ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Bard College Music Program and Bard College Conservatory of Music present “Music Alive!” ensembles on Wednesday, November 5. Free and open to the public, the program begins at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall. 

Joan Tower and Blair McMillen direct a dynamic mix of classics by Samuel Barber, Gustsav Holst, Astor Piazzolla, and new works by Conservatory composers Ben Pesetsky ‘10 and Conor Brown ‘11. The concert features a full string orchestra (conducted by Grammy Award winner Tower) and outstanding soloists from the Conservatory.

This is the third year that Joan Tower, one of America’s preeminent composers and Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts at Bard, has organized “Music Alive!” concerts, which feature performers and composers drawn from the College’s Music Program and the Conservatory of Music. “Our Music Alive! ensembles concentrate on music taken from the 20th and 21st centuries, which include a mix of living composers and masterpieces drawn from the repertoire,” says Tower. “The students have learned to love this music and play it with commitment and passion—a very encouraging thing for me to watch develop in rehearsals. I think this concert will be exciting both from a musical and performance point of view.”

The program includes Barber’s Adagio for Strings; Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite; and Piazzolla’s Verano Porteno with violinist Shawn Moore; Wayne Siegel’s Sound Patterns; Zhou Long’s Songs from China performed by the Chimeng Quartet; Benjamin Pesetsky’s The Triple Fool with Tania Rodriguez, mezzo soprano; and Conor Brown’s Weave with Tian Xu and Tyme Khleifi, violins. The performance is presented by the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

For more information please call 845-758-7196

Joan Tower earned a B.A. from Bennington College and M.A. and D.M.A. degrees from Columbia University. She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Koussevitsky Foundation, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest. She won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in 1990 and has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic; St. Louis, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and National Symphonies; Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir Quartets; Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio; and Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Aspen, and LaJolla Summerfest, among many other festivals. Her CDs have been released on Naxos, Koch International, Delos, and d’Note Records. Tower was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1998 and the Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. She was composer in residence with the St. Louis Symphony, with conductor Leonard Slatkin, from 1985 to 1988, and has been composer in residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s since 1997. She was named the first composer for a major orchestral consortium project, sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra League and Meet the Composer; the resultant work, Made in America, has been released on CD by Naxos. Last summer Scarecrow Press published Joan Tower: The Comprehensive Bio-Bibliography by Ellen K. Grolman. Tower, who is also on the faculty of The Bard College Conservatory of Music, has taught at Bard since 1972.

This event was last updated on 11-03-2008

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