Bard's Fisher Center Presents an Outstanding Fall Season of Music, Dance, and Theater Productions
Highlights include the Inaugural Season of The Orchestra Now; 75th Anniversary Season of American Ballet Theatre; Natalie Merchant and the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra; Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Armistead Maupin; and More
Image Credit: Rosalie O'Connor
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Thursday, September 10 at 7 p.m.
Live Arts Bard
Miguel Gutierrez
Age & Beauty Part 1: Mid-Career Artist/Suicide Note or &:-/
Resnick Studio
Tickets: $25 (suitable for ages 17 and up)
The astounding performer and choreographer Miguel Gutierrez meets middle age head-on in this wild and ebullient triptych that celebrates queerness, art making, and mortality. After developing part two of the series with Live Arts Bard (LAB) in 2014, Gutierrez returns to premiere the third and final installment of the trilogy and to present the complete series for the first time in two marathon performances.
The 44-year-old Gutierrez partners with 25-year-old performer Mickey Mahar in a fierce duet where queer theory and club dance collide; originally commissioned for the 2014 Whitney Biennial.
Thursday, September 10 at 8:30 p.m.
Live Arts Bard
Miguel Gutierrez
Age & Beauty Part 2: Asian Beauty @ the Werq Meeting or The Choreographer & Her Muse or &:@&
LUMA Theater
Tickets: $25 (suitable for ages 17 and up)
Gutierrez explores his relationships with longtime collaborators in this touching meditation on the challenges of aging, artistic relationships, and administration.
Friday, September 11 at 8 p.m.
Live Arts Bard
Miguel Gutierrez
Age & Beauty Part 3: DANCER or You can make whatever the f*ck you want but you’ll only tour solos or The Powerful People or We are strong/We are powerful/We are beautiful/We are divine or &:’///
World Premiere/LAB Commission
LUMA Theater
Tickets: $25 (suitable for ages 17 and up)
As Gutierrez imagines his work having a life beyond him, he assembles his utopian ideal of a dance company for the end of the world. Part three envisions a new future of simultaneous lamentation, aspiration, melancholy, fantasy, and doubt.
Saturday, September 12 and Sunday, September 13
Live Arts Bard
Miguel Gutierrez
Age & Beauty Parts 1–3 Marathon Performances
Resnick Studio and LUMA Theater
Saturday, September 12 at 3:30 p.m.
Sunday, September 13 at 1:30 p.m.
Tickets: $45 (suitable for ages 17 and up)
Marathon performances will run approximately five hours with two 30-minute intermissions.
Miguel Gutierrez received a Live Arts Bard Choreographic Fellowship, with lead support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The production residency and presentation of Age & Beauty are funded by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Friday, September 18 at 4:30 p.m.
Trisha Brown Dance Company
Trisha Brown: In Plain Site
Location: Various sites on the Bard College campus
Tickets: Free; reservations required
In a unique event developed specifically for the Bard campus, this iteration of Trisha Brown: In Plain Site frees Brown’s dances from the constrictions of the conventional stage, mining and recombining choreography from Brown’s vast repertory to explore the spatial demands of unexpected locations. Presented by the Bard Dance Program as part of a new partnership with the Trisha Brown Dance Company.
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Saturday, September 26 at 8 p.m.
Natalie Merchant and the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra
Bard College Conservatory of Music 10th Anniversary Season
Sosnoff Theater
Tickets: $50–75
In a benefit concert for The Bard College Conservatory of Music, singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant performs with her band and the Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by James Bagwell. Over the course of her career, Merchant has earned a distinguished place among America’s most respected recording artists—she is an emotional and earnest lyricist whose subtle performances and distinctive voice blend to create a powerful, moving experience.
A $250 benefit ticket includes a reception with Merchant and the other artists.
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Friday, October 9 through Sunday, October 11
American Ballet Theatre
75th Anniversary Season
Sosnoff Theater
Friday, October 9 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, October 10 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Sunday, October 11 at 2 p.m.
Tickets: $25–60
“Once in a not too frequent while . . . there comes along an evening that reminds you . . . why you’re in the theater in the first place, and why dance is not a luxury or a frill but a necessity of life. Such an evening was . . . American Ballet Theatre.”—Washington Post
Since 1940, American Ballet Theatre has created a tradition of passion, innovation, and athleticism that transcends cultural boundaries and touches the souls of ballet lovers old and new. “America’s National Ballet Company” returns to the Fisher Center as part of its 75th anniversary season with new and classic works that demonstrate the elegance and spectacle of ABT’s unforgettable performances.
Piano Concerto #1 (2013)
Choreography by Alexei Ratmansky
Music by Dmitrii Shostakovich (Concerto No. 1 for Piano, Trumpet, and Strings, Op. 35)
Performed to live music
Company B (1991)
Choreography by Paul Taylor
Music by the Andrews Sisters
New Work by Mark Morris (2015)
World Premiere
Choreography by Mark Morris
Music by Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Performed to live music
These performances have been underwritten by the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Foundation.
