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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.

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    Interested in visiting Bard for a campus tour or performance? 
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A singer in front of an orchestra in Olin Hall
Photo by Karl Rabe

Offering Unique Undergraduate and Graduate Programs

  • Undergraduate Double Degree in Liberal Arts and Music Performance (BA and BM)
  • Graduate Degree in Vocal Arts (MM)
  • Graduate Degree in Conducting (MM)
  • Graduate Degree in Instrumental Studies (MM)
  • Master of Arts in Chinese Music and Culture (MA)
  • Advanced Performance Studies 
  • Postgraduate Collaborative Piano Fellowship
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The Bard Conservatory also offers a Preparatory Division for students ages 3–18.

News

a man in a black t-shirt stands in front of a hallway of gothic stone arches

James Bagwell Named Principal Conductor of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra and Berkshire Bach Society

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.

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a man conducts an orchestra

US-China Music Institute's Conference on Chinese Music in the West Featured in China Daily 

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.

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a woman in a pink dress sings on stage

Opera Concert by Bard Conservatory of Music and Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program Reviewed in the Millbrook Independent

A dual opera performance featuring Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amelia Goes to the Ball and Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, performed by the Bard College Conservatory of Music and Graduate Vocal Arts Program, was reviewed in the Millbrook Independent. “Both witty operettas celebrate skillful women in a male-dominated society,” wrote Kevin McEneaney. 

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Upcoming Events and Performances

  • Isabel Chin Garita smiling and holding a violin. ; Undergraduate Degree Recital: Isabel Chin Garita, violin
    5/17
    Sunday
    Undergraduate Degree Recital: Isabel Chin Garita, violin 1:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • Yujia Yang looking down and to the side with her hair up, wearing hanging earrings and a black dress; Graduate Degree Recital: Yujia Yang, piano
    5/17
    Sunday
    Graduate Degree Recital: Yujia Yang, piano 4:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • Six headshots featuring each member of the Bard Alumni Ensemble and their instrument. ; Alumni/ae Spotlight Series: Bard Alumni Ensemble
    5/17
    Sunday
    Alumni/ae Spotlight Series: Bard Alumni Ensemble 7:00 pm
    Olin Hall
  • Studio Recital: Double Bass Students of Satoshi Okamoto
    5/18
    Monday
    Studio Recital: Double Bass Students of Satoshi Okamoto 1:00 pm
    Edith C. Blum Institute
  • Undergraduate Degree Recital: Kai O'Donnell, oboe
    5/18
    Monday
    Undergraduate Degree Recital: Kai O'Donnell, oboe 1:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space

Meet Our Faculty

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  • Michaela Martens
    Graduate Voice

    Michaela Martens

    The American mezzo-soprano, Michaela Martens, is known internationally for her portrayals of some of the most difficult dramatic roles in the repertoire.

    In addition to her two favorite roles, Klytämnestra/Elektra (San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera) and die Amme/Die Frau ohne Schatten (Chicago Lyric Opera, Oper Graz), her successes in Strauss include Adelaide/Arabella (San Francisco Opera), and Herodias/Salome (The Santa Fe Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Òpera de Columbia).

    She has sung such notable roles as Kundry in Parsifal (Metropolitan Opera, Santiago Opera), Gertrud in Hansel and Gretel (Bayerische Staatsoper, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera), Ortrud in Lohengrin (Vienna State Opera, Oper Graz), the 2nd Norn in Götterdämmerung (Metropolitan Opera), and Fricka in Das Rheingold (North Carolina Opera).

    Ms. Martens is at home with such composers as Berlioz (Cassandre/Les Troyens, San Francisco Opera, London Philharmonic), Massenet (Hérodiade/Hérodiade, Washington Concert Opera), Giordano (Countess de Coigny/Andrea Chènier, Metropolitan Opera), Bartók (Judith/Bluebeard’s Castle, Metropolitan Opera, New Japan Philharmonic, ENO), Janáček (Kostelnička/Jenůfa, Zürich Opera, ENO), Britten (Mrs. Sedley/Peter Grimes, Metropolitan Opera), Virgil Thomson (Susan B. Anthony/The Mother of Us All, Hudson Opera House, NY), and John Adams (Marilyn Klinghoffer/ The Death of Klinghoffer, Metropolitan Opera, ENO).

    Recent concert engagements include Adams/The Gospel According to the Other Mary (St. Louis Symphony at Carnegie Hall), Mahler/das Lied von der Erde (Dallas, Texas), Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Cleveland Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Nashville Symphony), Harbison Requiem (live recording and performance, Nashville Symphony), and the Verdi Requiem (Grant Park Music Festival, Spoleto Festival). She made her debut at Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leon Botstein in the difficult title role of Magnard’s rarely heard Bérénice.



    Michaela has worked with such renowned conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Sir Charles Mackerras, James Levine, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Fabio Luisi, Daniele Gatti, Franz Welser-Möst, Bertrand de Billy, Sir Donald Runnicles, Marco Armiliato, Patrick Summers, and David Robertson. As a student at The Juilliard School, she was invited by Maestro Ozawa to sing the role of Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes at the 40th Anniversary of Peter Grimes at Tanglewood and then again for the Seito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, Japan.

