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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.

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  • Visiting Bard
    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 black and white archival photo of a man at a piano

Bard Conservatory of Music Announces Seventh Annual Kurtág Festival Honoring György Kurtág’s 100th Birthday, March 11–April 4

The 2026 edition highlights the clarity, precision, and expressive depth of Kurtág’s music.

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two men raise their hands to conduct against a black backdrop

Bard Conservatory Orchestra Innovation and Legacy Concert Featured in China Daily and Xinhua

The concert, notes Xinhua, was “more than a performance—it was a profound musical dialogue across eras and cultures.”

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The Eighth Annual China Now Music Festival Reviewed in <em>China Daily</em>

The Eighth Annual China Now Music Festival Reviewed in China Daily

The final performance of the festival, a chamber opera and dance concert by the Bard East/West Ensemble, will take place on October 5 at 3 pm at Jazz at Lincoln Center. 

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Upcoming Events and Performances

  • A blurred black and white image of three fingers.; Undergraduate Degree Recital: Andrew Altrock, piano
    2/7
    Saturday
    Undergraduate Degree Recital: Andrew Altrock, piano 7:30 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • A piano lit on an empty stage.; Undergraduate Degree Recital: Maggie Yang, mezzo-soprano
    2/8
    Sunday
    Undergraduate Degree Recital: Maggie Yang, mezzo-soprano 7:30 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • The Sound of Spring
    2/14
    Saturday
    The Sound of Spring
    A Chinese New Year Concert with The Orchestra Now

    3:00 pm
    Fisher Center, Sosnoff Theater
  • Teresa Buchholz (left) with hair styled up, wearing long earrings. Kayo Iwama (right) wearing a colorful blouse.; Faculty Spotlight Series: Teresa Buchholz, mezzo-soprano and Kayo Iwama, piano
    2/14
    Saturday
    Faculty Spotlight Series: Teresa Buchholz, mezzo-soprano and Kayo Iwama, piano 7:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • An empty recital hall.; Third Year Recital:&nbsp;Elizabeth Bennett, flute
    2/15
    Sunday
    Third Year Recital: Elizabeth Bennett, flute 2:00 pm
    Olin Hall

Meet Our Faculty

See All Faculty
  • David Sytkowski
    Aural Skills, Undergraduate Vocal Coaching, Undergraduate Opera Workshop

    David Sytkowski

    David Sytkowski, pianist and vocal coach, is a Visiting Artist in Residence at Bard College, where he is Director of Music for Opera Workshop, coaches singers, teaches private piano, and teaches Aural Skills.



    In September 2019, he made his Joe’s Pub debut in Under The Influence with legendary cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond. This led to Auntie Glam’s Happy Hour, a weekly livestream during the initial COVID-19 shut down that New York Times critic Zachary Woolf proclaimed one of “The Best of the Year’s At-Home Divas” in December 2020.



    As principal music coach for the Bard SummerScape festival for six years, he has prepared Korngold’s Die tote Stadt and Das Wunder Der Heliane, Rubenstein’s Demon, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride, Dvorak’s Dimitrij, Mascagni’s Iris, Smyth’s The Wreckers, and Weber’s Euryanthe.



    Other recent engagements include the New York premiere of Gregory Spears’s Fellow Travelers for the PROTOTYPE festival in January 2018, Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein’s The Mother of Us All for the reopening of the Hudson Opera House in Fall 2017 with R.B. Schlather, Berkshire Opera Festival’s inaugural production of Madama Butterfly, Hindemith's The Long Christmas Dinner and Von Schillings's Mona Lisa with American Symphony Orchestra. He frequently appears as a symphony pianist and collaborator at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • Stephanie Blythe
    Artistic Director, Graduate Vocal Arts Program

