Skip to main content.
Bard Conservatory
  • Menu sub-menuMenu
      Programs
    • Undergraduate Double Degree
    • Graduate Vocal Arts
    • Graduate Conducting
    • Graduate Instrumental Arts
    • Collaborative Piano Fellowship
    • Advanced Performance Studies
    • MA in Chinese Music and Culture
    • US-China Music Institute
    • Preparatory Division
      About
    • Our Story
    • Facilities
    • Staff
    • Faculty
    • Contact Us
      News + Events
    • Newsroom
    • Events
    • Kurtag Festival
    • 20th Anniversary
    • Archive
    • Information For:
    • Admitted Undergraduate Students
    • Admitted Graduate Students
  • Bard Conservatory Logo
  • Apply
  • Inquire
  • Events
  • Support
  • Search

     

     

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.

More About Us
  • Visiting Bard
    Interested in visiting Bard for a campus tour or performance? 
    Learn More
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
Learn More
The Bard Conservatory also offers a Preparatory Division for students ages 3–18.

News

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. 

Read More
Jindong Cai conducts The Orchestra Now onstage at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Seventh Annual Sound of Spring Concert Reviewed in Several Publications

The Millbrook Independent describes the concert as “a mélange of city and landscape visions."

Read More
Professor Joan Tower Wins Columbia University Dean’s Award for Lifetime Achievement

Professor Joan Tower Wins Columbia University Dean’s Award for Lifetime Achievement

“[Tower has] expanded the possibilities and audiences of modern classical Composition,” wrote GSAS Dean Carlos Alonso.

Read More

Upcoming Events and Performances

  • Undergraduate Degree Recital: Xiaoyan Luo, pipa
    4/17
    Friday
    Undergraduate Degree Recital: Xiaoyan Luo, pipa 1:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • Undergraduate Degree Recital: Anthony D'Amore, tenor
    4/17
    Friday
    Undergraduate Degree Recital: Anthony D'Amore, tenor 4:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • Da Capo Student Composers
    4/17
    Friday
    Da Capo Student Composers 6:00 pm
    Bard Hall
  • Graduate Degree Recital: Riley Lyons, trombone
    4/17
    Friday
    Graduate Degree Recital: Riley Lyons, trombone 7:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • POSTPONED: Undergraduate Degree Recital: Zander Grier, tuba
    4/18
    Saturday
    POSTPONED: Undergraduate Degree Recital: Zander Grier, tuba 4:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space

Meet Our Faculty

See All Faculty
  • Leigh Mesh
    Double Bass Masterclasses

    Leigh Mesh

    Leigh Mesh, associate principal double bass, joined the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 1993. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, he began his professional career with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and later played with the Indianapolis and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. He has taught master classes at the New World Symphony in Miami, Cincinnati Conservatory, Juilliard School, and Manhattan School of Music. Mr. Mesh is the double bass coach of the UBS Verbier Festival Youth Orchestra in Verbier, Switzerland. He has been a guest artist with the Verbier Festival, Linton Chamber Music Series, Pensacola Classicfest, Chamber Music Society of Martha’s Vineyard,Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, and the Salt Bay Chamberfest. Mr. Mesh has performed with the MET Chamber Ensemble, the Caramoor Virtuosi, and the Brentano and Tokyo String Quartets. Mr. Mesh was a faculty member of the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles during the 2009–2010 school year. He joined the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2010. He lives with his wife, Nancy Wu, associate concertmaster of the MET Opera Orchestra, and their two children, Guinevere and Wolfram, in Pleasantville, New York. He pursues cycling and skiing whenever he can. Mr. Mesh is an exclusive artist for Thomastik-Infeld Strings.
  • Mark Baechle
    Film Composition

    Mark Baechle

    Mark Baechle is a Swiss-born, New York based composer and music producer. He primarily works in film and television.

    Throughout his 20-year career in the industry, he has collaborated with some of the most acclaimed filmmakers and musicians of our time.

    At the outset of his career he was an assistant to the luminary composers Elliot Goldenthal and John Corigliano.

    Under the aegis of composer Marcelo Zarvos, he provided arrangements and additional music to the acclaimed TV series “Ray Donovan”, “The Affair”, “Extant” and “The Big C”.

    He also arranged, recorded and mixed all the music for “Disney’s Little Einsteins”, a cartoon series introducing art and classical music to children, the soundtrack of which was nominated for a Grammy Award (2007).

    Besides composing his own scores, he’s in demand as an orchestrator for films and, as such, has contributed to the scores of David Newman, Clint Mansell, Nicholas Britell and many more.

    Mark is also active as a composer of vocal, chamber and orchestral music. His work has been performed by notable artists and ensembles (New York Festival of Song, the Ahn Trio, Basel Sinfonietta).

    He studied at the pre-college division of the Academy of Music and Schola Cantorum Basel (Switzerland) and graduated from Berklee College of Music with a BA in Film Scoring.

