Music, like all art, engages the mind and the heart.
The mission of the Bard College Conservatory of Music is to provide the best possible preparation for a person dedicated to a life immersed in the creation and performance of music.
Bagwell was recognized by both organizations for the role he has played over the past two decades in creating a consistent record of excellence in choral performance.
The three-day program brought together renowned guzheng masters from China, musicians from across North America, and young student performers for a gathering of artistic exchange, collaboration, and performance.
‘Classical music doesn't get better than this’ — The New York Times.
In all roles, from orchestral soloist, recitalist and chamber musician to conductor, Benjamin Hochman regards music as vital and essential. Composers, fellow musicians, orchestras and audiences recognize his deep commitment to insightful programming and performances of quality. An Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, he has performed at the Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, and Suntory Hall. His festival appearances include Lucerne, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Krzyżowa-Music, Marlboro Music and Santa Fe.
Hochman’s recent and upcoming highlights include playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Rheinische Staatsphilharmonie conducted by Benjamin Shwartz; conducting the Szeged Symphony and Orlando Philharmonic; solo recitals in Paris, Berlin, and Hitzacker; and chamber music at Tanglewood and Nymphenburger Sommer. He tours with the Curtis Institute of Music to Berlin, Bremen, Stockholm, and Vienna, and curates Signs, Games, and Messages, the Kurtág Festival at Bard College, New York, where he has served as Artistic Director since 2022.
Hochman’s 2024 Avie Records release, Resonance, features Beethoven, George Benjamin, Josquin, and Dowland, praised by Gramophone for its “subtle timbral palette and keen ear for texture.” Earlier albums include Homage to Schubert and Variations, a New York Times “Best Recording of the Year.”
Born in Jerusalem in 1980, Hochman studied with Claude Frank at the Curtis Institute of Music and Richard Goode at the Mannes School. At Mitsuko Uchida’s invitation, he spent three formative summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, during the same period that he was a member of the Bowers Program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
At 24, he made his Carnegie Hall debut with the Israel Philharmonic under Pinchas Zukerman, leading to engagements with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Chicago and Pittsburgh Symphonies, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the Prague Philharmonia. He has performed under conductors including Gianandrea Noseda, Trevor Pinnock, and David Robertson.
In 2015 Hochman developed an autoimmune condition affecting his left hand, which led him to pursue his longstanding interest in conducting. At Juilliard he studied with Alan Gilbert, receiving the Bruno Walter Scholarship and the Charles Schiff Award. Soon after, he conducted the orchestras of Santa Fe Pro Musica, Greater Bridgeport Symphony, and The Orchestra Now at Bard College.
Fully recovered, he returned to the piano in 2018, recording Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 17 and 24 as pianist and director with the English Chamber Orchestra (Avie Records). He went on to present the complete Mozart Sonatas, perform Beethoven sonatas for Daniel Barenboim at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, and play both Beethoven and Kurtág for Kurtág himself at the Budapest Music Centre.
A Steinway Artist, he lives in Berlin and teaches at Bard College Berlin.
https://www.benjaminhochman.com/
Eric Cha-Beach
Percussion
Eric Cha-Beach
A member of the ensemble Sō Percussion (called "brilliant" and "consistently impressive" by the New York Times) since 2007, Eric has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Lincoln Center Festival, Stanford Lively Arts, The Walker Center and dozens of other venues in the United States. In that time, Sō Percussion has toured Russia, Australia, Colombia and throughout Europe. They have performed on The Late Show with Steven Colbert, at the TED Conference and Bonnaroo Festival, and with Radiolab Live. Eric has had the opportunity to work closely with Steve Reich, Caroline Shaw, David Lang, Julia Wolfe, Bryce Dessner, Steve Mackey, Dan Trueman, Fred Frith, Suzanne Farrin, Glenn Kotche, Paul Lansky, Donnacha Dennehy, Vijay Iyer, Dawn Upshaw, Shara Nova, Matmos, The National, Dan Deacon, Buke and Gase, Dave Douglas, Angelica Negron, and many others. And he has performed on eighteen of So Percussion’s albums.
As a composer, he has written works for JACK Quartet, Modern Medieval, Buke and Gase, Shara Nova, Caroline Shaw, Sirius String Quartet, and This Is How We Fly. Eric's pieces written for Sō Percussion are featured in ‘A Gun Show’ (BAM Next Wave 2016); ‘From Out a Darker Sea’ (Forma Arts UK commission 2016); 'Where (we) Live'; (BAM Next Wave 2012); 'Five Songs, Dances, and Meditations'; written to accompany Martin Kersels 'Five Songs' (Whitney Biennial 2010); 'Imaginary City' (BAM Next Wave 2009); and 'Music for Trains' - a site-specific performance on the train and at train stations in Brattleboro and Bellows Falls, VT (2008). With Jason Treuting and Josh Quillen, he co-composed music for Shen Wei Dance's 'Undivided/Divided' (Park Avenue Armory 2011), the 2wice 'Fifth Wall' app for iPad with dancer Jonah Bokaer, and the sound installation 'On/Off' as part of Bring to Light/Nuit Blanche New York 2011. He has composed the music for the dance film 'Parts Don't Work' (2011) by choreographer KT Niehoff and Lingo Dance, and the transition music for the internet radio station Q2 (2010 and 2013). His compositions have also been featured in the 'Bell by Bell' parade as part of Make Music Winter in 2011 and 2012. And his electronic music has been featured during the 2012 Look and Listen Festival and on the album 'Amid the Noise Remixes' (2011).
