Skip to main content.
Bard Conservatory
  • Menu sub-menuMenu
      Programs
    • Undergraduate Double Degree
    • Graduate Vocal Arts
    • Graduate Conducting
    • Graduate Instrumental Arts
    • Collaborative Piano Fellowship
    • Advanced Performance Studies
    • MA in Chinese Music and Culture
    • US-China Music Institute
    • Preparatory Division
      About
    • Our Story
    • Facilities
    • Staff
    • Faculty
    • Contact Us
      News + Events
    • Newsroom
    • Events
    • 20th Anniversary
    • Archive
    • Information For:
    • Admitted Undergraduate Students
    • Admitted Graduate Students
  • Bard Conservatory Logo
  • Apply
  • Inquire
  • Events
  • Support
  • Search

     

     

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
  • Visiting Bard
    Interested in visiting Bard for a campus tour or performance? 
    Learn More
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
Learn More
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.

Read More
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.”

Read More
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. 

Read More

Upcoming Events and Performances

  • Laurie Smukler (left) playing the violin and Qing Jiang (right) wearing a blue blouse.; Guest Artist Recital: Laurie Smukler, violin&nbsp;and Qing Jiang, piano
    1/25
    Sunday
    Guest Artist Recital: Laurie Smukler, violin and Qing Jiang, piano 4:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • Hugo Valverde (left) holding a french horn. Enriqueta Somarriba (right) leaning on a building.; Faculty Spotlight Series: Hugo Valverde, horn, with Enriqueta Somarriba, piano
    1/31
    Saturday
    Faculty Spotlight Series: Hugo Valverde, horn, with Enriqueta Somarriba, piano 5:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • Peter Wiley (left) wearing black and holding a cello. Anna Polonsky (right) wearing black and leaning on a piano.; Faculty Spotlight Series: Peter Wiley, cello, with guest artist Anna Polonsky, piano
    2/1
    Sunday
    Faculty Spotlight Series: Peter Wiley, cello, with guest artist Anna Polonsky, piano 4:00 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
  • 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
  • Rosemary Nelis holding a viola.; Alumni/ae Spotlight Series:&nbsp;Rosemary Nelis, viola
    2/27
    Friday
    Alumni/ae Spotlight Series: Rosemary Nelis, viola 7:30 pm
    Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space

Meet Our Faculty

See All Faculty
  • Gil Shaham
    Violin

    Gil Shaham

    Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy Award-winner, also named Musical America’s “Instrumentalist of the Year,” is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

    Highlights of recent years include the acclaimed recording and performances of J.S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin. In the coming seasons in addition to championing these solo works he will join his long time duo partner pianist, Akira Eguchi in recitals throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

    Appearances with orchestra regularly include the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and San Francisco Symphony as well as multi-year residencies with the Orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart and Singapore. With orchestra, Mr. Shaham continues his exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930s,” including the works of Barber, Bartok, Berg, Korngold, Prokofiev, among many others.

    Mr. Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Many of these recordings appear on Canary Classics, the label he founded in 2004. His CDs include 1930s Violin Concertos, Virtuoso Violin Works, Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Hebrew Melodies, The Butterfly Lovers and many more. His most recent recording in the series 1930s Violin Concertos Vol. 2, including Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto and Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2, was nominated for a Grammy Award. He will release a new recording of Beethoven and Brahms Concertos with The Knights in 2020.

    Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel, where he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of 7, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, and the following year, took the first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition. He then became a scholarship student at Juilliard, and also studied at Columbia University.

    Gil Shaham was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, and in 2008 he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. In 2012, he was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. He performs on an Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona c1719, with the assistance of Rare Violins In Consortium Artists and Benefactors Collaborative, and lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.
  • Alexandra Knoll
    Oboe

    Alexandra Knoll

    Alexandra was born in Zimbabwe and emigrated to South Africa at age eleven. After graduating from high school, she worked professionally for two years in the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra and then moved to the United States for further studies. She is an alumna of the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Alexandra is much in demand as an oboist in New York City. She is Associate Principal Oboist of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Principal Oboist of the American Symphony Orchestra and a member of New York City Opera. Alexandra frequently plays with the Metropolitan Opera, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra and the Knights. On Broadway, she was the oboist for “Mary Poppins”, “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Miss Saigon” and has been featured on recordings by Rufus Wainwright, Lenny Kravitz, Antony and the Johnsons and Baby Dee. Alexandra is on the oboe faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Maxim Moston, their daughter and cats.
  • Teresa Buchholz
    Undergraduate Voice, Undergraduate Opera Workshop