    Mark is represented by Rochelle Sharpe at Incite Management
  • Ryan MacEvoy McCullough
    Visiting Lecturer of Music Theory, Vocal Coach, Pianist

    Ryan MacEvoy McCullough

    Born in Boston and raised behind the “Redwood Curtain” of northern California, pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough has developed a variegated career as soloist, vocal and instrumental collaborator, composer, recording artist, and pedagogue. Ryan’s music-making encompasses work with historical keyboards, electro-acoustic tools and instruments, and close collaborations with some of today’s foremost composers. His longstanding collaborative (and life) partnership with soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon has yielded a substantial crop of new art song repertoire, as well as his work in contemporary ensemble and commissioning project HereNowHear, 2017 recipient of a Fromm Foundation award.

    Ryan’s growing discography features many world premiere recordings, including solo piano works of Milosz Magin (Acte Prealable), Andrew McPherson (Secrets of Antikythera, Innova), John Liberatore (Line Drawings, Albany), Nicholas Vines (Hipster Zombies from Mars, Navona), art song and solo piano music of John Harbison and James Primosch with Ms. Fitz Gibbon (Descent/Return, Albany), and art song by Sheila Silver (Beauty Intolerable, Albany, also with Ms. Fitz Gibbon). He is also founder of False Azure Records, which released its inaugural album in 2022 featuring music by Katherine Balch and Dante De Silva (The Labor of Forgetting), and will be releasing a second album in 2023 featuring music by Christopher Stark, John Liberatore, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Ryan has also appeared on PBS’s Great Performances (Now Hear This, “The Schubert Generation”) and is an alumnus of NPR’s From the Top.

    As concerto soloist Ryan has appeared frequently with orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Festival Orchestra, Colburn Conservatory Orchestra, Orange County Wind Symphony, and World Festival Orchestra, with such conductors as George Benjamin, Gisele Ben-Dur, Fabien Gabel, Leonid Grin, Anthony Parnther, Larry Rachleff, Mischa Santora, and Joshua Weilerstein. Ryan has collaborated frequently with the Mark Morris Dance Group, contemporary ensembles eighth blackbird and yarn/wire, Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, and has been a returning artist at the Tanglewood Music Center, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, and Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. He will join the roster of senior artists at the Marlboro Music Festival in summer 2023.

    As a teacher, Dr. McCullough has worked to cultivate the kind of multidisciplinary training which will be critical for the next generation of musical artists. He has taught masterclasses in piano performance at Bucknell University, New England Conservatory, Notre Dame University, Cal State Northridge, Washington State University, and Humboldt State University, and has served as piano instructor and chamber music coach at Cornell University and Bard College Conservatory. Additionally, he has developed four unique intersectional courses: Musical Technologies and the Natural World (Cornell University), an upper division creative seminar exploring the relationships between culture and conceptions of place; The Active Listener (Bard College Conservatory), a course focused on field recording techniques and aesthetics; Technological Musicianship (Cornell University), a general-access course designed during the Covid-19 pandemic to train musicians with the skills needed to produce high-quality digital content in a changing professional landscape; and FutureSounds, a composition seminar and instrument building workshop designed to explore the fundamentals of musical syntax and creativity.

    He holds his Bachelor of Music from Humboldt State University (studying with Deborah Clasquin), Artist Diplomas from the Colburn Conservatory and the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto (John Perry and David Louie), a Masters in Music from University of Southern California (John Perry), and Master of Fine Arts and Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University (Xak Bjerken). He currently teaches at Bard College Conservatory.

    Ryan currently lives in Kingston, NY, with his wife, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon, and cat Coquille.
  • Melissa Reardon
    Viola; Artist in Residence, Bard College

    Melissa Reardon

    Grammy-nominated violist Melissa Reardon is the Artistic Director of the Portland Chamber Music Festival in Portland, ME, Artist in Residence at Bard College and Conservatory and a founding member and the Executive Director of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO).  As a member of the Ensō String Quartet from 2006 until its final season in 2018, Melissa toured both nationally and internationally, with highlight performances in Sydney, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro, New York’s Carnegie Hall, and Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center to name a few.  Melissa won first prize at the Washington International Competition, and is the only violist to win top prizes in consecutive HAMS International viola competitions. She has appeared in numerous festivals across the United States and around the world, including tours with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, and with Musicians from Marlboro. She held the post of Associate Professor of Viola at East Carolina University from 2007 -2013,  and earned degrees from the Curtis Institute of Music and the New England Conservatory. Melissa is married to the cellist Raman Ramakrishnan and they live in NYC with their seven-year-old son Linus.
Powered by Curator.io

Follow @bardcollegeconservatory on Instagram!

Bard College
Bard College
Conservatory of Music
30 Campus Road
Annandale-on-Hudson
New York 12504-5000
845-758-7196
[email protected]
More Music at Bard: 
Bard Music Program
The Orchestra Now
Musical Mentorship Initiative
Contact Us
Visit the Conservatory
Join our Mailing List
Support Us
Accreditation 
Undergraduate Inquiry Form
Graduate Inquiry Form
Virtual Viewbook
Join the Conversation
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube

All photos by Karl Rabe unless stated otherwise.