Bard Fisher Center

Founded in 1990, the Bard Music Festival has established its unique identity in the classical concert field by presenting programs that, through performance and discussion, place selected works in the cultural and social context of the composer’s world.This year’s festival – the 33rd – will present an exploration of the life and work of English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The Fisher Center at Bard, currently celebrating its 20th Anniversary Season: Breaking Ground, will present its 16th year of Spiegeltent programming for Bard SummerScape 2023. The Spiegeltent, installed annually on the Bard grounds, serves as a platform for cutting-edge live music, performance, dancing, and more.Caleb Hammons is Fisher Center Director of Artistic Planning and Producing and he joins us with a Spiegeltent season preview.

“Common Ground,” the 2022-2023 iteration of the Fisher Center LAB Biennial, a four-day festival on the politics of land and food, opens today and runs through May 7. For the LAB Biennial, the Fisher Center commissions new work that grapples with some of the most pressing questions of our time.

On Friday, November 4 at 8pm, The Bard Conservatory of Music will present “Uncaged,” a centennial concert in honor of pioneering composer and music theorist John Cage. Performed by the Bard Conservatory Orchestra under the direction of Tan Dun, the concert will take place in the Sonsonoff Theatre at The Fisher Center - it will also be live-streamed.

The Bard Music Festival returns for its 32nd season with an exploration of the life and work of Sergei Rachmaninoff who lived from 1873 to 1943.Through a series of themed concert programs, lectures, and panel discussions, Rachmaninoff and His World explores such themes as composition during the Cold War, virtuoso pianists and their public, and America’s ongoing love affair with Rachmaninoff’s music.The festival runs through August 5–14, 2022. To tell us more, we welcome: Christopher Gibbs - Co-Artistic Director of the Bard Music Festival and James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Music at Bard College.

The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music presents The Sound of Spring: A Chinese New Year Concert conducted by Director of the US-China Music Institute Jindong Cai.This special annual event, marking one of the most important holidays in the Chinese lunar calendar, showcases some of the best Chinese American artists and solo artists in America today, Chinese music, and traditional instruments. This year’s concert will celebrate the Chinese Year of the Tiger.Performances will take place on Friday, January 28, 2022 at 8pm in The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at BardCollege and on Sunday, January 30, 2022 at 3pm in the Rose Theater of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City.Conductor Jindong Cai is the director of the US-China Music Institute, professor of music and arts at Bard College, and associate conductor of Bard’s The Orchestra Now. Over the 30 years of his career in the United States, Cai has established himself as an active and dynamic conductor, scholar of Western classical music in China, and leading advocate of music from across Asia.

Celebrated opera singer and recitalist Stephanie Blythe is the Director of Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard College. This Saturday, November 6 at 8pm Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program presents “Songs from the Real World: The French Cabaret” with Stephanie Blythe and the Bard Vocal Arts Program.

The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents the Bard Conservatory Orchestra with members of The Orchestra Now performing Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony, “Resurrection” conducted by music director Leon Botstein.

The 31st Bard Music Festival opens on Friday and explores “Nadia Boulanger and Her World.” Over two weekends, twelve themed concert programs will examine…

The Bard Music Festival has been committed, since its inception, to reviving important but neglected operas. This year’s immersion in “Nadia Boulanger and…