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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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Edward Carroll

Edward Carroll’s long and distinguished career has taken many twists and turns. It began as an orchestral musician at age 21 with his appointment to the Houston Symphony, detoured back to Juilliard (BM, MM) and New York City as a trumpet soloist making over 20 recordings on the Sony, Vox, MHS, and Newport Classic labels and performing with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, matured as he conducted his first concerts, detoured once again as he fulfilled a lifelong dream of moving to Europe assuming the position of principal trumpet of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, eventually embarked on what has become a distinguished teaching career and now, in the final quarter of his musical journey, returned to his life-long passion of conducting. Mr. Carroll has served on the faculties of the Rotterdam Conservatory, London’s Royal Academy of Music, McGill University, the Bard Conservatory, and the California Institute of the Arts. He has performed with conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Bernard Haitink, Valery Gergiev, James Conlon, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Simon Rattle in concert halls around the world, listing Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Grosser Musikvereinsaal, Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall amongst his favorites. He has appeared as a soloist with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, Virtuosi di Roma, the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and a variety of North American orchestras. Edward Carroll’s recordings conducting the Metamorphosis Ensemble of London (Cantoris) and Chamber Soloists of Washington (Sony) have received critical acclaim, as have his many performances conducting the Peruvian National Symphony and National Youth Orchestras. In addition to teaching and conducting, Edward Carroll is currently the director of the Center for Advanced Musical Studies (www.chosenvalemusic.org) where he presents the annual Chosen Vale International Seminars with friends such as Hakan Hardenberger, John Wallace, Markus Stockhausen, Mark Gould, Colin Currie, and Steve Reich. Author Alexander McGrattan states in his book THE TRUMPET (Yale University Press) that “the work of Ed Carroll has been seminal to the creation of a new generation of adventurous young trumpet players since his work at the Rotterdam Conservatory and the establishment of the Lake Placid Music Seminars in the mid-1990s in New York State.” Mr. Carroll feels otherwise but perhaps that can be left for another biography.