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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.

More About Us
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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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Meet Our Faculty

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  • Jenny Q Chai
    Piano Masterclasses; Chinese Admissions Ambassador

    Jenny Q Chai

    An artist of singular vision, pianist Jenny Q Chai is widely renowned for her

    ability to illuminate musical connections throughout the centuries. With radical

    joie de vivre and razor-sharp intention, Chai creates layered multimedia

    programs which explore and unite elements of science, nature, fashion, and art.

    The New Yorker describes Chai as “a pianist whose dazzling facility is matched

    by her deep musicality.”

    Chai’s instinctive understanding of new music is complemented by a deep

    grounding in core repertoire, with special affinity for Schumann, Scarlatt

    Beethoven, Bach, Debussy, and Ravel. She is a noted interpreter of 20th-century

    masters Cage, Messiaen, and Ligeti, and her career is threaded through with

    strong relationships and close collaborations with a range of notable contemporary

    composers, including Tan Dun, Jarosław Kapuściński, Andy Akiho, Pamela Z,

    Lukas Ligeti, Cindy Cox, Annie Gosfield and György Kurtág. With a deft poeti

    touch, Chai weaves this wide-ranging repertoire into a gorgeous and lucid

    musical tapestry. Chai is also a vital champion and early tester of the groundbreaking

    synchronous score following software program, Antescofo. Developed at IRCAM by

    scientist Arshia Cont, the software offers a real time computer and animation respons

    to live performance elements, enabling performers to create multimedia presentations

    of AI sophisticated and expressive fluency. Chai explored and helped hone Antescof

    in residence at IRCAM alongside frequent collaborator Jarosław Kapuściński, and has

    since toured internationally with the software offering multimedia performances i

    Shanghai, New York, Havana, and elsewhere. In September 2019, Chai gave a TEDx

    Talk titled When Classical Music Meets Technology.

    Other notable highlights include her 2024 Shanghai Symphony Hall Audiovisual AI

    Concert, 2012 Carnegie Hall recital debut; many

    performances at (le) Poisson Rouge, including a 2016 Antescofo-supported

    program, Where’s Chopin?; her 2018 Wigmore Hall debut with a program

    exploring the relation between color and sound; lectures and recitals at Shanghai

    Symphony Hall, Shanghai Concert Hall, and Shanghai Mercedes Benz Arena; a

    featured performance at Tan Dun’s International Music Medicine Festival in Qingdao;

    the Leo Brouwer Festival in Havana, Cuba; Philippe Manoury’s double-piano concerto,

    Zones de turbulences, at the Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary

    Music with duo partner, pianist Adam Kośmieja and the Polish National Radio

    Symphony Orchestra; and much more.



    Her immersive approach to music is also channeled into her work with FaceArt Institute

    of Music, the Shanghai-based organization she founded and runs, offering musi

    education and an international exchange of music and musicians in China and beyond.

    In summer 2019, Chai oversees FaceArt’s first ever month-long Co-Creation Summe

    Festival, which invites International piano and composition faculty. Additionally, Chai

    served on the Board of Directors of the New York City-based contemporary music

    organization Ear to Mind, and has published a doctoral dissertation on Marco Stroppa’s

    Miniature Estrose which is collected by many schools including Stanford and Harvard

    University.

    Chai has recorded for labels such as Divine Art, Deutschlandfunk, Naxos, ArpaViva and

    MSR. In 2010, she released her debut recording, New York Love Songs, featuring

    interpretations of works by Cage and Ives among others, and her most recent

    recording, (S)yn(e)sth(e)te, was released by MSR Records in 2017. She can also be

    heard on Michael Vincent Waller’s Five Easy Pieces and Cindy Cox’s Hierosgamos. In

    2021, her newest album on Bach, Ives and Schumann Kreisleriana received positive

    reviews globally. The album was featured by Apple Music as one of its selected best

    Classical Music albums.

    The recipient of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust’s 2011 Pianist/Composer Commissionin

    Project, the DAAD Arts and Performance award in 2010, Chamber Music America

    commissioning award and first prize winner of the Keys to the Future Contemporar

    Solo Piano Festival, Jenny Q Chai studied at the Shanghai Music Conservatory, the

    Curtis Institute of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, and in Cologne University of

    Music and Dance. Her teachers include Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Seymour Lipkin,

    Solomon Mikowsky, Marilyn Nonken, and Anthony de Mare.

    Academically, Chai has given lecture recitals at universities such as Stanford, Harvard,

    University of California Berkeley, NYU, Shanghai Conservatory and more.

    Chai is a former piano faculty member of the University of California Berkeley, an

    alumni mentor at Curtis Institute of Music and an official career mentor at Manhatt

    School of Music. In 2022, Chai became Fazioli Global Piano Ambassador.