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Friday, October 16 and Saturday, October 17
Live Arts Bard
Carl Hancock Rux, Anne Bogart ’74, and Theo Bleckmann
The Exalted
Preview Performances
Sosnoff Stage Right
Friday, October 16 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $25
A poetic meditation on heritage, love, and the willpower to overcome atrocity, The Exalted, by three landmark American artists, tells the story of Carl Einstein, the influential German-Jewish art historian and one of the first critics to affirm the importance of African sculpture. Through music, video, and text, writer-performer Carl Hancock Rux, director Anne Bogart, and composer-musician Theo Bleckmann examine the atrocities of occupation and the discovery of African art by the West to weave a mesmerizing narrative on the fight for freedom.
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Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25
The Orchestra Now
Leon Botstein, Music Director
Inaugural Season
Concert One
Sosnoff Theater
Saturday, October 24 at 8 p.m.
Preconcert talk at 7 p.m.
Sunday, October 25 at 3 p.m.
Preconcert talk at 2 p.m.
Tickets: $25–35
The Orchestra Now (TŌN), a unique training orchestra and master’s degree program
founded by Bard in 2015, is preparing a new generation of musicians to break
down barriers between modern audiences and great orchestral music of the past
and present. Bringing together extraordinary musicians from around the world, TŌN
mines the wealth of underperformed repertoire, reimagines traditional concert formats,
and strives to make the experience of the performers a part of the listeners’ experience.
At a TŌN concert, musicians and audience inspire one another, each following their
curiosity with a shared sense of adventure.
Conducted by Leon Botstein. Sergey Prokofiev, “Summer Night”; Mieczyslaw Weinberg, Cello Concerto; and Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony 11.
Get the best seats with a three-concert subscription for $75 or all four concerts for $95.
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Friday, October 30 at 8 p.m.
Catskill Jazz Factory Presents
Double Trouble: Jazz Meets Classical
featuring Dan Tepfer and Aaron Diehl
LUMA Theater
Tickets: $25
“Brilliant . . . A sharp young talent.” —New York Times on Dan Tepfer
“Melodic precision, harmonic erudition, and elegant restraint.” —New York Times on Aaron Diehl
An unprecedented mash-up of J. S. Bach and the Great American Songbook from Cole Porter Fellows Dan Tepfer and Aaron Diehl, this one-of-a-kind collaboration will explore the unlikely common ground between two leading talents from opposite ends of the jazz spectrum. Diehl is an aficionado of the early tradition of jazz piano, while Tepfer is inspired by avant-garde and cutting-edge jazz. Tradition will meet contemporary and jazz will meet classics in this night of Double Trouble.
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Sunday, November 1 at 2 p.m.
Live Arts Bard
Nature Theater of Oklahoma
Life and Times: Episodes 7–9
U.S. Premiere/LAB Commission
LUMA Theater
Tickets: $25; $10 for students
“Life and Times is the most ambitious theatrical undertaking of my generation.” —Time Out New York
Based on the life story of one of Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s own company members, Life and Times uses transcripts from 16 hours of recorded telephone interviews as the source for an epic spectacle that has taken nearly a decade to create. Previous episodes took the form of opera, dance, theater, animation, and illuminated manuscript. To complete this massive, Obie Award–winning event, LAB presents the U.S. premiere of the culminating three parts: episodes seven to nine, films primarily shot on and around the Bard campus in the summer of 2014, which take inspiration from Citizen Kane, French New Wave, early Cinemascope, and gangsta rap videos.
The screening will run approximately five hours with one 30-minute intermission.
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Sunday, November 1 at 3 p.m.
Conservatory Sundays
Bard College Conservatory Orchestra
Leon Botstein, Music Director
Sosnoff Theater
Tickets: Suggested donation of $20 (orchestra seating), $25 (parterre and first balcony); free for the Bard community with ID
Conducted by Leon Botstein, the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra will perform Byron Adams’s Concerto for violincello and orchestra with faculty soloist Raman Ramakrishnan; Richard Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), a tone poem for orchestra; and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Op. 92.
All proceeds benefit the Conservatory’s Scholarship Fund.
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Saturday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Live Arts Bard
Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Armistead Maupin
Sosnoff Theater
Tickets: $25; $5 for the Bard community with ID
Join a public conversation between Neil Gaiman, Bard’s Professor in the Arts, and Armistead Maupin, the best-selling writer and activist. Maupin is the author of 11 novels, including the nine-volume Tales of the City series, three of which were adapted for television with Olympia Dukakis and Laura Linney. He and Gaiman will discuss their heroes Charles Dickens and Christopher Isherwood, the craft of storytelling, and many other subjects. Part of a regular series of conversations at the Fisher Center hosted by Professor Gaiman.
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Saturday, November 14 and Sunday, November 15
The Orchestra Now
Leon Botstein, Music Director
Inaugural Season
Concert Two
Sosnoff Theater
Saturday, November 14 at 8 p.m.
Preconcert talk at 7 p.m.
Sunday, November 15 at 3 p.m.
Preconcert talk at 2 p.m.
Tickets: $25–35
Conducted by James Bagwell. Felix Mendelssohn Ruy Blas Overture; Igor Stravinsky, Symphony in C; and Antonin Dvořák, Symphony No. 8.
