UPSTREAMING

UPSTREAMING

Archival Discoveries and New Commissions for the Digital Sphere

UPSTREAMING broadens the Fisher Center’s commitment to reaching audiences far beyond the physical walls of our building, and offers new ways of engaging with the artists we collectively hold so dear.

#UPSTREAMINGFC

Opera at Bard

"Bard has become a haven for important operas." —The New York Times

HD videos of select SummerScape opera productions from the past several years, featuring the American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leon Botstein, are now available through UPSTREAMING.

Healing and Transformation

Responding to the events of 2020, the projects in this season explore and reflect on what it means to live through and create work in the midst of a pandemic, global crises, and political turmoil. Audiences will be invited to experience and engage with each of these projects in entirely different ways, yet together the season seeks to build community and activism in isolation. 

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO

September–December • New content released monthly.

A 21st-century ritual tool kit for justice inspired by James Baldwin’s truth-telling treaty on justice in America, The Fire Next Time, and our endlessly changing world. 

Each month, we offer gifts—music, thoughts, meditations, and visual testimonies of resilience—from artists including Meshell Ndegeocello, Charlotte Brathwaite, Staceyann Chin, and more. 

Homeland Elegies

In this time of continued separation, we look to stories that can unite, ignite, and illuminate. The Fisher Center and the Bard College Written Arts Program are inviting our community, on and off-campus, to join a “read-in” and subsequent conversation centered on Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayad Akhtar’s new novel. 

Pam Tanowitz

October 31–November 1

Three landmark contemporary artists (Pam Tanowitz, Kaija Saariaho, and Brice Marden) joined to imagine T. S. Eliot’s haunting and mysterious meditation on time, Four Quartets.

UPSTREAMING will host a limited streaming of the 2018 world premiere, accompanied by the release of a new film that provides intimate and personal reflections on the work from the perspective of those who perform it, and the release of an audiobook from actress Kathleen Chalfant reading the poem—the first authorized recording of the poem read by a woman.

Bard Music Festival

A series of concerts celebrating the joy of music-making and Bard’s commitment to presenting unjustly neglected works. Programs feature works by prominent Black composers alongside a selection of pieces from the Bard Music Festival archives, together tracing the history of classical music from the late 18th century to the present and affirming the centrality of music to life and our public culture.

Upstreaming Archive

Stream all available UPSTREAMING programs now! The archive features digital commissions, virtual events, as well as beloved performances and rich contextual materials from the Fisher Center’s archives, including rediscovered treasures from SummerScape Opera and the Bard Music Festival’s 30-year history.

Support Upstreaming

We know that we need to be there for you, especially in these uncertain times. And, to keep doing our work, we need you now more than ever. Please tune in frequently, share widely, and contribute generously.