    Chai is a social activist who works passionately on environmental causes through her

    music and runs a personal animal shelter. She has rescued over one hundred small

    animals in China since the pandemic and is an active donor to many animal rescue

    organizations.
  • Hongmei Yu
    Erhu

    Hongmei Yu

    A graduate of the Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM), Yu Hongmei is one of the most brilliant erhu virtuosos as well as the most influential erhu educator in contemporary China. She currently serves as the Dean of the Chinese Music Department in CCOM, and is the designated guest erhu soloist for the China National Traditional Orchestra. Yu Hongmei maintains an active solo career in erhu performing. She has toured Europe, America, Africa, and many regions in Asia, and has successfully held hundreds of recitals in the United States, France, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong and mainland China. Her album String Glamour won the Best Traditional World Music award by Indie Music in the United States. She was the first Chinese recipient honored for this award in its 30-year history. Yu Hongmei has premiered many classic erhu works and core repertoires, and has produced exemplary works embodying different times in Chinese history: Dreams of Jinghua, Eight Banners, Tianxiang, West Rhapsody. She has appeared in many world class concert halls: Musikverein (Golden Hall in Vienna), Carnegie Hall in New York, Avery Fisher Hall of Lincoln Center, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Lucerne Concert Hall at KKL Luzern. She participated in many major performance events such as American Culture in China, New Culture in Australia with Chinese Culture, Spring Prague in the Czech Republic, Chinese Arts Festival, Beijing International Music Festival, Shanghai International Arts Festival, German Music Festival, and the Macao Arts Festival. As an educator, Yu Hongmei recorded Erhu by Maestros, and edited and published Collections of Erhu Works presented by China Central Television, the most predominant state television broadcaster. Her publications, such as Dynamics in Erhu Performance and How to play A Flower (an erhu piece by Song Fei) are well recognized and widely cited in Chinese music journals. Yu Hongmei has been invited to lecture at various institutions including California Institute of the Arts and the City University of Hong Kong. New York Concert Journal complimented her on her exquisite touching sounds as she “represents the contemporary spirit of Chinese musical culture.” Joining the US-China Music Institute of Bard Conservatory of Music, Yu Hongmei continues committing herself to preserving cultural heritage, promoting and developing Chinese music in America.
  • Jin Yang
    Pipa

    Jin Yang

    Hailed as one of the most energetic, passionate, and respected pipa masters, Yang Jin graduated from the renowned Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and subsequently taught at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music. Yang has won many awards. In 2004, she earned the prestigious Golden Bell Award for Music in China, and in 2024, she won a Silver Award at the Global Music Awards. Jin collaborates with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and has performed at esteemed venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Harris Theater. She is an instructor at the University of Delaware’s Master Players Concert & Festival and serves as a judge for the Hummingbird International Music Competition at the Eastman School of Music.

    Yang Jin has performed as a soloist with many prominent orchestras, including the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Macao Chinese Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Japan's Royal City Orchestra, the Chinese Orchestra of the Central Conservatory of Music, the Oriental Chinese Orchestra and The Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh. She was also the featured pipa performer at the 2020 Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival for the World Premiere of Quintet: Four Inscapes, composed by Ross Edwards. Since 2013, Yang Jin has led various crossover ensembles, including the Pittsburgh Purple Bamboo Music Ensemble, the Helio Phoenix Trio, HarmoniZing, Afro Yaqui Music Collective, J4, and the Summer Breeze Jazz Ensemble.
  • Erika Switzer
    Assistant Professor of Music, Bard College; Director, Postgraduate Collaborative Piano Fellowship, Undergraduate and Graduate Diction, Undergraduate and Graduate Vocal Coaching, Conservatory of Music

    Erika Switzer

    Erika Switzer is an internationally active pianist, teacher, and arts administrator. She has performed on the stages of New York’s Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall), David Geffen Hall (Lincoln Center), Frick Collection, and Bargemusic, and at the Kennedy Center, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Spoleto Festival, Mostly Mozart, Bard Music Festival, and Stanford Live. During a seven-year sojourn in Germany, she performed at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Munich Winners & Masters series, and won numerous awards, including best pianist prizes at the Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf, and Wigmore Hall International Song Competitions. European appearances also include recitals for Pro Musicis at the Salle Cortot in Paris, Académie Francis Poulenc at the L’Hôtel de ville de Tours, and Göppingen Meisterkonzerte. Recent premieres include the 5 Boroughs Music Festival Songbook II (Matthew Aucoin, Jonathan Dawe, Evan Fein, Whitney George, Laura Kaminsky, Missy Mazzoli, Paola Prestini, Kamala Sankaram); Brooklyn Art Song Society (Andrew Staniland); and Vancouver’s Music on Main (Jocelyn Morlock, Caroline Shaw, Jeffrey Ryan). Switzer has been recorded by the CBC, Dutch Radio (Radio 4), SWR and the Bayerische Rundfunk in Germany, WQXR New York, and WGBH Boston. A recent recording release, English Songs à la française, features her long-standing duo partnership with baritone Tyler Duncan. Together with soprano Martha Guth, she created Sparks & Wiry Cries (sparksandwirycries.org), which contributes to the future of art song performance through publication of The Art Song Magazine, presentation of the songSLAM festival in New York City, and the commission of new works. In addition to teaching in Bard’s undergraduate Music Program, Switzer works with the Graduate Vocal Arts Program on diction for singers, vocal coaching, and chamber music, and directs the Postgraduate Collaborative Piano Fellowship. BM, MM (solo piano), University of British Columbia; MM, Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, Germany; DM (collaborative piano), The Juilliard School. At Bard since 2010.
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Bard College
Bard College
Conservatory of Music
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All photos by Karl Rabe unless stated otherwise.