2002 CONDUCTORS INSTITUTE AT BARD COLLEGE OFFERS SIX-WEEK SUMMER SESSION AND A YEAR-ROUND M.F.A. PROGRAM "No serious conductor should miss the opportunity to study at the Institute." -Marin Alsop, Music Director, Colorado Symphony Orchestra

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The Conductors Institute (CI) at Bard College is pleased to announce its 2002 summer program, which will take place from June 24 to August 2. The Institute, founded and directed by conductor and composer Harold Farberman, offers programs for professional and semiprofessional conductors and composers.

Twenty-two years ago, Farberman founded the Conductors Institute at the West Virginia University in Morgantown, seeking to fill a void in the United States with a summer training program for conductors. He observes, "I hit on a successful formula that remains the same to this day?vigorous technical training and promotion of American music in a cooperative atmosphere." Participants in the six-week summer program will work directly with Maestro Farberman, who anchors the faculty of conductors and composers in residence. New visiting faculty and new repertoire each week assure all Institute participants of exposure to a variety of expert opinions. Conductors in residence include maestri Leon Botstein, Apo Hsu, Larry Rachleff, and Nan Washburn, and composers in residence include Conrad Pope, orchestrator of the Harry Potter film, and Melinda Wagner, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for music. In addition, there are evening lectures with internationally known scholars, composers, and conductors. The repertoire this summer will include works of Mahler, in conjunction with the 2002 Bard Music Festival, "Mahler and His World."

The Institute offers a variety of study combinations that allow students to tailor their own programs. A prelude to the program, Visual Score Study/Baton Placement/Body Movement Technique, is offered from June 24 to 28 and unites the study of Institute repertoire with instruction in the Alexander Technique as it relates to the enhancement of performance skills and expression. Maestro Farberman will teach the visual score study and baton placement component; Alexander Farkas will teach the Alexander Technique.

The Conducting Program for Fellows and Colleagues will be offered from July 1 to 26. Fellows work with the Institute Orchestra during morning sessions, while Colleagues work with the Institute String Quintet during afternoon sessions and with the Institute Orchestra on Fridays. Repertoire will include works by Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Strauss, and Stravinsky, as well as Farberman's "Concerto for Cathy," Melinda Wagner's Falling Angels, and the world premiere of Conrad Pope's Violin Concerto.

The Discovery Program, offered from July 8 to 19, is directed by Eduardo Navega and designed for conductors with limited experience who wish to improve their skills. Participants work with a string quartet in afternoon sessions for two weeks and attend all morning and evening sessions of the Conducting Program. Repertoire will include Beethoven's Symphony No. 1, Grieg's Holberg Suite, and Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik.

As a coda to the main program, the Composer-Conductor Program is offered from July 22 to August 2. Each composer is paired with a conductor?a master's degree candidate or Institute conductor?who is responsible for preparing the composer's work for, and conducting the work in, a public performance. The program is supervised by Maestro Farberman. Composer Conrad Pope works with students during the first week. Eduardo Navega teaches composers conducting techniques that apply to their works.

As the CI enters its third decade of existence and its fourth year at Bard College, it now offers a 15-month master of fine arts degree program in conducting. For two consecutive summers, M.F.A. degree candidates will participate in the Institute's six-week program and serve as Fellows with the Bard Music Festival. They will also complete required course work at Bard during the intervening academic year, including classes in composition, basic orchestra repertoire, languages, a "second" instrument (string or piano), and solfège, as needed. Participants in the 15-month program will have private studies and master classes in technical score study and analysis with Maestro Farberman and also podium time, including conducting opportunities at Bard, during the academic year. They will have a completion concert with the Institute Orchestra in the second summer of the program.

Merit-based scholarships are available for a limited number of qualified applicants. The deadline for application to both the six-week Conductors Institute and the M.F.A. program in conducting is April 1, 2002. Bard College is located in New York's Hudson River Valley, 90 miles north of New York City and one hour from Tanglewood. For further information and an application, call the Conductors Institute at 845-758-7425, e-mail mcevoy@bard.edu, or visit the website, www.bard.edu/ci.

About the Faculty:

Artistic director and founder Harold Farberman is a noted conductor, composer, and musician. His earliest composition, Evolution, has been recorded four times, once by Leopold Stokowski. Aaron Copland invited Farberman to study composition with him at Tanglewood after hearing Evolution. He was music director of the Colorado Springs and Oakland Symphony Orchestras, and principal guest conductor of the Denver Symphony Orchestra and the Bournemouth (Great Britain) Sinfonietta. He has been a frequent guest conductor and recording artist with such orchestras as the London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and Stockholm Philharmonic. A prolific composer of music for orchestra, ballet, film, chamber ensemble, and opera, he was awarded the Ives Medal for his dedication to the music of Charles Ives. In November 2000, his cello concerto was premiered by the American Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. Farberman founded the Conductors Guild and is the author of The Art of Conducting Technique.