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Thursday, November 19 at 8 p.m.
Bard Ethnomusicology Presents
Debo Band
LUMA Theater
Preconcert talk at 7 p.m.
Performance at 8 p.m.
Tickets: $25
“This is one of the best finds of the year, bar none. The Boston-based Debo Band takes traditional Ethiopian sounds and scales to a new place . . . a party where funk, soul and free jazz swirl together. . . . You’ve got to catch Debo Band live—that’s where the groove and sweat really kick in.” —NPR Music’s 50 Favorite Albums of 2012
Debo Band brings back the 1960s golden age of Ethiopian music with innovative arrangements and original compositions. Since its inception in 2006, the band has won raves for its groundbreaking take on Ethiopian pop music, which incorporates traditional scales and vocal styles alongside American soul and funk rhythms, and instrumentation reminiscent of Eastern European brass bands.
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Sunday, December 6 at 3 p.m.
Conservatory Sundays
Bard College Conservatory Orchestra
JoAnn Falletta, guest conductor
Sosnoff Theater
Tickets: Suggested donation of $20 (orchestra seating), $25 (parterre and first balcony); free for the Bard community with ID
Guest conductor JoAnn Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and Virginia Symphony Orchestra, will lead the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra in a performance of Jacques Ibert’s Escales (Ports of Call); Vítezslav Novák’s V Tatrách (In the Tatras); and the Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D Major.
All proceeds benefit the Conservatory’s Scholarship Fund.
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Sunday, December 13 at 3 p.m.
Conservatory Sundays
Winter Songfest
With Dawn Upshaw and students of the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program
Sosnoff Theater
Tickets: Suggested donation of $20 (orchestra seating), $15 (parterre and first balcony); free for the Bard community with ID
A festive holiday celebration with Dawn Upshaw, students of the Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program, and special guests. This annual afternoon concert is an audience favorite.
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Thursday, December 17 through Saturday, December 19
A Special Holiday Event
Geoff Sobelle
The Object Lesson
LUMA Theater
Thursday, December 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, December 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, December 19 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $45 adults; $15 for children and students
Theater artist Geoff Sobelle (last seen at the Fisher Center in rainpan 43’s Elephant Room, and as the director of The Kitchen) fills the LUMA Theater with seemingly countless boxes and bins labeled and arranged just so. This holiday shopping season, explore the jumble and immerse yourself in a performance that unpacks our relationship to everyday objects: breaking, buying, finding, fixing, trading, selling, stealing, storing, and becoming buried under a world of things. Hilarious and heartbreaking, The Object Lesson is a funny, sweet, and meticulously crafted examination of our relationship to the many objects we encounter during the course of our lives.
This holiday presentation of The Object Lesson is made possible by Stefano Ferrari and Lilo Zinglersen.
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Bard College Student Programs at the Fisher Center:
Thursday, October 22 through Sunday, October 25
Theater and Performance Program
Iphigenia in Tauris
By Euripides
Directed by Jean Wagner
LUMA Theater
Thursday, October 22 at 7:30 p.m.
Friday, October 23 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 24 at 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 25 at 2 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Monday, October 26 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $15; free for the Bard community
Will Iphigenia, long exiled on a remote and rocky shore, recognize her shipwrecked brother Orestes in time to prevent another sacrifice at the altar, this time at her own hands?
Friday, November 13, through Sunday, November 15
Dance Program
Fall Dance Concert
LUMA Theater
Friday, November 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 14 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 15 at 4 p.m.
Tickets: Free; reservations required
Choreographed and performed by Bard students, assisted by professional lighting and costume designers, this concert gives students a chance to explore new territory in dance making.
Friday, December 11 through Sunday, December 13
Dance Program
Senior Dance Concert
LUMA Theater
Friday, December 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, December 12 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, December 13 at 4 p.m.
Tickets: Free; reservations required
An evening of Senior Projects in dance, this concert represents a culmination of four years of work by the graduating seniors in the Bard Dance Program.
Tuesday, December 15 at 8 p.m.
Music Program
Bard College Symphonic Chorus, Chamber Singers, and Red Hook School Concert Choir
Fall Concert
Conducted by James Bagwell
Sosnoff Theater
Tickets: $5; free to the Bard community with ID
Motets from the English, Spanish, and Italian Renaissance
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mass in C Major, K. 317 (“Coronation”)
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For tickets and further information on Fall 2015 Events, call the Fisher Center box office at 845-758-7900 or visit www.fishercenter.bard.edu. Fisher Center members receive priority access to the best seats in advance, and those who join the Center’s email list receive advance booking opportunities as well as regular news and updates.
For more information, visit fishercenter.bard.edu/fallevents/.
The 2015 Fall season is made possible in part through the generous support of Jeanne Donovan Fisher, the Martin and Toni Sosnoff Foundation, the Board of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, and the Friends of the Fisher Center, as well as grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
The 2015-16 season of Live Arts Bard is made possible by the generous support of the Live Arts Bard Creative Council and by generous grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in support of Live Arts Bard Choreographic Fellowships, and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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