Bard Conservatory of Music News Archive

On the cutting edge of contemporary classical, So Percussion is training Bard Conservatory students in the percussion program's debut year.

"Conservatory Sundays: Music Alive!" features 40 conservatory students in an exciting program of 20th- and 21st-century music.

James Bagwell has taught at Bard College since 2000, where he is the chair of the undergraduate Music Program and codirector of the Graduate Program in Conducting.

He maintains an active schedule throughout the United States as a conductor of choral, operatic, and orchestral music. In 2009 he was appointed music director of The Collegiate Chorale and led the ensemble in concerts at Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall during the 2009–10 season. He is the principal guest conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra in New York, and since 2003 has been director of choruses for the Bard Music Festival, conducting and preparing choral works during the summer festival at Bard College. He has also prepared The Concert Chorale of New York for performances with the American Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Mostly Mozart Festival (broadcast nationally in 2006 on Live from Lincoln Center), all in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Bagwell has trained choruses for a number of major American and international orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NHK Symphony (Japan), St. Petersburg Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, among others, and has worked with noted conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Leon Botstein, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Robert Shaw. He holds degrees from Birmingham-Southern College, Florida State University, and Indiana University.

Internationally renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw—Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor of the Arts and Humanities and artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Bard Conservatory of Music—has been a member of the Bard College faculty since 2004.

A four-time Grammy Award winner, Upshaw is featured on more than 50 recordings, including the million-selling Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Gorecki. Her discography also includes full-length opera recordings of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro; Messiaen’s St. Francois d’Assise; Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress; John Adams’s El Niño; two volumes of Canteloube’s “Songs of the Auvergne”; and a dozen recital recordings. Upshaw made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1984 and has since achieved worldwide celebrity. She is known for singing the great Mozart roles (Pamina, Ilia, Susanna, Despina) as well as works by Bach, Bartók, Stravinsky, Poulenc, Messiaen, Debussy, and John Adams. She has performed with James Levine, Sir Simon Rattle, Gilbert Kalish, Kronos Quartet, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, and the Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia Symphony Orchestras, among others. She was the first singer to be named a “Perspectives” Artist by Carnegie Hall, and was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 2007. She earned her B.A. from Illinois Wesleyan University and M.A. from the Manhattan School of Music; she holds honorary doctorate degrees from Yale, the Manhattan School of Music, Allegheny College, and Illinois Wesleyan University. She is also a faculty member of the Tanglewood Music Center.

Since 1972, Joan Tower has taught at Bard College, where she is Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts. She is regarded as one of the most important living American composers. During a career spanning more than 50 years, Tower has made lasting contributions as composer, performer, conductor, and educator.

She has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Houston Symphonies, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center Chamber Society, among many other major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras. She was the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission for 65 orchestras. Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony recorded her composition Made in America in 2008; the album collected three Grammy awards. In 1990, she became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders. Other accolades include an honorary degree from the New England Conservatory (2006), the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Composer of the Year (2010–11), and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts. She received her B.A. at Bennington College and her M.A. and D.M.A. at Columbia University. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1998).

The seventh annual Concerto Competition, presented by The Bard College Conservatory of Music, took place at Bard College with a preliminary round on Saturday, November 19, and a final round on Sunday, November 20. The eight finalists performed in the Sosnoff Theater of the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, competing for the opportunity to perform with the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra and the American Symphony Orchestra.

The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents the Conservatory Orchestra in a matinee concert at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts's Sosnoff Theater. Conducted by music director Leon Botstein and featuring guest soloist Jeremy Denk, piano, the Conservatory Orchestra will perform Charles Ives's "Decoration Day" and "Fourth of July" from A Symphony: New England Holidays; Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37; and Mahler's Symphony No. 5.

Dan Deacon and So Percussion, Ghostbuster Cook: Origin of the Riddler: During the Ecstatic Music Festival, So Percussion teamed up with the swami of dance-party electronica, Dan Deacon. Ghostbuster turned out to be a loose, ornate symphony for soda bottles, marimbas, and one loud laptop. The piece does for the rave what Bartok did for Hungarian folk music: sublimate the urge to dance into a visceral concert experience.

This Sunday matinee performance includes works by Beethoven, Mahler, and Ives.

The Bard College Conservatory of Music has received a generous $9.2 million gift from Bard alumnus Laszlo Z. Bito, class of 1960, for the construction of The Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Conservatory Building. This state-of-the-art teaching and performance facility addresses the growing needs of the Conservatory, brought on by its fivefold growth since its founding in 2005. With an anticipated completion date of January 2013, the building is scheduled to begin construction in October. The design of the building, by Deborah Berke & Partners Architects in New York City, supports the Conservatory's dedication to providing top-level musical training in the context of a liberal arts education. A groundbreaking ceremony for The Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Conservatory Building will take place on Saturday, October 29 at 11:30 a.m., adjacent to the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Center at Bard College.

Bard College student performance receives positive review from The New York Times.

This video is from a March 5, 2011 dress rehearsal, featuring Natalie Merchant with The Bard College Conservatory of Music Orchestra.

It’s not uncommon for musicians to perform as public service—in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes. But students in the Bard Conservatory Orchestra recently found themselves onstage in an unusual venue: a maximum security prison. WNYC's Lara Pellegrinelli reports on their concert, the first ever to feature a full orchestra at the Eastern Correctional Facility in Naponach.