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.
A dual opera performance featuring Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amelia Goes to the Ball and Giacomo Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, performed by the Bard College Conservatory of Music and Graduate Vocal Arts Program, was reviewed in the Millbrook Independent. “Both witty operettas celebrate skillful women in a male-dominated society,” wrote Kevin McEneaney.
Artist in Residence; Visiting Assistant Professor of Music; Piano
Blair McMillen
B.A., B.M., Oberlin College; M.M., The Juilliard School; D.M.A., Manhattan School of Music. Pianist, chamber musician, improviser, concert series curator. Appearances as soloist at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, le Poisson Rouge, Moscow Conservatory, Casals Hall (Tokyo), Miller Theatre. Has performed with American Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Albany Symphony, Juilliard Orchestra (Lincoln Center and tour of Japan). Profiled by New York Times, Washington Post, Accent, others. Member, Da Capo Chamber Players, American Modern Ensemble, Avian Orchestra. Pianist for St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (spring 2011). Solo recordings include Soundings (Midnight Productions), Concert Music of Fred Hersch (Naxos), Multiplicities '38 (Centaur). At Bard since 2006.
Ryan MacEvoy McCullough
Visiting Lecturer of Music Theory, Vocal Coach, Pianist
Ryan MacEvoy McCullough
Born in Boston and raised behind the “Redwood Curtain” of northern California, pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough has developed a variegated career as soloist, vocal and instrumental collaborator, composer, recording artist, and pedagogue. Ryan’s music-making encompasses work with historical keyboards, electro-acoustic tools and instruments, and close collaborations with some of today’s foremost composers. His longstanding collaborative (and life) partnership with soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon has yielded a substantial crop of new art song repertoire, as well as his work in contemporary ensemble and commissioning project HereNowHear, 2017 recipient of a Fromm Foundation award.
Ryan’s growing discography features many world premiere recordings, including solo piano works of Milosz Magin (Acte Prealable), Andrew McPherson (Secrets of Antikythera, Innova), John Liberatore (Line Drawings, Albany), Nicholas Vines (Hipster Zombies from Mars, Navona), art song and solo piano music of John Harbison and James Primosch with Ms. Fitz Gibbon (Descent/Return, Albany), and art song by Sheila Silver (Beauty Intolerable, Albany, also with Ms. Fitz Gibbon). He is also founder of False Azure Records, which released its inaugural album in 2022 featuring music by Katherine Balch and Dante De Silva (The Labor of Forgetting), and will be releasing a second album in 2023 featuring music by Christopher Stark, John Liberatore, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Ryan has also appeared on PBS’s Great Performances (Now Hear This, “The Schubert Generation”) and is an alumnus of NPR’s From the Top.
As concerto soloist Ryan has appeared frequently with orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Festival Orchestra, Colburn Conservatory Orchestra, Orange County Wind Symphony, and World Festival Orchestra, with such conductors as George Benjamin, Gisele Ben-Dur, Fabien Gabel, Leonid Grin, Anthony Parnther, Larry Rachleff, Mischa Santora, and Joshua Weilerstein. Ryan has collaborated frequently with the Mark Morris Dance Group, contemporary ensembles eighth blackbird and yarn/wire, Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, and has been a returning artist at the Tanglewood Music Center, Token Creek Chamber Music Festival, and Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice. He will join the roster of senior artists at the Marlboro Music Festival in summer 2023.
As a teacher, Dr. McCullough has worked to cultivate the kind of multidisciplinary training which will be critical for the next generation of musical artists. He has taught masterclasses in piano performance at Bucknell University, New England Conservatory, Notre Dame University, Cal State Northridge, Washington State University, and Humboldt State University, and has served as piano instructor and chamber music coach at Cornell University and Bard College Conservatory. Additionally, he has developed four unique intersectional courses: Musical Technologies and the Natural World (Cornell University), an upper division creative seminar exploring the relationships between culture and conceptions of place; The Active Listener (Bard College Conservatory), a course focused on field recording techniques and aesthetics; Technological Musicianship (Cornell University), a general-access course designed during the Covid-19 pandemic to train musicians with the skills needed to produce high-quality digital content in a changing professional landscape; and FutureSounds, a composition seminar and instrument building workshop designed to explore the fundamentals of musical syntax and creativity.
He holds his Bachelor of Music from Humboldt State University (studying with Deborah Clasquin), Artist Diplomas from the Colburn Conservatory and the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto (John Perry and David Louie), a Masters in Music from University of Southern California (John Perry), and Master of Fine Arts and Doctor of Musical Arts from Cornell University (Xak Bjerken). He currently teaches at Bard College Conservatory.
