Bard Conservatory

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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Photo by Karl Rabe

Offering Unique Undergraduate and Graduate Programs

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The Bard Conservatory also offers a Preparatory Division for students ages 3–18.

News

A professional photo of Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli.

Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli Profiled in the New York Times

“We want the field to expand,” said Mazzoli, “and so bringing in [diversity] helps the field survive and thrive.”

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.

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.

Meet Our Faculty

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Garry Kvistad

Percussion Advisor

Garry Kvistad
Garry Kvistad joins the Bard Conservatory faculty in the fall of 2011 as an advisor to its newly founded percussion program. Garry attended the Interlochen Arts Academy where he studied with Jack McKenzie and Michael Ranta. He earned his BM from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where he studied with Cloyd Duff and Richard Weiner and his MM from Northern Illinois University, where he studied music, art and physics in the pursuit of musical instrument building. In 1993 Northern Illinois University honored him with its Distinguished Alumni Award. In the 1970s, Garry worked with composer/conductor Lucas Foss as a Creative Associate in Buffalo, New York, after which he joined the faculties of Northern Illinois University and the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. During that time he co-founded the Blackearth Percussion Group which recorded and toured in the US, Canada, and Europe. Kvistad has served as the timpanist and percussionist with the Chicago Grant Park Symphony, was a summer Tanglewood Fellow, and a percussionist with the Cabrillo Music Festival Orchestra, California. He joined the percussion ensemble Nexus in the Fall of 2002 when John Wyre, one of the group's original members, retired. He has been performing and recording with Nexus co-founders Bob Becker and Russell Hartenberger since joining Steve Reich and Musicians in 1980. Garry is one of 18 musicians to win a Grammy award for the 1998 recording of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. He has been featured in performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, as well as many others in North America and Europe. The Balinese Gong Kebyar Gamelan ensemble, Giri Mekar, which he formed in 1987, is currently in residence at Bard College. Garry is the founder and CEO of Woodstock Percussion, Inc., makers of Woodstock Chimes® and musical instruments for children. He is a 1995 winner of Ernst & Young/Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Southern New England Region and served as a New York state delegate to the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business. Garry served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Woodstock Guild, Woodstock, NY until 2008; and as a member of the Board of Advisors of The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, Arkville, NY. Garry lives in beautiful upstate New York with his wife Diane, lots of pets and houseplants. They have two daughters, Tasa and Maya, both following artistic paths.
Qiang Zhang

Pipa

Qiang Zhang
A world-famous pipa virtuoso, Professor Zhang Qiang is the Director of the String Instrument Division of the Chinese Music Department at the China Central Conservatory of Music (CCMO). After graduating from CCMO in 1987, Professor Zhang had devoted himself to teaching at CCMO as a pipa instructor for almost three decades. He has been a judge at major domestic and international instrumental music competitions and has been invited to give lectures at many educational institutions. In addition to his traditional approach in systematic technique training, Professor Zhang focuses on the cultivation of students' music awareness and strongly urges his students to explore and display personal character in performing. Many of his students stand out as national winners of China’s highest-level competitions. Professor Zhang is an active performer throughout China and abroad. He has regularly appeared in international music festivals: the Edinburgh International Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center Festival of Contemporary Music, Berlin Art Week, Torino Art Festival, and other festivals held in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. His musical collaborations also include the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra and China National Symphony Orchestra, Dutch New Orchestra, China Symphony Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, China Radio National Orchestra, Shanghai National Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Taipei National Orchestra, Guangdong National Orchestra, Macau Chinese Orchestra and Singapore Chinese Orchestra. He was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall, Musikverein (Golden Hall in Vienna), Lincoln Center in New York City. His work features solo pieces for pipa, concertos, traditional repertoires, and he actively engages in contemporary chamber music. Professor Zhang maintains a lifelong devotion to academic research. Together with three professors from CCMO, he has been working on a historical preservation project, Xian Suo Bei Kao, imparing, performing and eventually completing the full-scale (1814 manuscripts) music on the ancient spectrum of the Qing Dynasty.
Jan Williams

Percussion Advisor

Jan Williams
Jan Williams is a percussion soloist and conductor, who has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. Composers such as Lukas Foss, John Cage, Elliott Carter, Joel Chadabe, Morton Feldman, Orlando Garcia, Gustavo Matamoros, Luis de Pablo, Frederic Rzewski, Nils Vigeland, and Iannis Xenakis have all written music expressly for Jan Williams. Born in Utica, New York on July 17, 1939, Williams later earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music at Manhattan School of Music, where he studied percussion with Paul Price and performed as a member of the American Symphony Orchestra from 1962-1964 under conductor Leopold Stokowski. He was invited to Buffalo as one of the first class of Creative Associates for the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts in 1964 at the University at Buffalo. While at the University at Buffalo, he created the University at Buffalo Percussion Ensemble in 1964. Later, in 1967, he was appointed to the Music Faculty, and served as Chair of the Music Department from 1981-1984. Prior to his retirement in 1996, he also served as artistic director of the Center of the Creative and Performing arts from 1974-1979 and as resident conductor from 1979-1980. He is Professor emeritus at the University at Buffalo where he and John Bergamo founded the University at Buffalo Percussion Ensemble in 1964. He was the ensemble’s director until his retirement in 1996. He is Trustee of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust for New Music. He has recorded for Columbia, Vox/Turnabout, Desto, Lovely Music, Spectrum, Wergo, DGG, Orion, Hat-Art, OO, New World, Deep Listening, EMF Media, and Mode Records. With Yvar Mikhashoff, he was Co-Artistic Director of the North American New Music Festival from 1983-1993.
Weigang Li

Violin Masterclasses

Weigang Li
Born into a family of well-known musicians in Shanghai, Weigang Li began studying the violin with his parents when he was 5 and went on to attend the Shanghai Conservatory Middle School at age 14. Three years later, in 1981, he was selected to go to study for one year at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music through the first cultural exchange program between the sister cities of Shanghai and San Francisco. in 1985, upon graduating from the Shanghai Conservatory, Weigang Li left China to continue his studies at Northern Illinois University and later studied and taught at the Juilliard School. Besides his parents, other important teachers have included Shmuel Ashkenasi, Robert Mann, Tan Shu-Chen and Isadore Tinkleman.

Mr. Li was featured in the 1980 Oscar winning documentary film From Mao to Mozart: IsaacStern in China. He made his solo debut at 17 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as soloist with Shanghai Symphony, China Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony and Asian Youth Orchestra.

Weigang Li is a founding member and first violinist of the world-renowned Shanghai Quartet since 1983. Now in its 37th season, the Shanghai Quartet has performed nearly 3000 concerts in 35 countries and recorded over 30 CD albums, including a highly acclaimed 7-disc set of complete Beethoven String Quartets.

Weigang Li is a violin professor at Bard College Conservatory of Music, Tianjin Juilliard School, and Montclair State University. He also holds the title of guest concert-master of Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, guest professor at both Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

Mr. Li plays on a Antonio Stradivari golden period violin the 'Kneisel, Grün' made in Cremona in 1714, which is on a generous loan from J. A. Beare International Violin Society.