All Bard News by Date
July 2024
07-23-2024
Bard Architecture has selected Farah Alkhoury as its 2024–26 Architectural Fellow. Alkhoury, an Iraqi spatial designer and researcher, will join the College this fall for two academic years. Alkhoury’s work examines environmental violence and political entanglements as consequential to architecture and spatial thinking. Her work has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 and the Jewish Museum in New York. During her fellowship at Bard, Alkoury will work on the project: “Occupied Ecologies: Architecture of Toxic Proliferation”, which attends to the presence of military toxicity that remains embedded in the soil, water, and air long after wars end. This design research traces depleted uranium’s infrastructural, spatial, and material effects across three interconnected ecologies within Iraq, Puerto Rico, and the United States, engaging with activism that emerges against invisible forms of environmental violence. She will also have the opportunity to teach a total of three courses each academic year taught through the lens of her research. Alkhoury’s residency will culminate in a public presentation of her research work in the form of an exhibition, an event, or other form.
Bard Architecture’s two-year fellowship is awarded biennially to an emerging architect, urban designer, landscape architect or other spatial practitioner whose creative work and research advances new cultures of design that address a larger public. The fellowship is intended to support those embarking on a career in research and design pedagogy and to provide a context in which to develop new modes of thought relevant to the urgencies of the present.
Bard Architecture’s two-year fellowship is awarded biennially to an emerging architect, urban designer, landscape architect or other spatial practitioner whose creative work and research advances new cultures of design that address a larger public. The fellowship is intended to support those embarking on a career in research and design pedagogy and to provide a context in which to develop new modes of thought relevant to the urgencies of the present.
Photo: Farah Alkhoury, Bard 2024–26 Architectural Fellow.
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Architecture Program,Division of the Arts |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Architecture Program,Division of the Arts |
07-09-2024
Bard alumna Tiffany Sia ’10 thinks and works across text and film. Her newest book, On and Off-Screen Imaginaries, is a collection of six essays that grapple with the complexities of post-colonial experience. The first three essays focus on new Hong Kong cinema and examine the national security policies, censorship, surveillance that followed Hong Kong’s mass protests in 2019 and 2020. The second half of the book “abruptly drifts toward other geographies, specifically the US, as I challenge how dominant Asian American aesthetics conceive of a falsely unified imaginary of Asia and its politics,” says Sia. She reimagines the work of Vietnamese American photographer An-My Lê in one essay and the work of Taiwanese filmmaker King Hu in another. “The essays trace a shift in my focus beyond Hong Kong––toward the ‘elsewhere’ sites of the Cold War, such as Vietnam, Taiwan, and even Lithuania and Turkey, in brief mention––and facile East-West tensions to illuminate a lattice of North-South tensions and their vexing histories and politics,” says Sia, who recently won the prestigious 2024 Art Baloise Prize, which carries an award of approximately $33,400.
Photo: Book cover of On and Off-Screen Imaginaries and Tiffany Sia ’10. Photo by Johnny Le
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Asian Studies,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Asian Studies,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program |
07-08-2024
Bard College will receive a $50,006 grant as part of New York State’s Higher Education Capital Matching Grant Program, which supports projects at colleges and universities across the state by providing construction and renovation of laboratory and research spaces, the purchase of instructional technologies and equipment, and other significant investments. The grant will support the purchase of pianos and equipment for Bard’s László Z. Bitó Conservatory building. The equipment will be available to Bard’s community of students, faculty, and staff, as well as to the greater Hudson Valley community that participates in the opportunities Bard provides for learning, enrichment, and enjoyment. “New York’s colleges and universities are second to none, offering students unparalleled opportunities to learn, explore, and prepare to launch their careers,” Governor Hochul said. “With this funding, my administration is reaffirming our commitment to providing our students—including those at our private, not-for-profit institutions—with a top-tier, New York education with the best possible resources and facilities that will help them succeed inside and outside of the classroom.”
Photo: László Z. Bitó Conservatory building.