Ryan currently lives in Kingston, NY, with his wife, soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon, and cat Coquille.
Derek Fenstermacher
Tuba
Derek Fenstermacher
Currently principal tubist with both the New Jersey and Chattanooga Symphony Orchestras, Derek Fenstermacher received his B.M. from the University of Alabama, an M.M. from the Cincinnati College/Conservatory of Music. His primary instructors have included Mark Barton, Timothy Northcut, Demondrae Thurman, Mike Dunn, and Philip Moore, with additional tutelage from Andrew Miller, Warren Deck, Gene Pokorny, Dan Perantoni, Dave Kirk, Cristian Ganicenco, Gil Long, Sam Pilafian, and Pat Sheridan. Mr. Fenstermacher won his first orchestral position at the age of 20 and has since performed with the Nashville Symphony, New World Symphony, Houston Ballet, Alabama Symphony, Cincinnati Chamber, Huntsville Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic, West Virginia Symphony, Mobile Symphony, Tuscaloosa Symphony, and Meridian Symphony Orchestras. As a soloist, he has won many prestigious music competitions, including 1st place at the Leonard Falcone Artist Tuba Competition, and three 1st place awards at the 2008 International Tuba/Euphonium Conference. An avid chamber musician, he currently performs with the Boreas Tuba Quartet, and will be joining the New York Tuba Quartet in 2012. With over 10 years teaching experience, Mr. Fenstermacher has given masterclasses at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Montclair State University, as well as numerous other schools in Alabama, Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, and New Jersey.
Jason Haaheim
Timpani
Jason Haaheim
Jason Haaheim was appointed a Principal Timpanist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2013. In addition to performances at New York's Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Mr. Haaheim can be seen and heard performing with the MET Orchestra on television, international radio, and Live in HD movie theater broadcasts. Guest principal timpanist engagements have included the Seoul Philharmonic, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the Milwaukee Symphony. Mr. Haaheim has also been principal timpanist of the Lakes Area Music Festival, and a resident artist of the Twickenham Festival. A sought-after clinician, Mr. Haaheim gives masterclasses both nationally and internationally, and is a founder of the multi-day Northland Timpani Summit. He is an adjunct faculty member of the NYU Steinhardt School of Music, and a frequent coach for the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) and the New York Youth Symphonies (NYYS). Prior to the Met, Mr. Haaheim was principal timpanist of the Southwest Michigan Symphony and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and he performed regularly as timpanist with the Madison Symphony, Illinois Symphony, Peoria Symphony, and the Illinois Philharmonic. Mr. Haaheim has also been invited to perform as guest principal timpanist with the Chicago Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Glimmerglass Festival, the Auckland Philharmonia, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic. Mr. Haaheim began studying piano in 4th grade, adding percussion studies in 5th grade. He holds a bachelor of arts degree with a double major in honors-music-performance and physics from Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, MN); he also holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from UC-Santa Barbara. Influential teachers have included John Tafoya (Indiana University, National Symphony), Dean Borghesani (Milwaukee Symphony), Jonathan Haas (Aspen Music Festival, NYU), and Robert Adney (Gustavus Adolphus College, MacPhail Music School). While auditioning and freelancing, Mr. Haaheim worked as “Senior Research and Development Engineer” at NanoInk, a Chicago-area tech company. In this capacity, he gave invited talks on nanotechnology, authored multiple peer-reviewed publications, and was granted numerous patents. In 2017, this dual-career path was highlighted in an interview with Melissa Block on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Active in all musical areas, Mr. Haaheim has also performed extensively as a chamber musician and jazz drummer. He collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma in a Civic Orchestra / Silk Road Ensemble performance, and recorded the premiere of Augusta Read Thomas’s “Terpsichore’s Dream” with members of the Chicago Symphony. Mr. Haaheim has performed with Chicago’s ensemble dal niente, and premiered Ryosuke Yagi’s “Mirrors…for timpani” with the UCSB Ensemble of Contemporary Music. Other projects have included drumming for the jazz-fusion quartet “The J3 Intent” and the alt-country band “The Lost Cartographers.” At Gustavus, Mr. Haaheim was selected for the honors recital and won first place in the orchestra’s concerto competition. Extra-musical interests include backpacking and hiking, rock climbing, and both downhill and cross-country skiing.