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.
Chen Tao is an internationally acclaimed Chinese flutist, music educator, composer, and conductor of Chinese orchestra; founder and director of Melody of Dragon, Inc., and of Melody of Dragon & the Youth; artistic director and conductor of the Chinese Music Ensemble of New York and conductor of New Jersey Buddha’s Light Youth Chinese Orchestra; artistic director of New York Guqin Association; and executive chairman of the New York Chinese Music Instruments International Competition since 2015. He is also a 27th-generation musician of Zhi-Hua Buddhism music. The New York Times called Chen Tao a “poet in music” and his playing “a miracle of the oriental flute.” Conductor Herbert von Karajan praised him as an artist who “performs with his soul.”
A graduate of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, Chen Tao was the winner of the 1989 National Folk Instrument Competition in China and has toured the United States, Germany, Italy, France, England, Holland, Singapore, and elsewhere. He has collaborated with the BBC Philharmonic and National Orchestra of Lyon. His playing can be heard on soundtracks of Hollywood movies including Seven Years in Tibet, Corrupter (with the New York Philharmonic) and on the PBS documentary Under the Red Flag. Since coming to the United States in 1993, Chen Tao has been invited to perform and lecture throughout the country. His second Flute Recital was performed in Carnegie Hall by the New York Flute Club in 2001. He has performed at Lincoln Center and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center with groups such as the Manhattan School of Music’s Chamber Orchestra, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, and H. T. Chen Dancers. China Institute in America has invited him to perform and lecture on the Chinese flute since 1995. The World Journal and Tsingtao Daily have called him “king of the flute.”
As a music educator, Chen Tao has been leading Melody of Dragon in collaboration with the Midori & Friends Foundation to develop Chinese music culture in elementary schools and high schools throughout the New York metropolitan area.
Yazhi Guo
Suona, Master Classes
Yazhi Guo
Guo, who resides in Boston with his wife and two daughters, is regarded by many as the finest suona player in the world, and his expressive performances and unique style have created many opportunities in the world of modern music for the instrument. He is a visiting artist and teaches master classes at Philadelphia University of the Arts and Berklee College of Music, as well as at the Bard Conservatory of Music.
Guo graduated with distinction from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing in 1990 and for nine years lectured on suona there. He has won many international awards, including the grand prize at New York’s International ProMusicis Award (1998). Named as one of China’s most outstanding musicians by its Ministry of Culture, he was invited to give a solo performance with suona and saxophone for the heads of states during President Clinton’s visit to Beijing in 1998. In the 1990s, he recorded the original songs for more than 100 films and popular TV series, and drew a huge following of fans. Guo was appointed as principal suona by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in 1999. Since then, he has performed with many orchestras around the world, including Orchestra de la Suisse Romande (Switzerland), South Korea Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra, Belgium’s Flanders Symphony Orchestra, Malaysia Chinese Orchestra, Singapore Chinese Orchestra, and National Chinese Orchestra of Taiwan. He also lectured at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and led the Hong Kong Suona Association as its first executive director.
Guo received the Hong Kong Award for Best Artist in 2012 and that same year, at age 46, said farewell to the highly competitive position of principal suona in the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra and relocated to Boston to explore jazz at Berklee College of Music. While studying at Berklee, he actively showcased the uniqueness of suona on various occasions and made the traditional suona more fashionable and popular. After graduating from Berklee with an artist diploma in 2015, he led Berklee’s jazz band during its visits to China and Singapore; he also performed in many other cities and gave college lectures. His fusion-style jazz performances were highly received by Chinese and American audiences.
Guo is not only a multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwinds, but also an innovator. He has obtained several patents for changes to instruments such as the suona, hulusi, and guzheng and received a scientific progress award from the Ministry of Culture in China for a movable reed and flexible core of the suona. This significant breakthrough allows the traditional suona to alter modes and change sounds at any time during a live performance. It also makes the suona more expressive, allowing for a deeper integration with Western music.
Teresa Buchholz
Undergraduate Voice, Undergraduate Opera Workshop
Teresa Buchholz
Versatile mezzo-soprano Teresa Buchholz enjoys success in the realms of opera, art song and oratorio. Verdi’s Requiem is quickly becoming a staple of her repertoire, and she has recently performed the work with True Concord Chorus and Orchestra (Tucson, AZ), the Helena Symphony (Helena, MT), the New Jersey Choral Society, the Lake Como Music Festival (Italy), and will perform the work with Long Beach Symphony (CA) in 2021. Some recent performances include Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall with Distinguished Concerts International New York, several Holiday concerts with The Greenwich Choral Society and a guest recital at her alma mater, The University of Northern Iowa. In March 2019 she performed Alexander Nevsky with the Anchorage Symphony, and 2018/19 marked the debut of a newly formed collaboration with Bard colleagues Erika Switzer and Marka Gustavsson, The Blithewood Ensemble, which has performed a program of chamber music as part of the Downtown Music at Grace series (White Plains, NY) at the Hudson Hall (Hudson, NY) and Bitò Hall at Bard College. She recently soloed with the New Jersey Choral Society on a concert featuring Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 and Choral Fantasy, and performed the role of Domna Ivanovna Sobyrova in a staged production of “The Tsar’s Bride” by Rimsky-Korsakov as part of the Bard Music Festival. In December 2018 she soloed in Handel’s Messiah at the Bardavon Theatre in Poughkeepsie, and the previous Fall she was heard as Anne in Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All in a highly acclaimed production that took place in Hudson NY, in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with The Orchestra Now at Bard College and in the role of Berta in a New York City concert version of the rarely heard opera Il Grillo del Focolare by Riccardo Zandonai. In past years she has been heard in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at Lincoln Center with the National Chorale, a staged version of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Gulfshore Opera, Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Berkshire Bach Society and the Stamford Symphony, and Bach’s Magnificat with Voices of Ascension. Other recent performances have included the role of Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd with Opera Roanoke; Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus with the Asheville Lyric Opera; the title role in Giulio Cesare in Egitto with Opera Roanoke; Mozart’s Requiem with the Tulsa Symphony, the Stamford Symphony, and Voices of Ascension; Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody at the Bard Music Festival; Berio’s Folk Songs at the Gateway Chamber Orchestra, where she had previously performed Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde; and Handel’s Messiah at Lincoln Center with Distinguished Concerts International New York. In 2013 she was the winner of the female division in the Nico Castel International Master Singer Competition. Buchholz holds a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Northern Iowa, a master’s degree in vocal performance from Indiana University, and an Artist Diploma from Yale University. She has taught at Bard since 2012 where she teaches private voice lessons and is one of the producers and vocal coaches for Bard’s undergraduate Opera Workshop.
Satoshi Okamoto
Double Bass
Satoshi Okamoto
Satoshi Okamoto has been a member of New York Philharmonic since 2003. He served as an acting principal and assistant principal in 2013-16. Prior to the Philharmonic he was an assistant principal double bassist in the San Antonio Symphony for eight years and a member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra for a year. As a soloist, he was a finalist of the International Society of Bassist Solo Competition and the Izuminomori International Double Bass Competition, also a twice winner of the Aspen bass competition. He was a faculty member at Stonybrook University from 2023-24. He has given master classes at institutions such as The Juilliard School Pre-College, Toho school of music, LSU at Baton Rouge, TCU, Aichi University of fine arts, and Pyongyang Conservatory. He received his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, and a bachelor’s degree from Tokyo University of Fine Arts.