hall6:30 pm – 7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Monday, May 15, 2023
BLUMEN IN BLOOM Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space6:00 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Arts songs about flowers in English and German by Beach, Brahms, Burleigh, Alma Mahler, Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, Price, Quilter, Clara and Robert Schumann, Schubert, Smyth, Strauss, Vaughan-Williams and Wolf.
Friday, May 12, 2023
Olin Hall7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Chapel of the Holy Innocents7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Chapel of the Holy Innocents7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Sunday, May 7, 2023
Bard Hall6:00 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Sunday, May 7, 2023
The Church of the Messiah, Rhinebeck, NY2:30 pm – 3:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Saturday, May 6, 2023
Blum Hall8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Saturday, May 6, 2023
Bard Hall7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Friday, May 5, 2023
Blum N211, the Jazz Room8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Chapel of the Holy Innocents6:00 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Includes Bard Sinfonietta, Conservatory percussion ensemble students, & Tristan Kasten-Krause (NYC) Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Bard Electronic Music is proud to present a career-spanning retrospective of work by Iannis Xenakis, one of the most significant and innovative composers of the 20th century. Programmed and directed by Professor Sarah Hennies, the concert features performances by The Bard Sinfonietta, Bard College Conservatory percussion students Joao Melo and Juan Diego Mora Rubio and special guest Tristan Kasten-Krause (NYC) who will perform Xenakis’s “Theraps” for double bass solo. The concert culminates with an exceedingly rare opportunity to hear landmark 1962 electroacoustic work “Bohor” as it was originally intended, diffused in 8-channel surround sound by Professor Sarah Hennies.
Saturday, April 22, 2023
Chapel of the Holy Innocents8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Friday, April 21, 2023
Chapel of the Holy Innocents6:30 pm – 7:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Wednesday, April 19, 2023
Olin Hall7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Weis Cinema6:00 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Why did Indigenous peasants support but ultimately resist the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla group in highland Peruvian Quechua communities? The different ways rebels and government security forces interacted in each Andean community explain the diverse peasant responses. At first, the politics of pursuing social justice mobilized a large part of the rural population, especially the youths, who often sympathized with the Maoist revolution. The motivating factors in engaging with the insurgency in rural communities include local experiences of state neglect, social inequality, power relation, and fear and intimidation. Shining Path’s mounting authoritarianism, most notably their brutal killing of community authorities and demand that peasants withdraw from the market economy, explains the root of violent peasant uprisings against the rebels. The Indigenous struggle involved making the anti-guerrilla and pro-state coalition called the Pacto de Alianza entre Pueblos. It brought internal security and order, allowing Indigenous peasants to maintain daily life and protect their local affairs in wartime violence. The Pacto de Alianza was not limited to the counterinsurgency goals; its functions extended to the local governance, social cohesion, and post-conflict reconstruction.
Monday, April 17, 2023
Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
New Works Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space1:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Eric Person- sax & flute Rosi Hertlein- violin Gwen Laster - viola Akua Dixon - cello John Esposito- piano Ira Coleman - bass Peter O’Brien - drums
Presented by Bard Jazz Studies, Bard Music Program & Bard Conservatory
Saturday, April 15, 2023
A Graduate Recital by Abagael Cheng and Nhi Huynh Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space3:00 pm – 4:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Towards Flying is a recital that combines poetry and song to reflect the lessons that I'm taking with me from my time in the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College Conservatory of Music. This summation of my graduate school experience draws upon themes of rebellion, empowerment, and destiny. Join me in taking one step closer to flying.
The performance will be held in the László Z. Bitó ’60 Conservatory Building Performance Space on Bard College's Campus.
An Audiovisual Interactive Installation Avery Integrated Media Room8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Come experience particle-wave duality and participate in the double slit experiment through interaction with our immersive installation built with projection and quadraphonic sounds. The music composition and generative visuals design incorporates mathematical functions that capture features of waves and particles, which are fundamental to quantum mechanics as well as our physical world.
Friday, April 7, 2023
An Audiovisual Interactive Installation Avery Integrated Media Room8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Come experience particle-wave duality and participate in the double slit experiment through interaction with our immersive installation built with projection and quadraphonic sounds. The music composition and generative visuals design incorporates mathematical functions that capture features of waves and particles, which are fundamental to quantum mechanics as well as our physical world.
Thursday, April 6, 2023
An Audiovisual Interactive Installation Avery Integrated Media Room8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 Come experience particle-wave duality and participate in the double slit experiment through interaction with our immersive installation built with projection and quadraphonic sounds. The music composition and generative visuals design incorporates mathematical functions that capture features of waves and particles, which are fundamental to quantum mechanics as well as our physical world.
Thursday, April 6, 2023
Fisher Center, Resnick Theater Studio7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT/GMT-4 Free and open to the public
Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space7:00 pm – 8:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 James Romig is a professor of music composition at Western Illinois University, Critics have described his work as “rapturous, slow-moving beauty” (San Francisco Chronicle), "developing with the naturalness of breathing" (The New Yorker), and “profoundly meditative... haunting” (The Wire). "Still," for solo piano, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize.
James Romig will give a lecture about his compositional work on Wednesday, March 29, 11:50, in Blum N119.
Monday, March 13, 2023
Blum Hall8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 This concert is the first installment of The Michael Ranta Project, an effort by Sarah Hennies to perform and document a collection of obscure, rarely heard works from the 1970s by American percussionist and composer Michael Ranta. Supported in part by the Bard Research Fund, the project will include many Bard students and faculty alongside outside musicians in documenting a unique and almost totally unknown body of work. This concert also includes performances by the Bard Conservatory Percussion Ensemble and students of Prof. Hennies’ “Percussion as Experimental Practice” class.
Sunday, February 5, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The ever popular Bard Opera Workshop returns with student singers performing an eclectic selection of scenes and arias from the operatic canon. This year’s production will include ensembles, choruses and arias from operas by Handel, Mozart, Humperdinck, Puccini, Bizet, Donizetti and more, directed by Bard alum Emily Cuk, and accompanied by an orchestra comprised of Bard students.
Sunday, February 5, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater3:00 pm – 4:00 pm EST/GMT-5 The ever popular Bard Opera Workshop returns with student singers performing an eclectic selection of scenes and arias from the operatic canon. This year’s production will include ensembles, choruses and arias from operas by Handel, Mozart, Humperdinck, Puccini, Bizet, Donizetti and more, directed by Bard alum Emily Cuk, and accompanied by an orchestra comprised of Bard students.
Saturday, February 4, 2023
Fisher Center, LUMA Theater7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EST/GMT-5 The ever popular Bard Opera Workshop returns with student singers performing an eclectic selection of scenes and arias from the operatic canon. This year’s production will include ensembles, choruses and arias from operas by Handel, Mozart, Humperdinck, Puccini, Bizet, Donizetti and more, directed by Bard alum Emily Cuk, and accompanied by an orchestra comprised of Bard students.