Conductors in Residence:

Leon Botstein is music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), where his championing of rare repertoire and contemporary music and his acclaimed performances have gained him international prominence on the podium. He conducts the orchestra's subscription season at Avery Fisher Hall as part of Lincoln Center Presents Great Performers, as well as seasons in New York and the Hudson Valley with the American Symphony Chamber Orchestra, and Classics Declassified, an educational series for adult listeners at Miller Theater. In 1994 he took the ASO to Japan and Korea on a tour sponsored by Toshiba and in 1998 he led the ASO on a tour to Brazil to inaugurate a new concert hall in São Paulo. In January of 2000 at Avery Fisher Hall, he recorded a live performance for Telarc of Richard Strauss's opera Die Liebe der Danae with soprano Lauren Flanigan and the ASO. His other recordings with the ASO include Brahms's First Serenade (Vanguard) and Franz Schubert: Orchestrated, and orchestrations of Schubert's works by Joachim, Mottl, and Webern (Koch). He also conducts the ASO in the Harp Concertino of Dohnányi for a recording forthcoming from Arabesque. Botstein is the founder and coartistic director of the Bard Music Festival. Each year this internationally acclaimed festival explores the musical world of a single composer, reviving forgotten masterpieces and rediscovering works in context. The 2002 festival will explore the world of Mahler. Every autumn the Bard Music Festival brings highlights from its summer programs to Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Active as a guest conductor, Botstein has led such orchestras as the London Philharmonic, London Philharmonia, NDR?Hannover, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Bochum Symphony, Israel Sinfonietta, Düsseldorf Symphony, Jerusalem Symphony, Bern Symphony, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. In a prestigious series of recordings, Botstein has led the London Philharmonic most recently in Max Reger's Four Böcklin Tone Poems and A Romantic Suite, Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, and music of Karol Szymanowski. Other recordings with Telarc include symphonies of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Dohnányi's D Minor Symphony, and Bruckner's Fifth Symphony (Schalk edition). He also has recorded a live performance of Max Bruch's oratorio Odysseus with NDR?Hannover (Koch); Mendelssohn's Paulus (Arabesque); the music of Joseph Joachim with violinist Elmar Oliviera (Carlton Classics); and a series of contemporary works by Richard Wilson, Robert Starer, Richard Wernick, and Meyer Kupferman (CRI). He studied violin with Roman Totenberg and conducting with James Yannatos, Richard Wernick, and Harold Farberman. Since 1975 he has been the president of Bard College, where he is also Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities. He is a prominent writer on music and history, and in 1996 received Harvard's prestigious Centennial Medal for his scholarly work. Botstein has published extensively on music and culture for numerous collections and journals. He is the editor of The Musical Quarterly and a contributor to the second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. His edited volume, The Compleat Brahms, was published by Norton in 1999. He is currently working on a book on the history of listening.

Apo Hsu is the music director of the Springfield Symphony. Previously she served as artistic director of the Women?s Philharmonic in San Francisco and of the Oregon Mozart Players in Eugene, Oregon. In September, "Avon Women in Concert 2001" presented Hsu on tour in Brazil with the Women?s Philharmonic, performing all bossa nova programs. In spring 2000, producer Debbie Allen included Hsu with the Women?s Philharmonic in a series entitled "Cool Women," which was broadcast on cable TV during the 2000?01 season. Her first CD with the orchestra, which was released on the Koch International Classics label in spring 2001, featured the symphonic music of African American composer Florence Price. Hsu has served on the faculty for both the American Symphony Orchestra League Conducting Workshops and National Youth Orchestra Festival 2000 and has been a music review panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts. Hsu and the Women?s Philharmonic received four consecutive Awards for Adventurous Programming from ASCAP and the American Symphony Orchestra League.

Larry Rachleff began his sixth season this year as music director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic, his 11th season as professor of conducting and music director of Rice University's Shepherd School Symphony and Chamber Orchestras in Houston, and his 10th season as music director of Chicago's Symphony II, an orchestra made up of members of the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra. He has appeared as guest conductor with such prestigious orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Houston Symphony, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In 1993 he was selected as one of four American conductors to lead the Cleveland Orchestra at Carnegie Hall under the mentorship of Maestro Pierre Boulez. Rachleff has conducted and presented master classes at the Chopin Academy in Warsaw and the Sydney and Queensland (Australia) Conservatory Orchestra, and has led the Camerata Australia on a tour of Japan. This past summer he began his second season as music director of the Sunflower Music Festival in Kansas. Rachleff has presented weeklong residencies at several leading universities and music schools, and he has served as conducting teacher for the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Conductors Guild, and the International Workshop for Conductors in the Czech Republic. As a proponent of contemporary music, he has collaborated with such composers as Samuel Adler, Luciano Berio, George Crumb, and John Harbison.

