Soprano Dawn Upshaw and Pianist Gilbert Kalish in Benefit Recital on April 27

INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED SOPRANO DAWN UPSHAW AND RENOWNED PIANIST GILBERT KALISH APPEAR IN RECITAL AT BARD’S FISHER CENTER April 27 Song Recital Features Works by Berg, Bolcom, Crawford Seeger, Foster, Schumann, and Wolf, Benefiting The Bard College Conservatory of Music ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents a song recital with celebrated soprano Dawn Upshaw, artistic director of the Graduate Program in Vocal Arts at the Conservatory, and prominent pianist Gilbert Kalish, at Bard’s Fisher Center on Friday, April 27. Tickets are $40, $60, and $80 ($15, $20, and $25 of each ticket is tax deductible). The program begins at 7:00 p.m. in the Sosnoff Theater. Upshaw and Kalish perform a selection of works by Alban Berg, William Bolcom, Stephen Foster, Robert Schumann, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Hugo Wolf. This program benefits the scholarship fund of The Bard College Conservatory of Music, an innovative double-degree program that is guided by the principle that musicians should be broadly educated in the liberal arts and sciences to achieve their greatest potential. Joining a rare natural warmth with a fierce commitment to the transforming, communicative power of music, Dawn Upshaw has achieved worldwide celebrity as a singer of opera and concert repertoire, ranging form the sacred works of Bach to the freshest sounds of today. Her ability to reach to the heart of music and text has earned her both the devotion of an exceptionally diverse audience and the awards and distinctions accorded to the most distinguished of artists. Her acclaimed performances on the opera stage comprise the great Mozart roles (Pamina, Ilia, Susanna, Despina) as well as modern works by Stravinsky, Poulenc, and Messiaen. From Salzburg, Paris, and Glyndebourne to the Metropolitan Opera, (where she began her career in 1984 and has since made nearly 300 appearances), Upshaw has also championed new works created for her, including The Great Gatsby by John Harbison; the Grawemeyer Award–winning opera L’Amour de Loin by Kaija Saariaho; John Adams’s nativity oratorio El Niño; and Osvaldo Golijov’s chamber opera Ainadamar and song cycle Ayre, both newly recorded on Deutsche Grammophon. Upshaw reprised her celebrated Santa Fe Opera portrayal of Margarita Xirgu in Ainadamar at the Ojai and Ravinia festivals, followed by performances of Lukas Foss’s Time Cycle with the San Francisco Symphony and Henri Dutilleux’s Correspondances with the Philadelphia Orchestra that began the 2006–07 concert year. Other season highlights include a European tour of Golijov’s Ayre; a U.S. recital tour with pianist Gilbert Kalish; and orchestral performances with David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony at Carnegie Hall and Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Hall. Upshaw is an artistic partner of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, with whom she is performing and curating an innovative vocal series beginning this fall. Upshaw’s sensibilities as an artist and colleague make her a favored partner of many leading musicians, including Richard Goode, the Kronos Quartet, James Levine, Sir Simon Rattle, and Salonen. In her work as a recitalist, and particularly in her work with composers, Upshaw has become a generative force in concert music, having premiered more than 25 works in the past decade. From Carnegie Hall to large and small venues throughout the world, she regularly presents specially designed programs composed of lieder, unusual contemporary works in many languages, and folk and popular music. She furthers this work in master classes and workshops with young singers at major music festivals, conservatories, and liberal arts colleges. She is a member of the faculty at the Tanglewood Music Center. 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. Francoise d’Assise; Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress; Adams’s El Niño; two volumes of Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne, and a dozen recital recordings. Upshaw has also recorded several beloved Nonesuch CDs of musical theater repertoire, which she has sung with the Chicago Symphony and the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, as well as at London’s Proms Festival and on radio and television. She was the subject of a one-hour profile on Bravo, Intimate Collaborations, and has been featured on numerous PBS and NPR programs. Upshaw holds honorary doctoral degrees from Yale University, the Manhattan School of Music, Allegheny College, and Illinois Wesleyan University. She began her career as a winner of the Young Concert Artists Auditions and the Walter W. Naumburg Competition, and was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Young Artists Development Program. At Bard College she is Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor of the Arts and Humanities. Pianist Gilbert Kalish is a profoundly influential figure in American music. A solo artist who has released over 100 recordings, he is likewise noted for his roles in chamber music ensembles and for his collaborations as accompanist with soprano Dawn Upshaw, cellist Joel Krosnick, and mezzo soprano Jan de Gaetani. Kalish has been nominated for three Grammy awards and has received a host of other awards, including the Paul Fromm Award, bestowed by the University of Chicago in recognition of his advocacy of the music of our time. He was the pianist of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players for 30 years and a founding member of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. From 1969 to 1997, he was a faculty member of the Tanglewood Music Center and was chairman of the faculty at Tanglewood from 1985 to 1997. Kalish is a distinguished professor and head of performance activities at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. For reservations and to purchase tickets, call 845-758-7900 or visit fishercenter.bard.edu. [For benefit tickets to the buffet supper with the artists that follows the recital, please call Conservatory’s development office at 845-758-7866.] # About the Bard College Conservatory of Music Building on its distinguished history in the arts and education, Bard College has launched The Bard College Conservatory of Music, which welcomed its first class in August 2005. This innovative, double-degree program is guided by the principle that musicians should be broadly educated in the liberal arts and sciences to achieve their greatest potential. While training and studying for the bachelor of music degree with world-class musicians and teachers and performing in state-of-the art facilities, such as the new Frank Gehry–designed Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Conservatory students also pursue a bachelor of arts degree at Bard, one of the nation’s leading liberal arts colleges. Conservatory faculty include violinists Ani Kavafian, Ida Kavafian, Soovin Kim, Weigang Li, Laurie Smukler, and Arnold Steinhardt; violists Steven Tenenbom, Michael Tree, and Ira Weller; cellists Sophie Shao and Peter Wiley; double bassist Marji Danilow; pianists Melvin Chen, Jeremy Denk, Peter Serkin, and piano master classes with Richard Goode; oboists Laura Ahlbeck and Richard Dallessio; flutists Tara Helen O’Connor and Nadine Asin; clarinetists Laura Flax and David Krakauer; bassoonist Marc Goldberg; horn players Julie Landsman and Jeffrey Lang; trombonist John Rojak; trumpeter Mark Gould; and tuba player Alan Baer. The Conservatory Composition Program is directed by Joan Tower and George Tsontakis. The Colorado Quartet and Da Capo Chamber Players are in residence. Members and principals of the American Symphony Orchestra are also available for instruction, coaching, and leading of sectional rehearsals of the Conservatory Orchestra. In addition, the resources and faculty of the Bard College Music Program are available to students of the Conservatory. The Conservatory also includes the Graduate Program in Vocal Arts, directed by Dawn Upshaw, and The Conductors Institute and its graduate program in conducting, directed by Harold Farberman. For more information about the Bard College Conservatory of Music, call 845-758-7196, e-mail [email protected], or log onto the program’s website, www.bard.edu/conservatory. # # # (3.19.2007)

This event was last updated on 04-11-2007

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