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.
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.
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.
Hailed as one of the most energetic, passionate, and respected pipa masters, Yang Jin graduated from the renowned Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and subsequently taught at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music. Yang has won many awards. In 2004, she earned the prestigious Golden Bell Award for Music in China, and in 2024, she won a Silver Award at the Global Music Awards. Jin collaborates with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and has performed at esteemed venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and Harris Theater. She is an instructor at the University of Delaware’s Master Players Concert & Festival and serves as a judge for the Hummingbird International Music Competition at the Eastman School of Music.
Yang Jin has performed as a soloist with many prominent orchestras, including the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Macao Chinese Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Japan's Royal City Orchestra, the Chinese Orchestra of the Central Conservatory of Music, the Oriental Chinese Orchestra and The Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh. She was also the featured pipa performer at the 2020 Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival for the World Premiere of Quintet: Four Inscapes, composed by Ross Edwards. Since 2013, Yang Jin has led various crossover ensembles, including the Pittsburgh Purple Bamboo Music Ensemble, the Helio Phoenix Trio, HarmoniZing, Afro Yaqui Music Collective, J4, and the Summer Breeze Jazz Ensemble.
Elaine Douvas
Oboe
Elaine Douvas
Elaine Douvas, oboe, has been principal oboe of the Metropolitan Opera since 1977 and is on the oboe faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Since 1982 she has also served as oboe instructor at The Juilliard School and Woodwind Department Chairman there since 1997. Her career highlights include the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the MET Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, James Levine conducting, and Dutilleux's Les Citations with the MET Chamber Ensemble. Her three CDs include a solo recital and her quartet project "Pleasure is the Law", issued by Boston Records, and "Oboe Divas" on the Oboe Classics label. One of the most influential teachers in the USA, her students hold important positions in more than a dozen major orchestras and university faculties. In the summers, Ms. Douvas is an artist faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School, and she teaches three intensive, one-week oboe seminars: Le Domaine Forget Academy in Quebec, Interlochen (MI) Arts Camp, and the Hidden Valley Music Seminars in Carmel, California. She has given master classes at the Curtis and Cleveland Institutes of Music, the Manhattan and Eastman Schools of Music, the New World Symphony, and the Conservatories of Beijing and Shanghai. Her three albums of demonstration and written commentary for Music Minus One are used by teachers and students across the country. Originally from Port Huron, Michigan, Ms. Douvas trained at the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying with John Mack, at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Her first job was principal oboe of the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Shaw. For many years she has devoted her spare time to figure skating and earned her Gold Medal for Adult "Moves in the Field" in 2006. Photo by John Abbott.
Michaela Martens
Graduate Voice
Michaela Martens
The American mezzo-soprano, Michaela Martens, is known internationally for her portrayals of some of the most difficult dramatic roles in the repertoire.
In addition to her two favorite roles, Klytämnestra/Elektra (San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera) and die Amme/Die Frau ohne Schatten (Chicago Lyric Opera, Oper Graz), her successes in Strauss include Adelaide/Arabella (San Francisco Opera), and Herodias/Salome (The Santa Fe Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Òpera de Columbia).
She has sung such notable roles as Kundry in Parsifal (Metropolitan Opera, Santiago Opera), Gertrud in Hansel and Gretel (Bayerische Staatsoper, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera), Ortrud in Lohengrin (Vienna State Opera, Oper Graz), the 2nd Norn in Götterdämmerung (Metropolitan Opera), and Fricka in Das Rheingold (North Carolina Opera).
Ms. Martens is at home with such composers as Berlioz (Cassandre/Les Troyens, San Francisco Opera, London Philharmonic), Massenet (Hérodiade/Hérodiade, Washington Concert Opera), Giordano (Countess de Coigny/Andrea Chènier, Metropolitan Opera), Bartók (Judith/Bluebeard’s Castle, Metropolitan Opera, New Japan Philharmonic, ENO), Janáček (Kostelnička/Jenůfa, Zürich Opera, ENO), Britten (Mrs. Sedley/Peter Grimes, Metropolitan Opera), Virgil Thomson (Susan B. Anthony/The Mother of Us All, Hudson Opera House, NY), and John Adams (Marilyn Klinghoffer/ The Death of Klinghoffer, Metropolitan Opera, ENO).