Meta: Subject(s): Awards,Bard Conservatory,Division of the Arts,Giving,Grants,Music,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
Meta: Subject(s): Awards,Bard Conservatory,Division of the Arts,Giving,Grants,Music,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
June 2024
06-26-2024
Jazz pianist and Bard Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music Marcus Roberts was a featured artist in the dedication and gala concert held in the newly named Marian Anderson Hall in Philadelphia to honor the legacy of internationally renowned American contralto and civil rights icon Marian Anderson (1897–1993), who was the first Black singer to perform at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, reports NPR. Music and Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra Yannick Nézet-Séguin said, “To have exceptional artists like Queen Latifah, Angel Blue, Audra McDonald, Latonia Moore, and Marcus Roberts—themselves trailblazers in their fields—join us for this momentous occasion will make the evening even more special, as we continue to create a more representative art form. We hope that every person feels welcome in our music and in the concert hall, and that every performance in Marian Anderson Hall serves as a reminder of her legacy and as an inspiration.”
Photo: Bard Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music Marcus Roberts.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Jazz in the Music Program,Music,Music Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Jazz in the Music Program,Music,Music Program |
06-12-2024
From June 6–26, 2024, Julia Weist, visiting artist in residence at Bard College, will be a visual art resident at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York. Weist will spend this time working on a photographic collage of images and data obtained through a private investigator license granted to the artist by the New York Department of State. Weist plans to exhibit this project at Moskowitz Bayse Gallery in Los Angeles, California, in September 2024. The Yaddo residency is offered annually to approximately 275 professional creative artists from all nations, individually or as collaborative teams, working in choreography, film, literature, musical composition, painting, performance art, photography, printmaking, sculpture, and video.
Photo: Visiting Artist in Residence in Studio Arts Julia Weist. Photo by Adam T. Deen
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Studio Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Studio Arts Program |
06-12-2024
Born in Los Angeles, where he still works, Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio ’12 “finds beauty amid the ruin. His art engages serious social and political experience, but it succeeds by its refusal to be monolithic,” writes the Los Angeles Times. Aparicio’s current solo exhibition of recent works focuses on the various connections between Central America and Los Angeles—and posits multiple sites as a part of the same community and history as a crucial decolonizing strategy and one that problematizes the term “native.” In his cast rubber piece, “Who Do You Believe More, the Subversive or the Embassy? (W. Washington Blvd. and Hoover St., Los Angeles, CA),” specific use of materials that have a strong tie to pre-Hispanic cultures in Central America are key. The living ficus tree from which the work was cast is located at a major street intersection in the heart of the city’s El Salvadoran community. “Nature is scrutinized as an index of American culture. The landscape view subtly shifts. After seeing Aparicio’s show, you’re unlikely to look at our omnipresent ficus trees quite the same way again.” His show is on view at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA through June 16.
Photo: Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, La ceiba me salvó / The Ceiba Saved Me, 2020, cast rubber with ficus tree surface residues on found cloth; glazed stoneware; twine; and wooden support, approx. 122 × 86 × 5 3/4 in. (309.9 × 218.4 × 14.6 cm). Collection of Michael Sherman and Carrie Tivador. © Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, image courtesy of the artist and Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles and Mexico City. Photo by Ruben Diaz
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program |
06-04-2024
Soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon, visiting faculty in vocal arts at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, has been awarded a 2024 fellowship from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust (BBT) in support of her professional projects. The BBT Fellowship Program rewards musical excellence demonstrated by outstanding young musicians—for individuals and ensembles that have been selected from over 32 countries—with fellowships in 2024 being given to seven artists, including Fitz Gibbon. BBT winners are awarded between £20,000 and £30,000. There are no set criteria for how artists spend their budget. Winners are encouraged to be creative and to use their awards in a way that will help to establish and build their careers. Over the next three years, BBT’s fellowship funding will support Fitz Gibbon in the commissioning of new works, performances, and recordings. BBT also will provide advice, guidance, contacts, and public relations exposure. BBT artists join a supportive family that helps to advance their careers.
“I am overwhelmed with gratitude to have received one of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust’s 2024 Artist Fellowships. The nomination process asked me to dream about what I could accomplish with the kind of latitude that this funding and administrative support would represent, but I found the range of possibilities almost too tantalizing to imagine, as if I could permit myself only an oblique gaze at what might be,” wrote Fitz Gibbon upon receiving the fellowship.
Lucy Fitz Gibbon is noted for her “dazzling virtuoso singing” (Boston Globe) and believes that creating new works and recreating those lost in centuries past makes room for the diversity of voices integral to classical music’s future. Spotlighted as a Rising Star of Classical Music for 2024 in the February 20, 2024, edition of the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) Music Magazine, Fitz Gibbon is one of 15 young classical musicians that the BBC has identified worldwide who are making a prominent stamp on the industry, whether with concert performances, opera roles, or dazzling new recordings.
