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.
Keisuke Ikuma is a highly sought-after oboe and english horn player in the New York metropolitan area. He is currently a member of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and the Stamford Symphony. He also performs regularly with the New York Philharmonic, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and numerous Broadway shows such as “The King and I,” “Wicked,” and “Phantom of the Opera”. Mr. Ikuma received his Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he was a full-scholarship student of Joseph Robinson, former principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic. Mr. Ikuma studied conducting with Constantine Kitsopoulos and David Gilbert, and made his Broadway conducting debut in the 2015 Tony Award-winning production “The King and I” at Lincoln Center Theater. He recently served as interim Chorus Director of the Keio High School in Westchester.
Jindong Cai
Director, US-China Music Institute; Graduate Conducting Program, faculty
Jindong Cai
Conductor Jindong Cai is the director of the US-China Music Institute and professor of music and arts at Bard College. He is also an associate conductor of The Orchestra Now (TON). Prior to joining Bard he was a professor of performance at Stanford University. Over the 30 years of his career in the United States, Cai has established himself as an active and dynamic conductor, scholar of Western classical music in China, and leading advocate of music from across Asia. Cai started his professional conducting career with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, where he held assistant conducting positions and worked closely with Music Director Jesús López-Cobos, Conductor Keith Lockhart, and Cincinnati Pops Conductor Erich Kunzel. He has worked with numerous orchestras throughout North America and Asia. Cai maintains strong ties to his homeland and has conducted most of the top orchestras in China. He has served as the principal guest conductor of the China Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra since 2012. In 2015, he led the Shenzhen Symphony on its first tour to the American West Coast, performing in Palo Alto, San Jose, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The concerts included collaboration with the San Francisco Opera on the premiere of a scene from Bright Sheng’s much anticipated new opera, Dream of the Red Chamber. Cai is a three-time recipient of the ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. He has recorded for the Centaur, Innova, and Vienna Modern Masters labels. He has close relationships with many Chinese composers and has premiered or performed new works by Tan Dun, Zhou Long, Chen Yi, Bright Sheng, Ye Xiaogang, and Wang Xilin, among others. In recent years, a number of professional orchestras have approached him to create special programs of works by Chinese and other Asian composers, including the “Celebration of Asia” concert with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in 2016. Cai has received much critical acclaim for his opera performances. In 1992, his operatic conducting debut took place at Lincoln Center’s Mozart Bicentennial Festival in New York, when he appeared as a last-minute substitute for his mentor Gerhard Samuel in the world premiere of a new production of Mozart’s Zaide. The New York Times described the performance as “one of the more compelling theatrical experiences so far offered in the festival.” Cai serves as the principal guest conductor of the Mongolia State Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet in Ulaan Baatar. Since 2011, he has visited Mongolia a dozen times to conduct opera and ballet performances, and led the theater’s historical first tour to China in 2013. Cai joined the Stanford University faculty in 2004 as director of orchestral studies and conducted the Stanford Symphony Orchestra for 11 years. He led the Stanford Symphony Orchestra on three international tours—to Australia and New Zealand in 2005; China in 2008, as part of the Beijing Olympic Cultural Festival; and Europe in 2013. In 2013, Cai launched “The Beethoven Project,” for which the Stanford Symphony Orchestra performed all nine Beethoven symphonies and all five of the composer’s piano concerti—featuring Van Cliburn Gold Medal–winning pianist and Stanford alumnus Jon Nakamatsu—in one season. Cai is also the founder of the Stanford Pan-Asian Music Festival. Over its 11-year history, the festival—which is dedicated to promoting an appreciation of music in contemporary Asia through an annual series of concerts and academic activities—has become one of the most important platforms for the performance of Asian music in the United States. As a scholar and expert on music in contemporary China and Asia, Cai is frequently interviewed by news media around the world, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, and NPR. Together with his wife Sheila Melvin, Cai has coauthored several New York Times articles on the performing arts in China and the book Rhapsody in Red: How Western Classical Music Became Chinese. Their latest book, Beethoven in China: How the Great Composer Became an Icon in the People’s Republic, was published by Penguin in September 2015. Born in Beijing, Cai received his early musical training in China, where he learned to play violin and piano. He came to the United States for his graduate studies at the New England Conservatory and the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. In 1989, he was selected to study with famed conductor Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Center, and won the Conducting Fellowship Award at the Aspen Music Festival in 1990 and 1992.
Tyler Duncan
Graduate Vocal Arts Program
Tyler Duncan
With a voice described as “honey-coloured and warm, yet robust and commanding” (The Globe and Mail), baritone Tyler Duncan has performed worldwide to great acclaim in both opera and concert repertoire. Throughout his varied career, he has performed with several of the world’s leading orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Tafelmusik, Minnesota Orchestra, and the Kansas City Symphony.
Mr. Duncan recently performed the role of Count Almaviva in Pacific Opera Victoria's production of The Marriage of Figaro, C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat with the Handel and Haydn Society, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions with the Oregon Bach Festival and Haydn’s Creation Mass with Music of the Baroque. Other notable engagements include Handel’s Messiah with Houston Symphony, New Jersey Symphony and Symphony Nova Scotia; Handel’s Theodora with Trinity Wall St at Caramoor; Handel's Apollo e Dafne and Bach’s Ich habe genug with Arizona Early Music’s Tucson Baroque Music Festival; Brahms’ Requiem with Johnstown Symphony; and concerts with Bard Music Festival, Brooklyn Art Song Society and Aspect Chamber Music. He also returned to the roster of The Metropolitan Opera for their new production of Terence Blanchard’s Champion.
