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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

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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Two classical music maestros side by side

Bard Conservatory Celebrates 20 Years with Landmark Lincoln Center Concert on October 29

Dual Milestone Event Honors Bard College Conservatory’s 20th Anniversary and Leon Botstein’s 50th Year as President, Highlighting a Half-Century of Classical Music and Higher Education

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Upcoming Events and Performances

  • Guest Artist Masterclass:&nbsp;Bal&aacute;zs F&uuml;lei
    12/10
    Wednesday
    Guest Artist Masterclass: Balázs Fülei 1:30 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • Hudson River Brass Quintet
    12/10
    Wednesday
    Hudson River Brass Quintet 4:00 pm
    Olin Hall
  • Guest Artist Recital:&nbsp;Andr&aacute;s Szalai, cimbalom, and Bal&aacute;zs F&uuml;lei, piano
    12/10
    Wednesday
    Guest Artist Recital: András Szalai, cimbalom, and Balázs Fülei, piano
    "En Rêve – Liszt Inspirations"

    7:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • Juliette Benveniste looking at the camera, wearing a black short sleeve lace top and red lipstick. ; Third Year Recital
    12/12
    Friday
    Third Year Recital
    Juliette Benveniste, piano

    12:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • Studio Recital: Trumpet Students of Edward Carroll
    12/12
    Friday
    Studio Recital: Trumpet Students of Edward Carroll 2:00 pm
    Olin Hall

Meet Our Faculty

See All Faculty
  • Adele Anthony
    Violin

    Adele Anthony

    Since her triumph at Denmark’s 1996 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, Adele Anthony has enjoyed an acclaimed and expanding international career. Performing as a soloist with orchestra and in recital, as well as being active in chamber music, Ms. Anthony’s career spans the continents of North America, Europe, Australia, India and Asia.

    In addition to appearances with all six symphonies of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Ms. Anthony’s highlights from recent seasons have included performances with the symphony orchestras of Houston, San Diego, Seattle, Ft. Worth, and Indianapolis, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Being an avid chamber music player, Ms. Anthony appears regularly at La Jolla SummerFest and Aspen Music Festival. Her wide-ranging repertoire extends from the Baroque of Bach and Vivaldi to contemporary works of Ross Edwards, Arvo Pärt and Phillip Glass.

    An active recording artist, Ms. Anthony’s work includes releases with Sejong Soloists, Eric Ewazen, Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra (Albany), a recording of the Philip Glass Violin Concerto with Takuo Yuasa and the Ulster Orchestra (Naxos), Arvo Pärt’s ‘Tabula rasa’ with Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon), and her latest recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Ross Edwards “Maninyas” with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (Canary Classics/ABC Classics).

    Adele Anthony performs on an Antonio Stradivarius violin, crafted in 1728.
  • Honggang Li
    Violin Masterclasses

    Honggang Li

    Honggang Li is the founding member of the Shanghai Quartet, now in it’s 30th season, has performed over two thousand concerts in 30 countries, and can be heard on more than 30 CD albums. Mr. Li began studying the violin with his parents at age seven. When the Central Conservatory of music in Beijing reopened in 1977 after the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Li was selected to attend from a group of over five hundred applicants. He continued his training at the Shanghai Conservatory and co- founded the Shanghai Quartet with his brother Weigang while in his senior year in the conservatory. The quartet soon became the first Chinese quartet to win a major international chamber music competition (the London International) and came to the US in 1985. He received MM of North Illinois University and served as a teaching assistant at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1987, he won the special prize (a 1757 DeCable violin) given by Elisa Pegreffi of Quartetto Italiano at the First Paolo Borciani International Competition in Italy. In addition to his work at the Bard Conservatory of Music Mr. Li is currently also an artist-in-residence and faculty at Montclair State University. He also held the title of artist in residence at University of Richmond in Virginia from 1989 to 2003. He has been the guest professor of both conservatories of Shanghai and Beijing. Mr. Li is also the guest principal violist of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since 2009.
  • 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.
  • Weston Sprott
    Trombone

    Weston Sprott

    Weston Sprott enjoys an exciting career that includes orchestral, chamber, and solo performances, as well as numerous educational and outreach efforts. He is Dean of the Preparatory Division at The Juilliard School, leading Juilliard Pre-College and the Music Advancement Program, and a trombonist in New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, of which he has been a member since 2005. He has been recognized as “an excellent trombonist” with a “sense of style and phrasing [that] takes a backseat to no one”. He is a recipient of the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the Atlanta Symphony Talent Development Program Aspire Award.

    Sprott has performed frequently with the Philadelphia Orchestra, held a position with the Zurich Opera/Philharmonia, and has appeared with numerous other major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, and Oslo Philharmonic. He previously held principal positions with the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra. His chamber music and festival engagements include the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Fesitval (SICMF), Classical Tahoe, Festival Napa Valley, Walla Chamber Music Festival, Chineke!, PRIZM Ensemble, and numerous others.

    As a soloist, Sprott has been featured regularly throughout the United States, Europe, South Africa, and Asia. He made his Carnegie solo debut in 2007 and was a featured soloist with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is 2017. Sprott’s debut album, Act I, was released in 2010 and hailed by the American Record Guide as “an outstanding recording” that “feels the emotion of every note and phrase”.

    A dedicated and tireless teacher, Sprott holds faculty positions at Juilliard Pre-College and Bard College. He previously led the brass department at Mannes College and held faculty positions at Rutgers University, Purchase College, and the Juilliard Music Advancement Program. He also regularly serves on the faculties of SICMF, PRIZM, Curtis Institute of Music’s Summerfest, National Youth Orchestra-USA (NYO-USA) and NYO2. 

    He appeared in Ben Niles’ documentary film Some Kind of Spark, which highlights the impact of music education in the lives of students as they attend Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program. Other documentary film credits include A Wayfarer's Journey:Listening to Mahler, and Rittenhouse Square. His thoughts are also quoted in Rhythms of the Game, a book by former New York Yankees star Bernie Williams. He also works with organizations like Play On Philly and Music Kitchen, and has sponsored educational opportunities and solicited instrument donations for disadvantaged students. His philanthropic spirit was recognized in an article by the Wall Street Journal. He is the Board Chair of the Friends of SICMF, a member of the Bronx Arts Ensemble’s Artistsic Advisory Board, and a member of the Avery Fisher Artist Program's Recommendation Board. Weston is an active speaker, writer, and advisor for diversity and inclusion efforts in classical music. 

    Weston Sprott is an artist/clinician for the Antoine Courtois Instrument Company. He designed and performs exclusively on the Courtois Creation New York trombone. Performances and interviews with Mr. Sprott have been seen and heard on PBS' Great Performances, NPR's Performance Today, MSNBC, and Sirius Satellite Radio. 
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Bard College
Bard College
Conservatory of Music
30 Campus Road
Annandale-on-Hudson
New York 12504-5000
845-758-7196
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All photos by Karl Rabe unless stated otherwise.