BARD COLLEGE COMMUNITY ORCHESTRA DECEMBER CONCERT FEATURES WORKS BY HAYDN, SIBELIUS, BRITTEN, AND FAURÉ
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.-The Bard College Community Orchestra, under the direction of James Bagwell, assistant professor of music and director of choral music at Bard, will perform on Thursday, December 6. The concert, free and open to the public, will begin at 8:00 p.m. in Olin Hall and is presented by the Music Program at Bard College.
The orchestra, founded two years ago by Joan Tower, is under the direction of Bagwell this semester. They will perform Haydn's Symphony No. 100 in G ("The Military"), Sibelius's Valse Triste, Fauré's Masques et Bergamasques, Britten's A Simple Symphony (for strings), and Beethoven's octet for winds.
The orchestra is composed of 34 students and 5 community members. Master's degree students from Bard's Conductors Institute work under Bagwell's direction to coach and help with the preparation for the performance.
Jay Harvey writes in the Indianapolis Star that "Bagwell displayed a fine sense of detail and proportion. . . . His cues and encouragement to soloists, the choir, and the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra had an electrifying intensity that seemed to yield a full measure of commitment to the music by all concerned." Bagwell 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, and serves in the same capacity 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 several major American orchestras including the Cincinnati Symphony, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and Indianapolis Symphony. This past summer, Bagwell conducted a concert with the New York Virtuoso Singers at the Bard Music Festival's "Debussy and His World."
For further information about the concert, call the Music Program at 845-758-7250.
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(11.12.01)