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.
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.
The world-renowned artist and UNESCO Global Goodwill Ambassador Tan Dun, has made an indelible mark on the world’s music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical music, multimedia performance, and Eastern and Western traditions. A winner of today’s most prestigious honors including the Grammy Award, Oscar/Academy Award, Grawemeyer Award, Bach Prize, Shostakovich Award, and most recently Italy’s Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, Tan Dun’s music has been played throughout the world by leading orchestras, opera houses, international festivals, and on radio and television. Most recently, Tan Dun was named as Dean of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. As dean, Tan Dun will further demonstrate music’s extraordinary ability to transform lives and guide the Conservatory in fulfilling its mission of understanding music’s connection to history, art, culture, and society.
As a conductor of innovative programs around the world, Tan Dun has led the China tours of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra. His current season includes leading the Orchestre National de Lyon in a six-city China tour, the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra in a four-city tour of Switzerland and Belgium as well as engagements with the Rai National Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra where he was recently named Artistic Ambassador. Tan Dun currently serves as the Principle Guest Conductor of the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. In 2016, Tan Dun conducted the grand opening celebration of Disneyland Shanghai which was broadcast to a record-breaking audience worldwide. Tan Dun has led the world’s most esteemed orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Münchner Philharmoniker, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, among others.
Tan Dun’s individual voice has been heard widely by international audiences. His first Internet Symphony, which was commissioned by Google/YouTube, has reached over 23 million people online. His Organic Music Trilogy of Water, Paper and Ceramic has frequented major concert halls and festivals. Paper Concerto was premiered with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the opening of the Walt Disney Hall. His multimedia work, The Map, premiered by YoYo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has toured more than 30 countries worldwide. Its manuscript has been collected by the Carnegie Hall Composers Gallery. His Orchestral Theatre IV: The Gate was premiered by Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra and crosses the cultural boundaries of Peking Opera, Western Opera and puppet theatre traditions. Other important premieres include Four Secret Roads of Marco Polo for the Berlin Philharmonic, Piano Concerto “The Fire” for Lang Lang and the New York Philharmonic. In recent seasons, his percussion concerto, The Tears of Nature, for soloist Martin Grubinger premiered in 2012 with the NDR Symphony Orchestra and Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women Symphony for 13 Microfilms, Harp and Orchestra was co-commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam. Most recently, Tan Dun conducted the premiere of his new oratorio epic Buddha Passion at the Dresden Festival with the Münchner Philharmoniker, the piece was co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Dresden Festival and will go on to have performances in Melbourne, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Rome, Hamburg, Paris, Singapore and London in the coming seasons.
As a visual artist, Tan Dun’s work has been featured at the opening of the China Pavilion at the 56th Venice Art Biennale. Other solo exhibitions include the New York’s Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Beijing’s Chambers Fine Art Gallery, and Shanghai Gallery of Art. Most recently, Tan Dun conducted The Juilliard Orchestra in the world premiere of his Symphony of Colors: Terracotta for the opening of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s epic exhibition The Age of Empires.
As a global cultural leader, Tan Dun uses his creativity to raise awareness of environmental issues and to protect cultural diversity. In 2010, as “Cultural Ambassador to the World” for the World EXPO Shanghai, Tan Dun envisioned, curated and composed two special site-specific performances that perform year-round and have since become cultural representations of Shanghai: Peony Pavilion, a Chinese opera set in a Ming Dynasty garden and his Water Heavens string quartet which promotes water conservation and environmental awareness. Tan Dun was also commissioned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to write the Logo Music and Award Ceremony Music for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Tan Dun currently serves as Honorary Chair of Carnegie Hall’s China Advisory Council, and has previously served as Creative Chair of the 2014 Philadelphia Orchestra China Tour, Associate Composer/Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony, and Artistic Director of the Festival Water Crossing Fire held at the Barbican Centre.
Tan Dun records for Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Opus Arte, BIS and Naxos. His recordings have garnered many accolades, including a Grammy Award (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and nomination (The First Emperor; Marco Polo; Pipa Concerto), Japan’s Recording Academy Awards for Best Contemporary Music CD (Water Passion after St. Matthew) and the BBC’s Best Orchestral Album (Death and Fire). Tan Dun’s music is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. and represented worldwide by the Music Sales Group of Classical Companies.
