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. We seek to do so in a just, inclusive, and diverse community.
The Bard Conservatory also offers a Preparatory Division for students ages 3 to 18.
Featured News
Joan Tower’s Cello Concerto A New Day Featured in Times Union
A New Day, a cello concerto released in 2021 by Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts at Bard College, was featured in Times Union. The work, which began as a commission by the Colorado Music Festival, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra, was written while Jeff Litfin, her late husband of 50 years, was dying.
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Bard’s Conservatory of Music Presents Benjamin Hochman Album Release Concert on Nov. 8, 2024
The Bard College Conservatory of Music is pleased to present a celebration of the new album release by renowned pianist and conductor Benjamin Hochman, a lecturer at Bard College Berlin. The event, which takes place on November 8, 2024, at 7 pm in the Bitó Conservatory Building on Bard’s campus, will begin with a reception followed by a piano concert of Hochman’s album Resonance.
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Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts; Composition, Bard College Conservatory of Music
Joan Tower
Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of the most important American composers living today. During a career spanning more than 50 years, she has made lasting contributions to musical life in the United States as composer, performer, conductor, and educator. Her works have been commissioned by major ensembles, soloists, and orchestras, including the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets; soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, and John Browning; and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., among others.
In 1990, Tower became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for her composition Silver Ladders. She was the first composer chosen for a Ford Made in America consortium commission of 65 orchestras. The Nashville Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin recorded that work, Made in America, with Tambor and Concerto for Orchestra for the Naxos label. The top-selling recording won three 2008 Grammy awards: Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance.
From 1969 to 1984, she was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her most popular works. Her first orchestral work, Sequoia, quickly entered the repertory. Tower's tremendously popular five Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been played by over 500 different ensembles. She is currently Asher Edelman Professor of Music at Bard College, where she has taught since 1972.
Her composer-residencies with orchestras and festivals include a decade with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Composer of the Year for their 2010-2011 season, as well as the St. Louis Symphony, the Deer Valley Music Festival, and the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.
Among her recent premieres: White Water (2012), commissioned by Chamber Music Monterey Bay and premiered by the Daedalus Quartet; Stroke (2011), commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; White Granite (2009), commissioned by St. Timothy's Summer Music Festival, Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival, and La Jolla Music Society for SummerFest; Angels(2008), her fourth string quartet, commissioned by Music for Angel Fire and premiered by the Miami String Quartet; Dumbarton Quintet (2008), a piano quintet commissioned by the Dumbarton Oaks Estate (their third commission after Stravinsky and Copland) and premiered by Tower and the Enso String Quartet; Chamber Dance (2006), commissioned, premiered, and toured by Orpheus; and Copperwave (2006), written for the American Brass Quintet and commissioned by The Juilliard School of Music. A Gift (2007), for winds and piano, was commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest and premiered by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (CMS). Other CMS premieres included Trio Cavany (2007) and Simply Purple (2008) for viola, performed by Paul Neubauer.
Her compositions cross many genres: Can I (2007) for youth chorus and percussionist; Copperwave (2006), written for brass quintet; DNA (2003), a percussion quintet commissioned for Frank Epstein and the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble; Fascinating Ribbons (2001), her foray into the world of band music, premiered at the annual conference of College Band Directors; Vast Antique Cubes/Throbbing Still (2000), a solo piano piece for John Browning; Tambor (1998), for the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Mariss Jansons; and her ballet Stepping Stones (1993), commissioned by choreographer Kathryn Posin for the Milwaukee Ballet and revisited by Posin with the Bulgarian Ballet in June 2011.
Joan Tower's music is published by Associated Music Publishers.
Photo by Cynthia Del Conte.
Alexander Farkas
Alexander Technique
Alexander Farkas
Alexander Farkas, qualified as a teacher of the Alexander Technique in 1998, trained in London with Shoshana Kaminitz and had prior and further study with Patrick Macdonald, Margaret Goldie, Marjorie Barlow and Elisabeth Walker. A musician as well, he received a MM in piano from the Manhattan School of Music and, with a focus on becoming a collaborative artist, had further study with Brooks Smith, John Wustmann and Paul Ulanowsky. His earlier piano studies were with Nadia Reisenberg. As a teacher Alex has been on the faculty of the Yale School of Music, the Hartt School, University of Hartford, and Vassar College. He was also the recipient of an IREX Grant for study in Hungary and has translated several books on music for Editio Musica, Budapest, most notably the Selected Writings of Lajos Bardos. As a pianist Alex has played for Jennie Tourel and served as accompanist for the class of Pierre Bernac. Applying the Alexander Technique to the vocal arts, Alex has presented workshops and masterclasses both here and abroad including the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity College of Music, London, the Musikhochschule Luzern and the Musikschule Basel, Switzerland and as a guest teacher for Alexander students at training courses in the U. K., Australia and France. Alex has taught for the Bard Conservatory of Music since 2005. His new book, The Alexander Technique; Arising from Quiet, was published in London last fall and contains articles dealing with the many challenges that face all players.
Marcus Rojas
Tuba
Marcus Rojas
Tubist Marcus Rojas has performed with such diverse groups as The Metropolitan Opera, The American Ballet Theatre, American Symphony Orchestra, Radio City Music Hall, and ensembles led by Lionel Hampton, David Byrne and P.D.Q. Bach. An avid proponent of contemporary, improvised and classical music, he has performed the premieres of such notable composers as LaMonte Young, Gunther Schuller, and Peter Schickele. He has recorded with CBS Records, Sony Records, A&M Records and has been heard on countless film scores, including Interview With A Vampire and Sleepless in Seattle.
Lorraine Nubar
Graduate Voice
Lorraine Nubar
Vocalist. B.A., M.A., The Juilliard School. Studied with Jennie Tourel, William Vennard, Daniel Ferro, Martial Singher, Frank Corsaro, Gerard Souzay, Elly Ameling, Jeanine Reiss, and pianist Dalton Baldwin, with whom she conducts annual master classes at Vermont Opera Theater’s “Foliage Art Song” festival. First American to be appointed to the voice faculty of the Paris Conservatory; has prepared singers for the Paris and Lyon Operas and regularly conducts summer master classes at Foundation Royaumont in Val d’Oise, Centre International de Formation Musicale in Nice, and summer vocal chamber music program at Les Azuriales Opera. Has served as juror for Young Concert Artists International competition, Paris Concours, and Marseille Concours. Teaches at Bard College Conservatory, Juilliard, and New England Conservatory.
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