    Stephanie Blythe

    A renowned opera singer and recitalist, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is considered one of the most highly respected and critically acclaimed artists of her generation. Her repertoire ranges from Handel to Wagner, German lieder to contemporary and classic American song. Ms. Blythe has performed on many of the world's great stages, such as Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Paris National Opera and San Francisco, Chicago Lyric and Seattle Operas. Ms. Blythe was named Musical America's Vocalist of the Year in 2009, received an Opera News Award in 2007 and won the Tucker Award in 1999. Ms. Blythe recently released her first crossover recording on the Innova label with pianist Craig Terry. Ms. Blythe has sung in many of the renowned opera houses in the US and Europe including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and the Opera National de Paris. Her many roles include the title roles in Carmen, Samson et Dalila , Orfeo ed Euridice, La Grande Duchesse, Tancredi, Mignon, and Giulio Cesare; Frugola, Principessa, and Zita in Il Trittico, Fricka in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Azucena in Il Trovatore, Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera, Baba the Turk in The Rake's Progress, Ježibaba in Rusalka, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, Mere Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites; Mistress Quickly in Falstaff, and Ino/Juno in Semele. She also created the role of Gertrude Stein in Ricky Ian Gordon's 27 at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Ms. Blythe has also appeared with many of the world's finest orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Orchestra of New York, Minnesota Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Ensemble Orchestre de Paris, and the Concertgerbouworkest. She has also appeared at the Tanglewood, Cincinnati May, and Ravinia festivals, and at the BBC Proms. The many conductors with whom she has worked include Harry Bicket, James Conlon, Charles Dutoit, Mark Elder, Christoph Eschenbach, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Alan Gilbert, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Nicola Luisotti, Sir Charles Mackerras, John Nelson, Antonio Pappano, Mstislav Rostropovitch, Robert Spano, Patrick Summers, and Michael Tilson Thomas. A frequent recitalist, Ms. Blythe has been presented in recital in New York by Carnegie Hall in Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, Lincoln Center in both its Great Performers Series at Alice Tully Hall and its American Songbook Series at the Allen Room, Town Hall, the 92nd Street Y, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has also been presenter by the Vocal Arts Society and at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC; the Cleveland Art Song Festival, the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Shriver Hall in Baltimore, and San Francisco Performances. A champion of American song, Ms. Blythe has premiered several song cycles written for her including Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson by the late James Legg, Covered Wagon Woman by Alan Smith which was commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and recorded with the ensemble (CMS Studio Recordings); and Vignettes: Ellis Island, also by Alan Smith and featured in a special television program entitled Vignettes: An Evening with Stephanie Blythe and Warren Jones. Ms Blythe starred in the Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcasts of Orfeo ed Euridice, Il Trittico, Rodelinda, and the complete Ring Cycle. She also appeared in PBS's Live From Lincoln Center broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic's performance of Carousel and her acclaimed show, We'll Meet Again: The Songs of Kate Smith. Her recordings include her solo album, as long as there are songs (Innova), and works by Mahler, Brahms, Wagner, Handel and Bach (Virgin Classics). Ms. Blythe's many engagements have also included her return to the Metropolitan Opera for The Rake's Progress, the Lyric Opera of Chicago for Il Trovatore, the Seattle Opera for Semele, Samson et Dalilah with the Atlanta Symphony and Carnegie Hall for a recital in Stern Auditorium. Last season she performed with the San Francisco Opera as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and the Houston Grand Opera as Nettie Fowler in Carousel. She also performed her new program, Sing, America! at Carnegie Hall. Next season she returns to Opera Philadelphia for the title role in Tancredi, brings her acclaimed performance of Gertrude Stein in Ricky Ian Gordon's 27 to New York's City Center, and returns to Palm Beach as Ruth in performances of The Pirates of Penzance. Ms. Blythe was named Musical America’s Vocalist of the Year for 2009. Her other awards include the 2007 Opera News Award and the 1999 Richard Tucker Award. She is also the Artistic Director of the Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar at the Crane School of Music.
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Bard College
Bard College
Conservatory of Music
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Annandale-on-Hudson
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All photos by Karl Rabe unless stated otherwise.