Bard Fisher Center Presents the Conservatory Orchestra in a Matinee Concert on Sunday, March 12
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.––The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents the Conservatory Orchestra in concert in the acoustically superb Sonoff Theater. Conducted by Leon Botstein, the program includes Schumann’s Cello Concerto in A Minor with Peter Wiley on cello, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4, and features soloist Obadiah Wright ’17 playing Paloma. The concert will be held on Sunday, March 12 at 3p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Tickets are a $15–$20 suggested donation and free to the Bard community. Ticket sales benefit the Bard Conservatory of Music’s Scholarship Fund. For tickets, call the box office at 845-758-7900, or go to: https://fishercentertickets.bard.edu.“Paloma has its roots in the early, awkward, middle school self who banged on a piano, stumbled from time to time upon a few listenable seconds, and then later deemed it complete,” says Wright. “Now, about a decade later, I borrowed the old theme from this piece and completely reworked and orchestrated it beyond recognition.”
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
In addition to leading the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, Leon Botstein is music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, he established, and became music director of, The Orchestra Now, an innovative training orchestra and master’s degree program designed to prepare young musicians for the challenges facing the modern symphony orchestra. Botstein has been hailed as a visionary for his programming, creating concerts that give audiences once-in-a-lifetime chances to hear rarely performed works, and inviting music lovers to participate, through talks and discussions, in the creative experience. He is also artistic director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, which is now in its 28th year. Both take place in The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, where Botstein has been president since 1975. In addition, he is conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director from 2003 to 2011. Botstein leads an active schedule as a guest conductor worldwide, and can be heard on numerous recordings with the London Symphony (including its Grammy-nominated recording of Popov’s First Symphony), the London Philharmonic, NDR-Hamburg, and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. Highly regarded as a music historian, Botstein’s most recent book is Von Beethoven zu Berg: Das Gedächtnis der Moderne (2013). He is the editor of The Musical Quarterly and the author of numerous articles and books.
Born and raised in Silicon Valley, Obadiah Díaz Wright is in pursuit of a B.A. in Chinese and religion, and a B.M. in music composition at Bard College and Bard College Conservatory of Music, where he has studied under John Halle, George Tsontakis, and Joan Tower. Wright has written widely for many different media, from orchestra to performance art. A cellist who dabbles in harp, he has most recently fallen in love with the erhu, with which he can be found jamming in rural China with locals. He has conducted research in Fujian, Jiangxi, and Yunnan provinces with the Luce Initiative in Asian Studies and the Environment program, learning about fengshui forests and their reflections in local art and music. Wright is currently writing his Senior Project exploring the relationship between language, commerce, and ritual within the medium of Daoist talismans. This spring marks the end of his fourth year as cohead of Bard’s Tango Club, which helps train and prepare students for a chance to study under renowned tango artists.
ABOUT THE BARD COLLEGE CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC ORCHESTRA
The unique undergraduate curriculum of the Bard College Conservatory of Music is guided by the principle that musicians should be broadly educated in the liberal arts and sciences to achieve their greatest potential. The five-year, double-degree program combines rigorous Conservatory training with a challenging and comprehensive liberal arts program. All Conservatory students pursue a double degree in a thoroughly integrated program and supportive educational community. Graduating students receive a bachelor of music (B.Mus.) and a bachelor of arts in a field other than music (B.A.). At the Bard Conservatory the serious study of music goes hand in hand with the education of the whole person.
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