October 24 Event Will Honor Cellist and Faculty Member Luis Garcia-Renart (1936–2020)

The Bard College Conservatory of Music presents a student and faculty showcase weekend, October 24–25, two free, live-streamed concerts featuring the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor, showcasing performances by celebrated violinists and new Conservatory faculty Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony, as well as students and other faculty from the Bard Music Program, Conservatory, and The Orchestra Now. The October 24 concert, at 7:30 p.m., is in honor of cellist and faculty member Luis Garcia-Renart (1936–2020), and features the world premiere of Artist in Residence Erica Lindsay’s Adagio for String Orchestra (2020), as well as works by Casals and Vivaldi. Garcia-Renart, who taught at Bard from 1962 until his death earlier this year, was a former student of Casals. The October 25 concert, at 3 p.m., includes performances of works by Mozart, Mahler, and Elgar. Both concerts are free and will be live streamed from the Fisher Center at Bard’s Sosnoff Theater. Reservations are required. Proceeds support the Conservatory Scholarship Fund. For more information, visit fishercenter.bard.edu.

October 24 at 7:30 p.m.
Bard College Conservatory Orchestra Leon Botstein, Music Director
Concert in honor of cellist and faculty member Luis Garcia-Renart (1936–2020)

Pablo Casals
“The Song of the Birds” (El cant dels Ocells)

La Sardana, Cello choir with faculty members Peter Wiley and Raman Ramakrishnan and cellists from the Conservatory, The Orchestra Now, and the Music Program

Erica Lindsay
Adagio World Premiere
Conservatory Orchestra with Erica Kiesewetter, conductor

Antonio Vivaldi
The Four Seasons
Conservatory Orchestra
with faculty soloists Gil Shaham and Adele Anthony, violins October 25 at 3 p.m.
Bard College Conservatory Orchestra Leon Botstein, Music Director

W. A. Mozart
Serenade No. 6 in D Major, KV 239 “Serenata notturna”

Gustav Mahler
Adagietto from Symphony No. 5

Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
Introduction and Allegro, for string quartet and string orchestra in G Major, Op.47


ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

In addition to serving as music director of the Bard Conservatory Orchestra, Leon Botstein is music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), founder and music director of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), artistic codirector of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, and conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, where he served as music director from 2003 to 2011. He has been guest conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre, Russian National Orchestra in Moscow, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Taipei Symphony, Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, and Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas in Venezuela, among others. Recordings include a Grammy-nominated recording of Popov’s First Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra, an acclaimed recording of Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner with ASO, and recordings with the London Philharmonic, NDR Orchestra Hamburg, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and TŌN, among others. He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and the author of numerous articles and books, including The Compleat Brahms (Norton), Jefferson’s Children (Doubleday), Judentum und Modernität (Böhlau), and Von Beethoven zu Berg (Zsolnay). Honors include Harvard University’s Centennial Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters award, and Cross of Honor, First Class, from the government of Austria, for his contributions to music. Other distinctions include the Bruckner Society’s Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor for his interpretations of that composer’s music, Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, and Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Philosophical Society. More info online at leonbotstein.com.


Gil Shaham is one of the foremost violinists of our time; his flawless technique combined with his inimitable warmth and generosity of spirit has solidified his renown as an American master. The Grammy Award winner, also named Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year, is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with leading orchestras and conductors, and regularly gives recitals and appears with ensembles on the world’s great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

Highlights of recent years include the acclaimed recording and performances of J. S. Bach’s complete sonatas and partitas for solo violin. In the coming seasons, in addition to championing these solo works, he will join his longtime duo partner, pianist Akira Eguchi, in recitals throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Appearances with orchestra regularly include the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and San Francisco Symphony, as well as multiyear residencies with the orchestras of Montreal, Stuttgart, and Singapore. With orchestra, Shaham continues his exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930s,” including the works of Barber, Bartok, Berg, Korngold, and Prokofiev, among others.

Shaham has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Many of these recordings appear on Canary Classics, the label he founded in 2004. His CDs include 1930s Violin Concertos; Virtuoso Violin Works; Elgar Violin Concerto; Hebrew Melodies; The Butterfly Lovers; and many more. His most recent recording in the 1930s Violin Concertos series, Vol. 2, includes Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and was nominated for a Grammy Award. He will release a new recording of Beethoven and Brahms concertos with The Knights in 2020.

Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. He moved with his parents to Israel, where he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music at the age of seven, receiving annual scholarships from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, he made his debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and Israel Philharmonic, and the following year, took first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition. He then became a scholarship student at Juilliard, and also studied at Columbia University. He was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990 and, in 2008, he received the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. Shaham performs on an Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona c1719, with the assistance of Rare Violins In Consortium Artists & Benefactors Collaborative. He lives in New York City with his wife, violinist Adele Anthony, and their three children.


Since her triumph at Denmark’s 1996 Carl Nielsen International Competition, Adele Anthony has enjoyed an acclaimed and expanding international career. As a soloist with orchestra and in recital, as well as an active chamber music player, Anthony has performed throughout North America, Europe, Australia, India, and Asia.

