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.
Nicholas Schwartz has a diverse career performing across North America, Europe, and Asia. After studying at The Juilliard School with then New York Philharmonic bass trombonist Don Harwood, he moved to San Francisco where he began freelancing throughout the Bay Area.
Since 2010, he has been the principal bass trombonist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra. He has also performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, The Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, San Francisco Ballet, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, St. Lukes Chamber Orchestra, the New York City Opera, Atlanta Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, The Malaysia Philharmonic, Mostly Mozart Festival, and Classical Tahoe.
Yue Li
Dizi
Yue Li
Li Yue is a Chinese bamboo flute (dizi) performer, Associate Professor of Dizi at Tianjin Conservatory of Music, and a graduate advisor. He currently serves as Director of the Wind and Percussion Teaching and Research Office in the Department of Traditional Chinese Music at Tianjin Conservatory of Music, and is also an adjunct dizi instructor at the Central Conservatory of Music. In addition, he is the Deputy Secretary-General of the Xiao and Xun Professional Committee of the China Nationalities Orchestra Society. Li holds a Doctorate in Dizi Performance from the Central Conservatory of Music.
In 2007, he won first place in the Bamboo Flute category at the CCTV National Instrumental Music Television Competition, and in 2009 received the Gold Medal at the Golden Bell Awards for Bamboo Flute. Li was admitted to the Secondary School of the Central Conservatory of Music in 2000, where he studied under renowned dizi masters Zhang Yongfa, Liu Hanyou, Zhan Yongming, Wang Ciheng, and Xin Zhengkui. In 2006, he entered the Central Conservatory of Music to study with Professor Dai Ya, a distinguished dizi performer, educator, and doctoral advisor. In 2022, he was admitted to the doctoral program in Dizi Performance at the Central Conservatory of Music, continuing his studies with Professor Dai Ya.
In recent years, Li has been invited to perform as a dizi soloist with leading orchestras and ensembles worldwide, including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Russian National Folk Chamber Orchestra, the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the China National Symphony Orchestra, and the China National Traditional Orchestra, among many others, giving hundreds of performances.
Li joined the faculty of the US-China Music Institute at Bard in 2025 through USCMI's ongoing partnership with the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.
Sebastian Danila
History Seminar
Sebastian Danila
Sebastian Danila is a composer and music theoretician. He is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in composition and music theory at New York University’s Steinhardt School, where he has been part of the adjunct faculty. His dissertation focuses on the music of Romanian composer Anatol Vieru, particularly his application of pitch sets and sound blocks as compositional strategies. He is also manager of the libraries for The Orchestra Now, the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and the American Symphony Orchestra. His compositions have been widely performed in the United States and Europe. An active writer, he has also contributed program notes ranging from the Baroque period to the 20th century for the ASO, TON and other ensembles.
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.