    Teresa Buchholz

    Versatile mezzo-soprano Teresa Buchholz enjoys success in the realms of opera, art song and oratorio. Verdi’s Requiem is quickly becoming a staple of her repertoire, and she has recently performed the work with True Concord Chorus and Orchestra (Tucson, AZ), the Helena Symphony (Helena, MT), the New Jersey Choral Society, the Lake Como Music Festival (Italy), and will perform the work with Long Beach Symphony (CA) in 2021. Some recent performances include Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall with Distinguished Concerts International New York, several Holiday concerts with The Greenwich Choral Society and a guest recital at her alma mater, The University of Northern Iowa. In March 2019 she performed Alexander Nevsky with the Anchorage Symphony, and 2018/19 marked the debut of a newly formed collaboration with Bard colleagues Erika Switzer and Marka Gustavsson, The Blithewood Ensemble, which has performed a program of chamber music as part of the Downtown Music at Grace series (White Plains, NY) at the Hudson Hall (Hudson, NY) and Bitò Hall at Bard College. She recently soloed with the New Jersey Choral Society on a concert featuring Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 and Choral Fantasy, and performed the role of Domna Ivanovna Sobyrova in a staged production of “The Tsar’s Bride” by Rimsky-Korsakov as part of the Bard Music Festival. In December 2018 she soloed in Handel’s Messiah at the Bardavon Theatre in Poughkeepsie, and the previous Fall she was heard as Anne in Virgil Thomson’s The Mother of Us All in a highly acclaimed production that took place in Hudson NY, in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with The Orchestra Now at Bard College and in the role of Berta in a New York City concert version of the rarely heard opera Il Grillo del Focolare by Riccardo Zandonai. In past years she has been heard in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Rhode Island Civic Chorale and Orchestra, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 at Lincoln Center with the National Chorale, a staged version of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Gulfshore Opera, Vivaldi’s Gloria with the Berkshire Bach Society and the Stamford Symphony, and Bach’s Magnificat with Voices of Ascension. Other recent performances have included the role of Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd with Opera Roanoke; Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus with the Asheville Lyric Opera; the title role in Giulio Cesare in Egitto with Opera Roanoke; Mozart’s Requiem with the Tulsa Symphony, the Stamford Symphony, and Voices of Ascension; Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody at the Bard Music Festival; Berio’s Folk Songs at the Gateway Chamber Orchestra, where she had previously performed Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde; and Handel’s Messiah at Lincoln Center with Distinguished Concerts International New York. In 2013 she was the winner of the female division in the Nico Castel International Master Singer Competition. Buchholz holds a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from the University of Northern Iowa, a master’s degree in vocal performance from Indiana University, and an Artist Diploma from Yale University. She has taught at Bard since 2012 where she teaches private voice lessons and is one of the producers and vocal coaches for Bard’s undergraduate Opera Workshop.
  • Raman Ramakrishnan
    Cello & Chamber Music, Bard Conservatory of Music; Artist in Residence, Bard College

    Raman Ramakrishnan

    As a member of the Horszowski Trio, cellist Raman Ramakrishnan has performed across North America, Europe, India, Japan, and in Hong Kong, and recorded for Bridge Records and Avie Records. For eleven seasons, as a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet, he performed around the world. Mr. Ramakrishnan is currently an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society. Mr. Ramakrishnan has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and has performed chamber music at Caramoor, at Bargemusic, with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and at the Aspen, Bard, Charlottesville, Four Seasons, Kingston, Lincolnshire (UK), Marlboro, Mehli Mehta (India), Oklahoma Mozart, and Vail Music Festivals. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in New Delhi and Agra, India and in Cairo, Egypt. He has served on the faculties of the Taconic and Norfolk Chamber Music Festivals, as well as at Columbia University.

    Mr. Ramakrishnan was born in Athens, Ohio and grew up in East Patchogue, New York. His father is a molecular biologist and his mother is the children's book author and illustrator Vera Rosenberry. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a Master’s degree in music from The Juilliard School. His principal teachers have been Fred Sherry, Andrés Díaz, and André Emelianoff. He lives in New York City with his wife, the violist Melissa Reardon, and their young son. He plays a Neapolitan cello made by Vincenzo Jorio in 1837.
Powered by Curator.io

Follow @bardcollegeconservatory on Instagram!

Bard College
Bard College
Conservatory of Music
30 Campus Road
Annandale-on-Hudson
New York 12504-5000
845-758-7196
[email protected]
More Music at Bard: 
Bard Music Program
The Orchestra Now
Musical Mentorship Initiative
Contact Us
Visit the Conservatory
Join our Mailing List
Support Us
Accreditation 
Undergraduate Inquiry Form
Graduate Inquiry Form
Virtual Viewbook
Join the Conversation
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube

All photos by Karl Rabe unless stated otherwise.