Bard Music Festival
Program Three • Music and Freedom
August 9
Bard Music Festival
August 9
Martinů’s life was upended by the Nazi invasion, but his compatriot Erwin Schulhoff, a Jewish Communist, suffered the worse fate of dying in a concentration camp. Drawing on influences from neoclassicism to jazz, Schulhoff’s commanding Second Symphony opens this program, the festival’s first all-orchestral concert.
Martinů’s masterly and original Fourth Piano Concerto, “Incantation,” was dedicated to his great friend and fellow exile, the concert pianist – and subsequent mentor to Leon Botstein – Rudolf Firkušný, whose own Piano Concertino receives just its third performance to date. Two more of Martinů’s own works complete the program: the Memorial to Lidice, a searing symphonic response to the Nazis’ annihilation of a Czech village, and his Sixth and final Symphony (Fantaisies symphoniques). Written to celebrate the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 75th anniversary, this was recognized with the New York Music Critics’ Circle Award and represents one of the pinnacles of his work in America.
6 pm • Preconcert talk: Christopher H. Gibbs
7 pm • Performance: Jeonghwan Kim & Piers Lane, piano; The Orchestra Now, conducted by Leon Botstein, music director
Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942)
Symphony No. 2 (1932)
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Piano Concerto No. 4, “Incantation,” H358 (1956)
Memorial to Lidice, H296 (1943)
Rudolf Firkušný (1912–94)
Piano Concertino (1929)
Bohuslav Martinů
Symphony No. 6 (Fantaisies symphoniques), H343 (1951–53)
Image: This is Nazi Brutality by Ben Shahn; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Jeremy and Nancy Halbreich.
Nearby villages and towns in the Hudson Valley boast a large selection of restaurants, as well as a variety of hotels, motels, inns, and bed & breakfasts.
Eat & StayBard College’s main campus is located in Annandale-on-Hudson (a hamlet of Red Hook), New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City and 220 miles southwest of Boston. The Taconic State Parkway and the New York State Thruway provide the most direct routes to our campus. Click the Google map below, or get directions by entering the following address into your GPS: 60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, NY 12571.
From the East
If you are traveling from east of the Hudson River in New York State, take the Taconic State Parkway to the Red Hook / Route 199 exit, drive west on Route 199 through the village of Red Hook to Route 9G, turn right onto Route 9G, drive north 1.9 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
From the West
If you are traveling from west of the Hudson River, take the New York State Thruway (I-87) to exit 19 (Kingston), take Route 209 (changes to Route 199 at the Hudson River) over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge to Route 9G, turn left onto Route 9G, drive north 3.5 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
Sosnoff Theater
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