In addition to appearances with all six symphonies of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, recent highlights include performances with the symphony orchestras of Houston, San Diego, Seattle, Fort Worth, and Indianapolis, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. An avid chamber music player, Anthony appears regularly at the La Jolla SummerFest and Aspen Music Festival. Her wide-ranging repertoire extends from the baroque of Bach and Vivaldi to contemporary works by Ross Edwards, Arvo Pärt, and Philip Glass.

Anthony’s recording work includes releases with Sejong Soloists, Eric Ewazen, Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra (Albany); a recording of Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto with Takuo Yuasa and the Ulster Orchestra (Naxos); Arvo Pärt’s Tabula rasa with Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi, and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon); and her latest recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Ross Edwards’s “Maninyas” with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (Canary Classics/ABC Classics). Anthony performs on an Antonio Stradivarius violin, crafted in 1728.


Violinist and conductor Erica Kiesewetter is well-known to Bard audiences as the former concertmaster of the American Symphony Orchestra, founding member of the Bardian Ensemble, and performer at the Bard Music Festival since its inception.   She is a continuing associate professor in the College, director of orchestral studies at the Conservatory, and professor of orchestral practice for The Orchestra Now.  In 2016, she was appointed associate conductor of the Bard College Orchestra. Tonight’s world premiere performance of faculty member Erica Lindsay’s “Adagio” marks her second performance with the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, the first being in Havana, Cuba, in 2016.

Composer and saxophonist Erica Lindsay is an artist in residence in the Bard College Music Program. She has toured internationally with Melba Liston & Co. and performed with jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie, Joe Williams, Al Grey, and Mary Lou Williams; and with ensembles lead by McCoy Tyner, Clifford Jordon, Sumi Tonooka, George Gruntz, Amira Baraka, Oliver Lake, Baikida Carroll, Howard Johnson, and Jeff Siegel. She composed the musical score for two off-Broadway plays, has also written for television and modern dance, and was featured in Sally Placksin’s book American Women in Jazz. Notable recordings include, Dreamer, on Candid Records, Door of the Cage and Marionettes on a Highwire with Baikida Carroll, Live in Europe and London Live with Jeff Siegel, and Cloth with Oliver Lake. More recently, Lindsay has been exploring orchestral writing, inspired by her experience as a jazz improviser. After participating in the Jazz Composers Orchestra Institute, she composed works for the American Composers Orchestra (“Inner Dialogue”) and the Detroit Symphony (“Mantra”). Recent chamber pieces include Dance #1 for Solo Bass Clarinet and Further Explorations, performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players. Recent recordings include, Initiation, with Sumi Tonooka, Further Explorations and Adventures in Time and Space, for Alchemy Sound Project. She received a 2017 Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Commission and premiered her eight-movement piece, Meditations on Transformation, composed for the chamber jazz ensemble, Alchemy Sound Project, in 2018.

Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan is an artist in residence and chamber music coach for the Conservatory. A member of the Horszowski Trio, he has performed across North America, Europe, India, Japan, and in Hong Kong, and recorded for Bridge Records and Avie Records. For 11 seasons, as a founding member of the Daedalus Quartet, he performed around the world. Ramakrishnan is an artist member of the Boston Chamber Music Society. He has given solo recitals in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and has performed chamber music at Caramoor, at Bargemusic, with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, and at the Aspen, Bard, Charlottesville, Four Seasons, Kingston, Lincolnshire (United Kingdom), Marlboro, Mehli Mehta (India), Oklahoma Mozart, and Vail music festivals. He has toured with Musicians from Marlboro and has performed, as guest principal cellist, with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. As a guest member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, he has performed in India and Egypt. He has served on the faculties of the Taconic and Norfolk Chamber music festivals, as well as at Columbia University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and a master’s degree in music from The Juilliard School. He plays a Neapolitan cello made by Vincenzo Jorio in 1837.

Peter Wiley, a member of the cello faculty at the Bard Conservatory, began his studies at the Curtis Institute at age 13, under the tutelage of David Soyer. He continued his youthful accomplishments with his appointment as principal cellist of the Cincinnati Symphony at age 20, after one year in the Pittsburgh Symphony. He has been awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant and was nominated with the Beaux Arts Trio for a Grammy Award in 1998. As a member of the Beaux Arts Trio, Wiley performed over a thousand concerts, including appearances with many of the world's greatest orchestras. He continues his association with the Marlboro Music Festival, dating from 1971. He has also been a faculty artist at Caramoor's Rising Stars program and has taught at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, Mannes College of Music, and Manhattan School of Music. He is also on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music and a member of the Guarneri String Quartet.


BARD COLLEGE CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC

Tan Dun, Dean

Frank Corliss, Director

Marka Gustavsson, Associate Director

The Bard College Conservatory of Music expands Bard’s spirit of innovation in arts and education. The Conservatory, which opened in 2005, offers a five-year, double-degree program at the undergraduate level and, at the graduate level, programs in vocal arts and conducting. At the graduate level the Conservatory also offers an Advanced Performance Studies program and a two-year Postgraduate Collaborative Piano Fellowship. The US-China Music Institute of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, established in 2017, offers a unique degree program in Chinese instruments.

For more information, see bard.edu/conservatory.

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Mark Primoff
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Bard College
Phone: 845.758.7412
Email: [email protected]
 
(10.08.20)