Discover the Arts

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Jeanne Donovan Fisher

Jeanne Donovan Fisher is chair of the Advisory Board of the Fisher Center at Bard. As a producer, she heads True Love Productions, bringing a background in business to her passion for theater and film. She spent the early part of her career at Morgan Stanley, where she was a vice president and director of worldwide corporate communications. She then became a partner in the consulting firm Citigate S. V., specializing in strategic communications, marketing, and media relations. Given this experience, she can say with conviction that producing is much more fun. Fisher also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Sundance Institute, BAM, and the Tate Americas Foundation.

True Love Productions

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Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein is a conductor, music historian, and leader in education reform. He was educated at University of Chicago (BA) and Harvard University (MA, PhD); since 1975, he has been president and Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Bard College. As music director and conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992, artistic codirector of SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, and music director of The Orchestra Now (TON), he is known for expanding listeners’ experience of classical music by performing works by lesser-known virtuosi and excavating forgotten works by popular composers. He is also the artistic director of the Grafenegg Campus and Academy. He is author of Jefferson’s Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture (Doubleday, 1997); Judentum und Modernität: Essays zur Rolle der Juden in der Deutschen und Österreichischen Kultur, 1848–1938 (Böhlau Verlag, 1991; Russian translation Belveder, 2003); Von Beethoven zu Berg: Das Gedächtnis der Moderne (Szolnay Verlag, 2013).

Botstein’s most recent honors include an honorary doctorate of science from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, honorary doctorate of humane letters from Goucher College, and honorary doctorate of music from Sewanee: The University of the South; National Center for Fair and Open Testing’s Deborah W. Meier Award for Heroes in Education; Bruckner Society’s Kilenyi Medal of Honour; Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters; Harvard University’s Centennial Award; the Austrian government’s Cross of Honor, First Class; Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award; University of Chicago’s Alumni Medal; and Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society. 

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Debra Pemstein

Debra Pemstein is vice president for development and alumni/ae affairs at Bard College. During her tenure, Bard has been able to expand its programs through major capital campaigns that have resulted in the building of new centers for the performing arts (the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry) and sciences (The Gabrielle H. Reem and Herbert J. Kayden Center for Science and Computation, designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects).

Pemstein also supervises development activities for all of Bard’s institutes and programs, including the Fisher Center, Bard Music Festival, Bard High School Early College Program, and Center for Curatorial Studies–Hessel Museum, to name but a few.

Pemstein formerly served as director of major gifts and planned giving for New York City Ballet, director of development for Paul Taylor Dance Company, and associate director of development for the New York Philharmonic. In addition she is a college lecturer and has presented papers on fund-raising at national professional conferences. She has served on many boards and advisory committees, including Poughkeepsie Day School; Temple Emanuel, Kingston, New York; and Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, New York City. She is a founding member of Modern Dance Development Directors. She attended the London School of Economics, received her B.B.A. from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and is a certified fund-raising executive.

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Liza Parker

Liza Parker joined the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College as executive director in March of 2020. Prior to her appointment at Bard, Parker was chief operating officer at the Lincoln Center in New York City, where she was responsible for overall strategy and direction, serving as a key liaison to the 11 resident cultural organizations on campus, and overseeing management of its buildings and public spaces, including Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the David Rubenstein Atrium. Parker has also served as vice president for policy and administration at the AT&T Foundation, and director of operations and planning at 92Y. She and her husband, Frank Migliorelli, recently moved to Red Hook, where they manage the family farm, Hudson Bounty Farm.

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Gideon Lester

Gideon Lester is Artistic Director of the Fisher Center at Bard and Senior Curator at the Open Society University Network’s Center for the Arts and Human Rights. A festival director, creative producer, and dramaturg, he has collaborated with and commissioned a broad range of American and international artists across disciplines, including Romeo Castellucci, Justin Vivian Bond, Brice Marden, Sarah Michelson, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Claudia Rankine, Kaija Saariaho, Peter Sellars, and Anna Deavere Smith. 

Recent projects include Where No Wall Remains, an international festival on borders (co-curated with Tania El Khoury); Daniel Fish’s Oklahoma! (Tony award); Pam Tanowitz’s Four Quartets; Ronald K. Brown and Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grace and Mercy; and Ashley Tata’s Mad Forest. He founded and directs Live Arts Bard, the Fisher Center’s residency and commissioning program. He was previously co-curator of Crossing the Line Festival, and Acting Artistic Director at the American Repertory Theatre.

As a writer for the stage, his translations include The Island of Slaves and The Dispute by Marivaux, Büchner’s Woyzeck, and Brecht’s Mother Courage, and his adaptations include Kafka’s Amerika, Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, and Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita.  

A professor at Bard College, he was director of Bard’s undergraduate Theater & Performance Program from 2012–2020, and has previously held faculty positions at Columbia and Harvard. 

Lester received his B.A. from Oxford University and completed his graduate training at Harvard, where he was a Fulbright and Frank Knox Scholar. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from Oxford University, and a diploma in dramaturgy from Harvard’s Institute for Advanced Theater Training, where he was a Fulbright and Frank Knox scholar.

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Irene Zedlacher

Irene Zedlacher is the executive director of the Bard Music Festival. She is also managing editor of The Musical Quarterly and manager of the Bard Fiction Prize. Her translations of articles, song texts, and libretti have appeared in Schoenberg and His World, Mahler and His World, The Musical Quarterly, the Journal for the Studies of the Decorative Arts, and Along the Royal Road: Berlin and Potsdam in KPM porcelain and painting 1815-1848, among others.