    Ms. Martens keeps an active voice studio both at home in the Hudson Valley and as the resident voice teacher for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. She has been a guest clinician and teacher at The Juilliard School and at the University of Washington, her alma mater. Ms. Martens’ students can be heard on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera San Jose, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and the Santa Fe Opera, to name but a few. This summer, her students are headed to the Santa Fe Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Charlottesville Opera, Saratoga Opera, and Central City Opera.

    As a student growing up in Seattle, Washington, Michaela was lucky enough to fall into the hands Ellen Faull; fearless teacher and mentor, and then after moving to New York, with the brilliant Ruth Falcon who was her teacher for 20 years. May they both Rest in Peace.

    A national winner of the Metropolitan Opera (Laffont) competition, she also holds awards from the George London Foundation, the Licia Albanese Foundation, and the DeRosa Foundation.

    She shares her home in the Hudson Valley with her two children and their pets: two chocolate Labradors, a tuxedo cat, and an aging bearded dragon.
  • Kyle Gann
    Taylor Hawver and Frances Bortle Hawver Professor of Music

    Kyle Gann

    B.Mus., Oberlin Conservatory of Music; M.Mus., D.Mus., Northwestern University. Recipient, National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist’s Grant (1996); Peabody Award (2003); American Music Center Letter of Distinction (2003). Music critic for the Village Voice, 1986–2005. Taught at Bucknell University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, Brooklyn College, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Books include The Arithmetic of Listening: Tuning Theory and History for the Impractical Musician (2018); Charles Ives’s Concord: Essays after a Sonata (2017); Robert Ashley (2012); No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33” (2010); Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice (2006); American Music in the 20th Century (1997); The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (1995); and, as coeditor, The Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music (2013). Vice president of the Charles Ives Society. Music on the Other Minds, New World, New Albion, Mode, Cold Blue, Lovely Music, and other record labels. At Bard since 1997.
  • Nicholas Alton Lewis
    Chamber Music

    Nicholas Alton Lewis

    Nicholas Alton Lewis is the clarinetist and co-founder of the BLAK-New Blues Ensemble, an ensemble founded with composer-pianist Anthony Kelley and based at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. The BLAK-New Blues Ensemble was created to explore an ensemble’s ability to circumnavigate, through improvisation, the codes and tropes of African-American, European, and music of other parts of the world in ways that produce a coherent and fresh musical product.

    Mr. Lewis has been featured in performances of the Mozart Concerto for Clarinet and Sinfonia Concertante with the Williamsburg Symphony, and of the David Baker Jazz Suite for Clarinet and Orchestra with the Richmond (VA) Symphony and the Soulful Symphony in Baltimore, MD. An exponent of celebrating the music of our time, he has premiered works by Craig DeAlmedia, Anthony Kelley, Aristides Llaneza, Caroline Mallonee, John Mayrose, Gary Nash, Mike Worth, and Iannis Xenakis.

    Mr. Lewis has held clarinet positions with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra and Williamsburg Symphony, for 18 and 12 years respectively. He has also performed with the Akron, Pittsburgh, Virginia, and Westmorland Symphonies, as well with the Baltimore Opera Orchestra, and Brevard, Gateways, and Pittsburgh New Music Festival Orchestras.

    Prior to joining the faculty at Bard College, Mr. Lewis served as Senior Associate Dean and Special Advisor to the President at the Curtis Institute of Music, and also served on the music department faculties of Howard University and Virginia Union University. He holds the degrees of Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Music in clarinet performance from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as a Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School where he pursued studies in the Institute of Sacred Music. Additionally, Mr. Lewis is the current Associate Vice President for Academic Initiatives and Associate Dean of Bard College.

    Photo credit: Joseph Brunjes
  • Raman Ramakrishnan
    Cello & Chamber Music, Bard Conservatory of Music; Artist in Residence, Bard College

    Raman Ramakrishnan

    As a member of the Horszowski Trio, cellist Raman Ramakrishnan has performed across North America, Europe, India, Japan, and in Hong Kong, and recorded for Bridge Records and Avie Records. For eleven seasons, as a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet, he performed around the world. Mr. Ramakrishnan is currently an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society. Mr. Ramakrishnan has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and has performed chamber music at Caramoor, at Bargemusic, with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and at the Aspen, Bard, Charlottesville, Four Seasons, Kingston, Lincolnshire (UK), Marlboro, Mehli Mehta (India), Oklahoma Mozart, and Vail Music Festivals. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in New Delhi and Agra, India and in Cairo, Egypt. He has served on the faculties of the Taconic and Norfolk Chamber Music Festivals, as well as at Columbia University.

    Mr. Ramakrishnan was born in Athens, Ohio and grew up in East Patchogue, New York. His father is a molecular biologist and his mother is the children's book author and illustrator Vera Rosenberry. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a Master’s degree in music from The Juilliard School. His principal teachers have been Fred Sherry, Andrés Díaz, and André Emelianoff. He lives in New York City with his wife, the violist Melissa Reardon, and their young son. He plays a Neapolitan cello made by Vincenzo Jorio in 1837.
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Bard College
Bard College
Conservatory of Music
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