Mr. Duncan has performed numerous roles at The Metropolitan Opera including Fiorello in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Moralès in Carmen, Prince Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, and the Journalist in Lulu. At the Spoleto Festival USA, he debuted as Mr. Friendly in the 18th-century ballad opera Flora, returning the next season as Sprecher in Die Zauberflöte. Other notable appearances have included Raymondo in Handel’s Almira, Dandini in La Cenerentola with Pacific Opera Victoria and Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Princeton Festival. In the realm of new opera, he recently performed the role of Raymond in Nic Gotham’s Nigredo Hotel with City Opera Vancouver and sang the world premiere of Jonathan Berger’s Leonardo at the 92stY in NYC.
Concert credits include Stravinsky’s Canticum Sacrum with San Francisco Symphony; Messiah with New York Philharmonic and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa; Mahler’s 8th Symphony and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium with the Minnesota Orchestra; Beethoven’s Mass in C with Kansas City Symphony; Schubert Lieder at the Wigmore Hall with pianist Graham Johnson; Bach’s Ich habe genug with Les Violins du Roy; Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Lviv Philharmonic; a selection of Bach Cantatas and Jeffery Ryan’s Afghanistan Requiem with Calgary Philharmonic; Orff’s Carmina Burana with Quebec Symphony and San Diego Symphony; Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte with Vancouver Symphony; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra; and Shostakovich’s Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti with The Orchestra Now at the Met Museum. He has also performed at the Händel Festival in Halle, Verbier Festival, Bard Festival, Vancouver Early Music Festival, Montreal Bach Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Grant Park Festival, Lanaudière Festival, Berkshire Choral Festival, and New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival.
Frequently paired with pianist Erika Switzer, Mr. Duncan has given acclaimed recitals in New York, Boston, Chicago, Paris, and throughout Canada, Germany, Sweden, France, and South Africa. Together they have premiered many new works written for them by composers. Alongside their debut album English Songs à la française for Bridge Records, they have released A Left Coast on the same label featuring songs from Canada's west coast.
Notable recordings include the Juno Award winning Vaughan-Williams Serenade to Music with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Earthquakes and Islands: an album of songs by Andrew Staniland with texts by Robin Richardson, the title role in John Blow’s Venus and Adonis with Boston Early Music Festival, J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion with the Portland Baroque Orchestra, and is featured with the Montreal Symphony in a video recording of Handel’s Messiah.
Mr. Duncan has received prizes from the Naumburg, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Munich’s ARD competitions, and won the Joy in Singing competition, the New York Oratorio Society’s Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition, the Prix International Pro Musicis Award, and the Bernard Diamant Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts. Mr. Duncan earned music degrees from the University of British Columbia, Hochschule für Musik (Augsburg), and Hochschule für Musik und Theater (Munich). As a current faculty member for the Vocal Arts Program at Bard College, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and as director of voice for the historical performance program at Case Western Reserve University, he finds joy in helping the next generation of singers find their true voice. Originally from British Columbia, Canada, Mr. Duncan now resides in the scenic Hudson Valley of New York. You may find him frequenting roadside farmstands seeking the perfect, freshly picked apple.
Carmit Zori
Violin
Carmit Zori
Violinist Carmit Zori is the recipient of a Leventritt Foundation Award, a Pro Musicis International Award, and the top prize in the Walter W. Naumburg International Violin Competition. She has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others, and has given solo recitals at Lincoln Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Tel Aviv Museum and the Jerusalem Center for the Performing Arts. Her performances have taken her throughout Latin America and Europe, as well as Israel, Japan, Taiwan and Australia, where she premiered the Violin Concerto by Marc Neikrug.
Ms. Zori enjoys a prolific career as a chamber musician. After ten years as artistic director at Bargemusic, she founded the Brooklyn Chamber Music Society in 2002. In addition to her own series, she has appeared with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and has been a guest at chamber music festivals and concert series around the world, including the Chamber Music at the Y series in New York City; Festival Casals in Puerto Rico; Chesapeake Bay Music Festival; Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival; Bard Music Festival; Chamber Music Northwest; Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; La Jolla Chamber Music Festival; Seattle Chamber Music Festival; Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival; Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society in Wisconsin; Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival; Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival in the UK; Philadelphia Chamber Music Society; Sarasota Music Festival; and is a regular participant at the Marlboro Chamber Music Festival in Vermont.
Ms. Zori has played for Music for Food, a concert series that helps relieve food insecurity in cities all over the United States. She has also participated in Project: Music Heals Us, a nonprofit organization that aims to educate and heal marginalized communities through music. Carmit is also a member of the Israeli Chamber Project, an ensemble that performs chamber music and conducts educational outreach in the US, Israel, and various other countries throughout the world.
Ms. Zori can be heard on the Arabesque, Koch International, and Elektra-Nonesuch labels. In addition to teaching at the Bard Conservatory, she is professor of violin at Rutgers University and SUNY-Purchase.
At the behest of violinists Alexander Schneider and Isaac Stern, Ms. Zori came to the United States from her native Israel at the age of fifteen to study at the Curtis Institute of Music with Ivan Galamian, Jaime Laredo and Arnold Steinhardt.