“I am overwhelmed with gratitude to have received one of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust’s 2024 Artist Fellowships. The nomination process asked me to dream about what I could accomplish with the kind of latitude that this funding and administrative support would represent, but I found the range of possibilities almost too tantalizing to imagine, as if I could permit myself only an oblique gaze at what might be,” wrote Fitz Gibbon upon receiving the fellowship.
Lucy Fitz Gibbon is noted for her “dazzling virtuoso singing” (Boston Globe) and believes that creating new works and recreating those lost in centuries past makes room for the diversity of voices integral to classical music’s future. Spotlighted as a Rising Star of Classical Music for 2024 in the February 20, 2024, edition of the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) Music Magazine, Fitz Gibbon is one of 15 young classical musicians that the BBC has identified worldwide who are making a prominent stamp on the industry, whether with concert performances, opera roles, or dazzling new recordings.
Photo: Lucy Fitz Gibbon, visiting faculty in vocal arts at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Photo by Steve Riskind
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Bard Undergraduate Programs |
06-04-2024
Ross Exo Adams and Ivonne Santoyo-Orozco, assistant professors of architectural studies and codirectors of the Architecture Program at Bard College, were interviewed in Koozarch. In conversation with Valerio Franzone, they discussed contemporary architecture pedagogy and the challenges for the field, as well as the opportunities that open when architecture can be taught in a liberal arts context. “Architectural tools should be taught not only to produce new spaces but also to map systems and relationships, similar to Forensic Architecture, to reset the tools of architecture so that they can play roles in forms of advocacy, and broader forms of spatial justice,” said Exo Adams.
Photo: L-R: Ross Exo Adams and Ivonne Santoyo-Orozco, assistant professors of architectural studies and codirectors of the Architecture Program at Bard College.
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Architecture Program,Division of the Arts,Faculty |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Architecture Program,Division of the Arts,Faculty |
May 2024
05-29-2024
The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which is led by three co-artistic directors including Bard Theater and Performance alumna Morgan Green ’12, will receive the 2024 Regional Theatre Tony Award. This honor recognizes a regional theater company that has displayed a continuous level of artistic achievement contributing to the growth of theater nationally and is accompanied by a grant of $25,000. The Wilma Theater was named this year’s recipient based on the recommendation by the American Theatre Critics Association. Green’s recent directing credits include premieres of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Fat Ham by James Ijames (digital, The Wilma Theater) and School Pictures by Milo Cramer ’12 (The Wilma Theater, Playwrights Horizons), who also majored in theater at Bard. In 2019, Green directed the Theater and Performance Program’s production of Promenade at the Fisher Center. This summer, Green and Cramer will return to Bard to present their performance of School Pictures in the Spiegeltent for SummerScape on July 20.
Further reading:
School Pictures, A One-Person Show by Milo Cramer ’12, Featured on This American Life
https://www.bard.edu/news/milo-cramer-12-school-pictures-this-american-life-2024-02-13
Fat Ham, a Black, Queer Take on Hamlet Directed by Morgan Green ’12, Is a New York Times Critic’s Pick
https://www.bard.edu/news/fat-ham-a-black-queer-take-on-hamlet-directed-by-morgan-green-12-is-a-new-york-times-critics-pick-2021-05-04
Further reading:
School Pictures, A One-Person Show by Milo Cramer ’12, Featured on This American Life
https://www.bard.edu/news/milo-cramer-12-school-pictures-this-american-life-2024-02-13
Fat Ham, a Black, Queer Take on Hamlet Directed by Morgan Green ’12, Is a New York Times Critic’s Pick
https://www.bard.edu/news/fat-ham-a-black-queer-take-on-hamlet-directed-by-morgan-green-12-is-a-new-york-times-critics-pick-2021-05-04
Photo: Wilma Theater’s Co-Artistic Director and Bard alumna Morgan Green ’12. Photo by Johanna Austin
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Theater and Performance Program,Theater Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Theater and Performance Program,Theater Program |
05-29-2024
Tanya Marcuse, associate professor of photography at Bard College, has received an American-Scandinavian Foundation Fellowship for 2024–25. The fellowship, for $5,000, will support her creative arts project Tree of Yggdrasil: Photographing Fragility and Growth, which will focus on Iceland’s vividly contrasting landscapes of treeless expanses and small forest enclaves. In the summer of 2024, she will visit Iceland to create large-scale color photographs foregrounding its extensive afforestation efforts, in affiliation with the Icelandic Forestry Association, one of the oldest environmental organizations in the country. Her project aims to capture the ethereal light on individual trees and barren vistas, symbolizing the balance between life and emptiness, and drawing parallels to Norse mythology’s Yggdrasil tree as a cosmic center, suggesting that every tree, however mundane, can or might be that center.