Peter Wiley
Cello
Peter Wiley
Peter Wiley attended the Curtis Institute at just 13 years of age, under the tutelage of David Soyer. He continued his impressive youthful accomplishments with his appointment as principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony at age 20, after one year in the Pittsburgh Symphony. He has been awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was nominated with the Beaux Arts Trio for a Grammy Award in 1998. As a member of the Beaux Arts Trio, Wiley performed over a thousand concerts, including appearances with many of the world's greatest orchestras. He continues his association with the Marlboro Music Festival, dating from 1971. He has also been a faculty artist at Caramoor's "Rising Stars" program and has taught at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, Mannes College of Music, and Manhattan School of Music. He is also on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music and a member of the Guarneri String Quartet.
Howard Watkins
Opera Studies
Howard Watkins
American pianist Howard Watkins is a frequent associate of some of the world’s leading musicians both on the concert stage and as an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera. He has performed in numerous recitals and concerts throughout the Americas, Europe, Russia, Israel, and the Far East. In past seasons, he has appeared in concert and on television with Joyce DiDonato, Kathleen Battle, Grace Bumbry, Mariusz Kwiecien, Matthew Polenzani, Michelle De Young, Marcello Giordani, Diana Damrau, Ben Heppner, Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Alexandra Deshorties, Lawrence Brownlee, Anthony Dean Griffey, and violinists Xiang Gao and Sarah Chang. Under the aegis of the Marilyn Horne Foundation, Mr. Watkins has performed in recitals and educational residencies in the United States, and he has also appeared in the Horne Foundation gala New York recital.
Mr. Watkins made his Carnegie Hall performing debut in 2002 as the harpsichord recitative accompanist in Haydn's Die Schöpfung with James Levine and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus. He has given recitals and concerts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Spivey Hall, Kennedy Center, the Pierpont Morgan Library, the United States Supreme Court, Alice Tully Hall with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the three stages of Carnegie Hall, and the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia. In addition, he has performed with the MET Chamber Ensemble in Weill and Zankel Halls under the baton of James Levine. He has accompanied the classes of such legendary artists as Marilyn Horne, Renata Scotto, Regina Resnik, Regine Crespin, Frederica von Stade, Birgit Nilsson, Shirley Verrett, Håkan Hagegård, Elisabeth Soderstrom, and Josef Gingold among others. A number of his performances have been broadcast on WQXR in New York as part of George Jellinek’s “The Vocal Scene” and the “Young Artist Showcase”, and he has recorded for the Centaur and Prestant labels.
As an educator, Mr. Watkins was formerly the Vocal Arts Program Co Coordinator of the Tanglewood Music Center, and he has taught at the Aspen Music Festival; the Banff Centre; Meadowmount School of Music; the International Vocal Arts Institute in Virginia, Israel, Japan, and China; VOICExperience in Florida and Savannah, Georgia with Sherrill Milnes and Maria Zouves; and the International Institute of Vocal Arts in Chiari, Italy. In 2015, he was a founding member of the Tokyo International Vocal Arts Academy. Currently on the faculties of The Juilliard School and the Washington National Opera Cafritz Young Artist Program, he was formerly a faculty member of the Mannes College of Music and the North Carolina School of the Arts in the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute. He has worked on the music staffs of the Los Angeles Opera, the Washington National Opera, and Palm Beach Opera.
A native of Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Watkins received his undergraduate degree from the University of Dayton, and he completed his Doctor of Musical Arts Degree in 1998 at the University of Michigan. In 2004, Mr. Watkins was honored as the recipient of both the Paul C. Boylan award from the University of Michigan for his outstanding contributions to the field of music, and a Special Achievement Award from the National Alumni Association of the University of Dayton. He is the 2019 recipient of the “Lift Every Voice” Legacy Award from the National Opera Association. He is currently a resident of New York City.
Mr. Watkins appears courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera.
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.