Recent concert engagements include Adams/The Gospel According to the Other Mary (St. Louis Symphony at Carnegie Hall), Mahler/das Lied von der Erde (Dallas, Texas), Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Cleveland Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony, Nashville Symphony), Harbison Requiem (live recording and performance, Nashville Symphony), and the Verdi Requiem (Grant Park Music Festival, Spoleto Festival). She made her debut at Carnegie Hall with the American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leon Botstein in the difficult title role of Magnard’s rarely heard Bérénice.
Michaela has worked with such renowned conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Sir Charles Mackerras, James Levine, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Fabio Luisi, Daniele Gatti, Franz Welser-Möst, Bertrand de Billy, Sir Donald Runnicles, Marco Armiliato, Patrick Summers, and David Robertson. As a student at The Juilliard School, she was invited by Maestro Ozawa to sing the role of Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes at the 40th Anniversary of Peter Grimes at Tanglewood and then again for the Seito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto, Japan.
Ms. Martens keeps an active voice studio both at home in the Hudson Valley and as the resident voice teacher for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. She has been a guest clinician and teacher at The Juilliard School and at the University of Washington, her alma mater. Ms. Martens’ students can be heard on the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Opera San Jose, Seattle Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and the Santa Fe Opera, to name but a few. This summer, her students are headed to the Santa Fe Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Charlottesville Opera, Saratoga Opera, and Central City Opera.
As a student growing up in Seattle, Washington, Michaela was lucky enough to fall into the hands Ellen Faull; fearless teacher and mentor, and then after moving to New York, with the brilliant Ruth Falcon who was her teacher for 20 years. May they both Rest in Peace.
A national winner of the Metropolitan Opera (Laffont) competition, she also holds awards from the George London Foundation, the Licia Albanese Foundation, and the DeRosa Foundation.
She shares her home in the Hudson Valley with her two children and their pets: two chocolate Labradors, a tuxedo cat, and an aging bearded dragon.
Pascual MartÃnez-Forteza
Clarinet
Pascual MartÃnez-Forteza
A native of Mallorca, Spain, Acting Associate Principal and E-flat Clarinet Pascual Martínez Forteza joined the New York Philharmonic in 2001, the first and only Spanish musician in the Orchestra’s history. Prior to his appointment with the Philharmonic, he held tenure with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and at age 18 he was assistant principal and later acting principal of the Baleares Symphony Orchestra in Spain. He is regularly invited as guest principal clarinet or e-flat with some of the most important orchestras in USA including the MET, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Dallas, St Louis... He has performed as guest principal clarinet with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. Mr. Martínez Forteza appears regularly as a soloist, recitalist, and master-class teacher at international festivals and conservatories. Past and future engagements include solo performances of Copland’s Clarinet Concerto, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, Weber’s Clarinet Concertos, Krommer’s Concerto for Two Clarinets, Rossini’s Introduction, Theme and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra, and Luigi Bassi’s Fantasy on Themes from Verdi’s Rigoletto. He frequently collaborates with Philharmonic colleagues in New York City venues such as Avery Fisher Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, and Carnegie Hall. Since 2003 Mr. Martínez Forteza and Spanish pianist Gema Nieto have played throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States as Duo Forteza-Nieto. Together they founded the Benifaio Music Festival in Spain, where Philharmonic colleagues have joined them for a week of master classes and concerts. The Duo Forteza-Nieto recently received the 2016 Sunshine Award for Outstanding Performing Arts Classical and Latin Music. Pascual Martínez Forteza started playing clarinet at age ten with his father, Pascual V. Martínez, principal clarinet of the Baleares Symphony Orchestra for 30 years and teacher at the Baleares Conservatory of Music in Spain. Mr. Martínez Forteza earned his master’s degree from the Baleares and Liceo de Barcelona Music Conservatories in Spain and pursued advanced studies with Yehuda Gilad at the University of Southern California, where he won first prize in the university’s 1998 Concerto Competition. Mr. Martínez Forteza is currently a faculty member at Manhattan School of Music, New York University and auxiliary teacher at Juilliard School. A Buffet Crampon Artist and Vandoren Artist, he plays Green Line Tosca Buffet clarinets and uses Vandoren reeds and M30D mouthpieces.