Photo: Tanya Marcuse, associate professor of photography at Bard College. Photo by Jonah Romm ’24
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of the Arts,Faculty,Giving,Grants,Photography Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of the Arts,Faculty,Giving,Grants,Photography Program |
05-20-2024
Bard College student Madilyn Herring ’26 has been awarded both a highly competitive Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship by the US Department of State and a Freeman Award for Study in Asia (Freeman-ASIA) to study abroad. Herring ’26, a studio arts and written arts double major from Lebanon, New Hampshire, has been awarded a $3,500 Gilman scholarship and a $5,000 Freeman-ASIA scholarship to study at Kyoto Seika University, Japan, for spring 2025. Kyoto Seika University is a longtime tuition exchange partner institution with Bard.
“I'm extremely grateful to be a recipient of the Gilman Scholarship and the Freeman-ASIA Scholarship. They make it possible for me to pursue my goals and dreams in a way that perfectly combines all of my interests in art, writing, and Asian studies. Being able to study abroad seemed like a dream out of reach but being able to have the financial support to do so means so much to me,” says Herring.
This year’s cohort of Gilman scholars will study or intern in more than 90 countries and represents more than 500 US colleges and universities. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. Since the program’s inception in 2001, more than 41,000 Gilman Scholars from all US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other US territories have studied or interned in more than 160 countries around the globe. The Department of State awarded approximately 2,100 Gilman scholarships in the spring 2024 application cycle.
The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
The Gilman Program is sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). To learn more, visit: gilmanscholarship.org
The Freeman-ASIA program is designed to support US-based undergraduates with demonstrated financial need who are planning to study abroad in East or Southeast Asia. The program’s goal is to increase the number of US citizens and permanent residents with first-hand exposure to and understanding of Asia and its peoples and cultures. Award recipients are required to share their experiences with their home campuses or communities to encourage study abroad by others and fulfill the program’s goal of increasing understanding of Asia in the United States. From its inception in 2001, Freeman-ASIA has made study abroad in East and Southeast Asia possible for over 5,000 US undergraduates from more than 600 institutions. To learn more, visit: iie.org/programs/freeman-asia/
“I'm extremely grateful to be a recipient of the Gilman Scholarship and the Freeman-ASIA Scholarship. They make it possible for me to pursue my goals and dreams in a way that perfectly combines all of my interests in art, writing, and Asian studies. Being able to study abroad seemed like a dream out of reach but being able to have the financial support to do so means so much to me,” says Herring.
This year’s cohort of Gilman scholars will study or intern in more than 90 countries and represents more than 500 US colleges and universities. Gilman Scholars receive up to $5,000, or up to $8,000 if also a recipient of the Gilman Critical Need Language Award, to apply toward their study abroad or internship program costs. Since the program’s inception in 2001, more than 41,000 Gilman Scholars from all US states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and other US territories have studied or interned in more than 160 countries around the globe. The Department of State awarded approximately 2,100 Gilman scholarships in the spring 2024 application cycle.
The late Congressman Gilman, for whom the scholarship is named, served in the House of Representatives for 30 years and chaired the House Foreign Relations Committee. When honored with the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Medal in 2002, he said, “Living and learning in a vastly different environment of another nation not only exposes our students to alternate views but adds an enriching social and cultural experience. It also provides our students with the opportunity to return home with a deeper understanding of their place in the world, encouraging them to be a contributor, rather than a spectator in the international community.”
