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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A singer in front of an orchestra in Olin Hall

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 portrait of Missy Mazzoli

Bard Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli featured in the New York Times

“That’s what I like about opera: That it’s a music-driven story where every emotion is taken to an extreme.”

US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music Presents Ninth Annual China Now Music Festival, "Chasing Dreams," October 2–11, 2026

This year’s festival “Chasing Dreams” reminds us that the pursuit of dreams is a shared human experience that connects all people.

Professional photo of Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli.

The Galloping Cure by Composer in Residence Missy Mazzoli Featured by the BBC

"Losing someone to addiction [is] hard to have the words for. My attempt to talk about it was to make this piece,” said Mazzoli.

9/19

Saturday

Alumni/ae Spotlight: Sun-Ly Pierce VAP '19, mezzo-soprano, with Kayo Iwama, piano
A Woman Becoming

4:00 pm
Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
10/2

Friday

China Now Music Festival: Chasing Dreams at Carnegie Hall
Bard East/West Ensemble and THE RIFT: Opera in One Act

7:30 pm
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
10/3

Saturday

Celebration: A Concert honoring Joan Tower's 54th year at Bard, "My longtime home"
Presented by the Altalena Artists Collective

4:00 pm
Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
10/3

Saturday

China Now Music Festival: Chasing Dreams at Asia Society
US-China Music Forum: Chasing Dreams

4:30 pm
Asia Society 725 Park Ave. New York City, NY 10021 United States
10/4

Sunday

China Now Music Festival: Chasing Dreams at Kingston
Bard East/West Ensemble conducted by Jindong Cai

3:00 pm
TEMPO Performing Arts Center 29 Wurts Street Kingston, NY, 12401 United States

Meet Our Faculty

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Wu Man

Master Classes

Wu Man
Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso and leading ambassador of Chinese music, Wu Man has carved out a career as a soloist, educator, and composer, giving her lute-like instrument—which has a history of over 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. Through numerous concert tours Wu Man has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions.
Javier Arrebola

Graduate Vocal Arts Program

Javier Arrebola
Over the past decade, Spanish pianist and scholar Javier Arrebola has emerged as an important figure in art song for his creativity, artistry, performances, and scholarship.

Mr. Arrebola is currently Artistic Associate at Renée Fleming’s SongStudio at Carnegie Hall and faculty member at the Tanglewood Music Center. In the past, he has held positions as Co-Artistic Director and Director of the Piano Program at SongFest, Head of Piano in the Program for Singers at Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, Chair of Collaborative Piano at Boston University and Visiting Professor at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. He is also a frequent guest at institutions such as The Juilliard School in New York City, Shanghai’s Conservatory, Boston’s New England Conservatory, University of Minnesota, Bard College, Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, Conservatoire Hector Berlioz in Paris, and The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School of Music in Toronto.

In the last years, Mr. Arrebola’s work and contributions have extended to being the video editor and illustrator of, among other projects, Wigmore Hall’s Schubert in Life & Songs, a seminal series by pianist and scholar Graham Johnson, and of SongFest’s Songs of Unity & Hope, an online event conceived and curated by Mr. Arrebola featuring over 60 countries and 40 different languages from all over the world.

Mr. Arrebola holds a Doctor of Musical Arts Degree and a Master’s Degree in Piano Performance from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, as well as degrees in Piano Performance and Chamber Music from the Madrid Royal Conservatory. His doctoral studies included the public performance of all of Schubert's completed piano sonatas on both historical fortepianos and modern instruments, as well as a thesis on The Unfinished Piano Sonatas of Franz Schubert.
Christopher H. Gibbs

James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Music; Faculty, Bard College Conservatory of Music; Artistic Codirector, Bard Music Festival

Christopher H. Gibbs
Christopher H. Gibbs is executive editor of The Musical Quarterly; editor of The Cambridge Companion to Schubert (1997); author of The Life of Schubert (2000), which has been translated into five languages; coeditor of Franz Liszt and His World (2006) and Franz Schubert and His World (2014); and coauthor of The Oxford History of Western Music, College Edition (2013; 2nd ed., 2018). He is a contributor to New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 19th-Century Music, Schubert durch die Brille, Current Musicology, Opera Quarterly, and Chronicle of Higher Education. Additionally, he has served as program annotator and musicological consultant to the Philadelphia Orchestra (2000– ); musicological director of the Schubertiade at the 92nd Street Y in New York City; musicological adviser for the Schubert Festival at Carnegie Hall (1997); and artistic codirector of the Bard Music Festival (2003– ). Gibbs is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Dissertation Prize of the Austrian Cultural Institute (1992), ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award (1998), and American Council of Learned Societies fellowship (1999–2000). He previously taught at SUNY Buffalo (1993–2003). BA, Haverford College; MA, MPhil, PhD, Columbia University. At Bard since 2002.
Jason Treuting

Percussion

Jason Treuting
Jason Treuting has performed and recorded in venues as diverse as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, the Knitting Factory, the Andy Warhol Museum, Zankel Hall, Lincoln Center, DOM (Moscow) and Le National (Montreal). As a member of So Percussion, he has collaborated with artists and composers including Steve Reich, David Lang, John Zorn, Dan Trueman, tabla master Zakir Hussain, the electronic music duo Matmos and choreographer Eliot Feld. In addition to his work with So, Jason performs improvised music with Simpl, a group with laptop artist/composer Cenk Ergun; Alligator Eats Fish with guitarist Grey McMurray; Little Farm, with guitarist/composer Steve Mackey; QQQ (a quartet consisting of hardinger fiddle, viola, guitar and drums); and Big Farm (a foursome led by Rinde Eckert and Steve Mackey). Jason also composes music. His many compositions for So Percussion include So's third album Amid the Noise, and contributions to Imaginary City, an evening length work that appeared on the Brooklyn Academy of Music's 2009 Next Wave Festival. Recent commissions for other ensembles have included Oblique Music for 4 plus (blank), a concerto for So Percussion and string orchestra for the League of Composers Orchestra; Circus of One, music for a video installation in collaboration with Alison Crocetta; and Diorama, an evening length collaboration with the French choreographers in Project Situ. Jason received his Bachelors in Music and the Performer's Certificate at the Eastman School of Music where he studied percussion with John Beck and drum set and improvisation with Steve Gadd, Ralph Alessi and Michael Cain. He received his Masters in Music along with an Artist Diploma from Yale University where he studied percussion with Robert Van Sice. Jason has also traveled to Japan to study marimba with Keiko Abe and to Bali to study gamelan with Pac I Nyoman Suadin. He joins the Bard Conservatory faculty in the fall of 2011.