Nan Washburn has received 13 ASCAP awards for adventuresome programming from the American Symphony Orchestra League, the 1992 Distinguished Service Award from New York Women Composers, and the 1998 Sonoma County Independent Indy Award. She has established a reputation as one of the most imaginative and dynamic conductors in California. For her engaging performances and fresh approach to concert programming, critics have hailed her work as having "perspicacity, nerve, imagination and all-around savvy." Washburn is now in her third season as both artistic director and conductor of the West Hollywood Orchestra and music director of the Plymouth Symphony in Michigan. She has also served as principal conductor of the Channel Islands Symphony Orchestra and recently completed a four-year tenure with Orchestra Sonoma. She has worked with many of the leading composers in the United States today, including Ned Rorem, Libby Larsen, Ellen Zwilich, Alvin Singleton, Chen Yi, Lou Harrison, Tobias Picker, Harold Farberman, Alice Gomez, Joan Tower, Michael Daugherty, Jennifer Higdon, John Thow, and Mary Watkins. She first came to national attention as cofounder, artistic director, and associate conductor of the San Francisco-based Women's Philharmonic from 1980?90, during which time she became one of the leading authorities on and advocates for orchestral works of women composers. A professional flutist for a number of years, she began her studies in conducting in 1984, working with Denis de Coteau at California State University, Hayward. She continued her studies with Harold Farberman for three years at the Conductors Institute, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival as a scholarship student of Paul Vermel. She has also participated in several master classes, working with Daniel Lewis, Gustav Meier, Donald Thulean, and Lawrence Leighton Smith.

Composers in Residence:

Conrad Pope is one of Hollywood?s most successful orchestrators and composers. Among the more than 50 films he has orchestrated are A.I., Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Patriot Games, The Rocketeer, Star Wars: Episode One?The Phantom Menace, and Star Wars: Episode 2. His film compositions include Pavilion of Women, The Rising Place, The Amati Girls, and Ghost Ship. He is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music; his composition teachers have included Gunther Schuller, Donald Martino, and Milton Babbitt. He has taught composition at Brandeis University and is currently writing original music for several upcoming films. His recent projects have included a performance with the Pleven Symphony in Bulgaria; recordings of his symphony, Red, White, and Blue, with the London Symphony Orchestra; and a sold-out performance with the Beijing Symphony in China in October 2000. A recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship and the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship, Pope has also been awarded grants by the MacDowell Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, and Meet the Composer.

Melinda Wagner has studied with Richard Wernick, George Crumb, Shulamit Ran, and Jay Reise. Commissioned by Paul Lustig Dunkel and the Westchester Philharmonic, her Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion received its premiere in May 1998 and was awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in music. Falling Angels, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and premiered in 1993, was performed by the American Composers Orchestra in 1995, and again by the CSO in 1996 in the AT&T American Encore series. Wagner's works have also been performed by the New York New Music Ensemble, the Society for New Music (Syracuse), Orchestra 2001, and other leading organizations. Commissions have come from the Chicago Symphony, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Barlow Foundation, the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the Fromm Foundation, the Ernst and Young Emerging Composers Fund, the American Brass Quintet, and guitarist David Starobin. Wagner is the recipient of numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a 1996 Howard Foundation Fellowship, three ASCAP Young Composer Awards, and resident fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. A recording of her sextet, performed by the Society for New Music, was released on the Opus One label. Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion is recorded on the Bridge label, featuring Paul Lustig Dunkel as soloist with the Westchester Philharmonic, Mark Mandarano conducting.

The director of the Discovery Program, Eduardo Navega, a native of Brazil, began his music studies in São Paulo at an early age. He received his bachelor's degree in composition and conducting from the State University of Campinas and his master's degree in music from the University of Sheffield (England). He is currently completing his doctor of musical arts degree in conducting at the Hartt School of Music. He has studied with Benito Juarez, Henrique Gregori, and Harold Farberman. From 1978 to 1989, he was conductor of the University of São Paulo choir. During this time he wrote a significant number of arrangements of Brazilian popular songs for choir, most of which are still in the repertoire of choirs throughout Brazil. Navega was assistant conductor of the Campinas Symphony Orchestra and was an assistant professor of choral and orchestral conducting at the University of Campinas. From 1992 to 1993, Navega was the conductor of the University of Sheffield Chamber Orchestra and received public and critical acclaim for his performances. Navega was awarded the prize of "Up-and-Coming Conductor of the Year" in 1995 by the APCA, a prestigious critics association in the state of São Paulo. He has been conductor of the Vassar College Orchestra since 1999.

Alexander Farkas originally trained as a pianist and currently teaches at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford. A certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, he received his certification from the Victoria Training Course, London, Shoshana Kaminitz, principal. Farkas has been a guest lecturer at the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, and Trinity College of Music in London. He also teaches privately in New York City and Hartford.

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(01.14.02)

[Editor's Note: For interviews, digital images, or brochures, call 845-758-7512 or e-mail darrow@bard.edu]

This event was last updated on 02-28-2002

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