Outside of Sō Percussion, Eric has premiered new works from Lukas Ligeti, Caroline Shaw, Frank Nuyts and Jacob Cooper. Upcoming solo commissions are in development with Andrea Mazzariello and Dan Trueman. And he has performed and collaborated with pianist Peter Serkin, rock band The National, electronic artist Nicolas Jaar, composer Tristan Perich, the St. Louis Symphony Chamber Ensemble with David Robertson, bass player Evan Lipson, composer Daniel Wohl and many others.
Together with the other members of Sō Percussion, Eric serves as Edward T. Cone Performer-in-Residence at the Princeton University Music Department. He is also Co-Director of the Sō Percussion Summer Institute at Princeton University, an annual intensive course for college-aged percussionists started in 2009. And he is co-director of the percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Studying with Robert van Sice, Eric received his Bachelor of Music and Graduate Performance Diploma at the Peabody Conservatory, where he won the Yale Gordon Concerto Competition, and his Master of Music at the Yale School of Music. He also received a Fulbright fellowship and pursued additional study with Bernhard Wulff in Freiburg, Germany.
Yi-Wen Jiang
Violin
Yi-Wen Jiang
Violinist Yi-Wen Jiang was born in Beijing to a family with a strong musical background, his father having spent over 35 years as a Concertmaster and his mother as a soprano soloist. Jiang's destiny was revealed at three years old when he listened to Beethoven's violin concerto, instilling in him the desire to become a professional violinist.
Jiang gave his concerto debut in Beijing at 17. He secured the top prize at the inaugural China Youth Violin Competition, enabling him to study with Professor Han Li at the Central Conservatory of Music. Subsequently, he received a full scholarship from McDonnell-Douglas at the St. Louis Conservatory and relocated to the U.S. in 1985 to study with Taras Gabora and Michael Tree. Following his tenure in St. Louis, he enrolled in Rutgers University's graduate program, where he studied for four years with Arnold Steinhardt. Jiang credits Steinhardt with having the most profound influence on his playing, followed
by highly influential master classes with Pinchas Zukerman. In the wake of his prize-winning performance at the Montreal International Competition, he appeared as a soloist with the Victoria Symphony and Montreal Symphony, and was featured at numerous international music festivals by the age of 22.
Jiang's 26-year tenure with the Shanghai Quartet, which began in 1994, encompassed over 3,000 concerts in 37 countries. The ensemble's collaborations with distinguished artists were extensive, including performances with the Tokyo, Juilliard, and Guarneri Quartets, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell, pianists Roth Laredo, Menahem Pressler, Peter Serkin, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Yuja Wang, many of whom developed into lasting friendships. The ensemble was a regular performer at many of Europe's and North America's most prestigious music festivals.
As a composer, Jiang has developed a distinctive style, arranging dozens of pieces for violin-piano and string quartet that blend Eastern and Western influences. His arrangement of Chinese folk songs, ChinaSong, is particularly notable, drawing on his childhood experiences during the Cultural Revolution in China. The Shanghai Quartet, joined by Eugenia Zukerman, recorded this collection of 24 pieces, which was released on the Delos International label in 2002. In 2018, Flower City Publisher in Guangzhou published 38 of these arrangements.
Jiang holds a position as a founding faculty member at The Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Hongyan Zhang
Pipa
Hongyan Zhang
Zhang Hongyan is an outstanding contemporary Chinese pipa performer and educator. She is a professor and doctoral supervisor at the Central Conservatory and serves as dean of the Department of Traditional Instruments and the Cultural Heritage Protection and Research
Center. She is a guest professor at the Art Institute of Beijing University, honorary academician of Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (UIC), and director of the Central Institute of Vocational and Technical Education in China. She has
also been a visiting scholar at Columbia University.
Zhang studied under Zhang Shijun, Sun Weixi, and Lin Shicheng, beginning her studies when she was seven years old. In 2011, she created a weeklong pipa festival, presenting four concerts of solo, chamber, ensemble, and concerto performances, essentially summarizing all of classical pipa music. In connection with the festival, Zhang also published a research paper, “Boat Against the Current: The Feeling of a Musician Today.” This festival and her paper were among
the most important musical events at the start of the 21st century in China. Zhang, also known as Pipa Walker, has performed at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Vienna’s Golden Hall, St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, and Suntory
Hall in Tokyo. As a soloist, she has played with world-class orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Brazilian Symphony, and Tokyo Philharmonic. In recognition of her contributions to traditional Chinese music, her album House of Flying Daggers is part of the permanent collection at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Zhang founded the national orchestra of the Central Conservatory of Music, and has won many awards in China and internationally for music education, including the Yang Xuelan Music Education Award, Baosteel Education Fund Outstanding Teacher Award, and more.