ON WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, THE MUSIC PROGRAM AT BARD COLLEGE PRESENTS THE SPRING GALA CONCERT Concert features the String Orchestra and the Vocal, Jazz, and Early Music Ensembles
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The Music Program at Bard College presents the spring gala concert, with performances by the string orchestra and the vocal, jazz, and early music ensembles, on Wednesday, May 16. The concert, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall.
The vocal ensemble, directed by James Bagwell, will perform Igor Stravinsky's Ave Maria and Pater Noster. Arthur Burrows will direct the early music ensemble in O Magnum Mysterium by Tomás Luis da Victoria and Joan Tower will conduct the string orchestra in Gustav Holst's St. Paul Suite. The second half of the program will feature the jazz ensemble, directed by Thurman Barker, performing Dizzy Gillespie's "Woody 'n You" and "Manteca," Ary Barrosa's "Brazil," Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Desafinado," Arthur Herzog and Billie Holliday's "God Bless the Child," Sid Wyche and Mayme Watts's "Alright, Okay., You Win," Kenny Dorham's "Minor's Holiday," and "Moanin'" by Charles Mingus.
For further information, call the Music Program at 845-758-7250.
About the Directors:
James Bagwell, assistant professor of music and director of choral music, was recently appointed music director of the Light Opera of Oklahoma. He maintains an active schedule throughout the United States as a conductor of choral, operatic, and symphonic literature. Bagwell is the principal guest conductor and artistic adviser of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, which he conducted this season in a performance of Bach's B Minor Mass, along with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and the Indianapolis Chamber Singers, a professional ensemble that he founded. Bagwell is also the music director of Cincinnati's May Festival Youth Chorus and director of the May Festival Summer Chorus. He has trained choruses for major American orchestras including the Cincinnati Symphony, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and Indianapolis Symphony.
Thurman Barker, assistant professor of music at Bard College, began his professional career at the age of 16, playing for blues singer Mighty Joe Young. Classically trained at the American Conservatory of Music, he saw his reputation as a drummer grow quickly. He is a charter member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a jazz cooperative formed in 1965 in Chicago to teach music to inner-city youths. He has performed worldwide and has recorded with Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, Amina Claudine Myers, Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, Sam Rivers, Billy Bang, Joseph Jarman, and Henry Threadgill. The World Music Institute commissioned two of his works; Dialogue was premiered at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City in 1994. His composition Expansions was premiered by the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra. He developed the Jazz Program at Bard College after joining the faculty in 1993. Barker has his own record label, Uptee, on which he recorded his album Voyage in 1986, and The Way I Hear It in 1998.
Arthur Burrows is associate professor of theater and music at Bard College. He is a member of the Riverside Chamber Singers, Abbey Singers, New York Pro Musica, and has been a guest artist with the Waverly Consort. Burrows has been a guest performer with the New York Philharmonic, Joffrey Balley, New York Renaissance Band, Robert Shaw Chorale, and Chautauqua Opera Company, among others. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from The Juilliard School of Music. He has been an artist-in-residence at City College of New York; assistant professor at Trenton State University and SUNY at Purchase; instructor at Stanford University; and assistant professor of voice at Boston University.
Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor of Music, is one of the most highly regarded composers in the United States today. In 1998, the year of her 60th birthday, more than 20 concerts were presented in her honor throughout the country. Tower received the Delaware Symphony's Alfred I. duPont Award for Distinguished American Composers and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Guggenheim Foundation, and in 1990 was the recipient of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. Tower, whose orchestral works have been commissioned and performed around the world, is currently composer-in-residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke's in New York City. Recent commissions include works for percussionist Evelyn Glennie and the National Symphony Orchestra, pianist John Browning, the Emerson and Tokyo Quartets, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, and a viola concerto for Paul Neubauer. Tower recently conducted the Anchorage Symphony and the University of Southern California orchestras. She was active as pianist with the 1973 Naumburg Award-winning ensemble, the Da Capo Chamber Players, which she founded. She was composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and is currently coartistic director of the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and composer-in-residence at the Institute at Deer Valley in Utah. Her most recent recording is Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman (Koch International Classics), with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop, conductor.
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(4.20.01)