A history of scandal informs The Miraculous Mandarin Suite program offered by The Orchestra Now (TŌN) on April 22-23. The one-act pantomime ballet based on a scandalous story by Melchior Lengyel—with music by Bartók—was deemed so morally offensive it was barred from further performance after the premiere in 1926 in Cologne. The shorter ballet suite to be performed by TŌN will be coupled with a rare performance of Ligeti’s microtonal Violin Concerto with soloist Matthew Woodard—one of the Bard Conservatory 2016 Concerto Competition winners—and Dohnányi’s Symphony No. 2, a dramatically romantic work for large orchestra.
 
TŌN at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts
Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin
Sat, April 22, 2017 at 8 PM
Sun, April 23, 2017 at 2 PM
The Orchestra Now
Leon Botstein, conductor
Matthew Woodard, violin
Bartók: The Miraculous Mandarin Suite
György Ligeti: Violin Concerto
Ernő Dohnányi: Symphony No. 2
Tickets starting at $25 may be purchased by calling the box office at 845-758-7900, in person at the Fisher Center box office, or by visiting the website at fishercenter.bard.edu.
 
The Orchestra Now
Founded in 2015, The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is an innovative pre-professional orchestra and master’s degree program at Bard College that is preparing a new generation of musicians to break down barriers between modern audiences and great orchestral music of the past and present. Under the leadership of conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein, 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.
 
The musicians of TŌN hail from across the U.S. and eleven other countries: Australia, Canada, China, France, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Spain, Taiwan and Venezuela. In addition to a concert series at their home base—the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College—they perform multiple concerts each season at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and offer complimentary concerts at venues across the boroughs of New York City in the Around Town series. At The Metropolitan Museum of Art they join Leon Botstein in the series Sight & Sound as he explores the places where musical and visual expression meet, pairing orchestral works with masterpieces from the museum’s collection.
 
In addition to Mr. Botstein and TŌN’s associate conductor and academic director, James Bagwell, guest conductors in the first two seasons include Jindong Cai, Federico Cortese, JoAnn Falletta, Fabio Luisi, Gerard Schwarz, and Zachary Schwartzman.
 
For more information, visit theorchestranow.org.
 
Leon Botstein
Leon Botstein brings a renowned career as both a conductor and educator to his role as music director of The Orchestra Now, the pre-professional orchestra and master’s degree program founded by Bard College. He has been music director of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992, artistic co-director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival since their creation, and president of Bard College since 1975. He was the music director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra from 2003–2011, and is now conductor laureate. He will assume the artistic directorship of Grafenegg, Austria in 2018. Mr. Botstein is also a frequent guest conductor with orchestras around the globe, has made numerous recordings, and is a prolific author and music historian. He is the editor of the prestigious The Musical Quarterly, and has received many honors for his contributions to music.
 
More info online at LeonBotsteinMusicRoom.com.
 
Press contacts:
Pascal Nadon
Pascal Nadon Communications
Phone: 646.234.7088
Email: [email protected]
 
Mark Primoff
Associate Vice President of Communications
Bard College
Phone: 845.758.7412
Email: [email protected]