The Gilman Program is sponsored by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and is supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE). To learn more, visit: gilmanscholarship.org
The Freeman-ASIA program is designed to support US-based undergraduates with demonstrated financial need who are planning to study abroad in East or Southeast Asia. The program’s goal is to increase the number of US citizens and permanent residents with first-hand exposure to and understanding of Asia and its peoples and cultures. Award recipients are required to share their experiences with their home campuses or communities to encourage study abroad by others and fulfill the program’s goal of increasing understanding of Asia in the United States. From its inception in 2001, Freeman-ASIA has made study abroad in East and Southeast Asia possible for over 5,000 US undergraduates from more than 600 institutions. To learn more, visit: iie.org/programs/freeman-asia/
Photo: Bard College student Madilyn Herring ’26 wins both Gilman International Scholarship and Freeman-ASIA Award for study abroad. Photo by Dana Read Firefly Photography
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Bard Abroad,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Bard Abroad,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program,Written Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
05-15-2024
Alumna Lexi Parra ’18 contributed photography and video to an NPR article about Girl Scout Troop 6000, a New York City–based troop composed of the daughters of asylum seekers. Parra’s photos and videos accompany the story of Troop 6000, whose members take part in traditional scouting activities, as well as supporting each other through the traumas associated with migrancy. “This is probably the only sense of stability they have right now,” Giselle Burgess, founder and senior director of Troop 6000, told NPR. The mission of Troop 6000 aligns with the broader mission of the Girl Scouts, said Meredith Mascara, CEO of Girl Scouts of Greater New York. “They will be the ones running the city,” Mascara said. “I’m proud that Girl Scouts are part of that.”
Photo: Girl Scout Troop 6000. Photo by Lexi Parra ’18 for NPR, courtesy the photographer
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Photography Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Photography Program |
05-07-2024
Two Bard College graduates have won 2024–25 Fulbright Awards for individually designed research projects and English teaching assistantships. During their grants, Fulbrighters meet, work, live with, and learn from the people of the host country, sharing daily experiences. The Fulbright program facilitates cultural exchange through direct interaction on an individual basis in the classroom, field, home, and in routine tasks, allowing the grantee to gain an appreciation of others’ viewpoints and beliefs, the way they do things, and the way they think. Bard College is a Fulbright top producing institution.
Sara Varde de Nieves ’22, who was a joint major in film and electronic arts and in human rights at Bard, has been selected for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Chile for the 2024–25 academic year. Their project, “Regresando al Hogar/Returning Home,” aims to preserve the legacy of Villa San Luis, a large-scale public housing complex built in Las Condes, Santiago, Chile from 1971 to 1972. Through a multi-format documentary comprising interviews with former residents and project planners, archival documents, and footage of the current buildings, Varde de Nieves seeks to capture the collective memory of Villa San Luis’s original residents and planners. In executing this project, Varde de Nieves aims to expand the label of “heritage conservation” to include buildings and infrastructure that are not considered culturally significant as classic historical monuments and to make connections among narrative, memory, ephemera, and the historical archive. “I’m very excited to conduct in-person research on Villa San Luis, an innovative project that strove for class integration and high-quality construction. During my time abroad, I hope to foster long-lasting relationships and get acquainted with Chile's fascinating topography,” says Varde de Nieves.
While at Bard, Varde de Nieves worked as an English language tutor in Red Hook as well as at La Voz, the Hudson Valley Spanish language magazine. Their Senior Project, “Re-igniting the Clit Club,” a documentary about a queer party in the Meatpacking district during the 1990s, won multiple awards at Bard.
Jonathan Asiedu ’24, a written arts major, has been selected for an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) Fulbright to Spain. His teaching placement will be in the Canary Islands. While in Spain, Asiedu plans to hold weekly poetry workshops in local cultural centers, communities, and schools. He hopes to invite the community to bring in their work or poems that speak to them, to share poets and writers and the ways they speak to us. “Studying poetry, learning pedagogical practices to inform my future as an educator, and mentorship opportunities throughout my college career have shaped both my perception of education and the work that needs to be done to improve students’ experiences within the educational system,” he says.
At Bard, Asiedu serves as a lead peer counselor through Residence Life, an Equity and Inclusion Mentor with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, admission tour guide, and works as a campus photographer. Moreover, this past year, he gained TESOL certification and has served as an English language tutor, as well as a writing tutor at the Eastern Correctional Facility through the Bard Prison Initiative. Asiedu, who is from the South Bronx, decided early on that he wanted to speak Spanish and has taken the Spanish Language Intensive at Bard, which includes four weeks of study in Oaxaca, Mexico. After the completion of his Fulbright ETA, he plans to pursue a master degree in education with a specialization in literature from Bard’s Master of Arts in Teaching program.
Three Bard students have also been named alternates for Fulbright Awards. Bard Conservatory student Nita Vemuri ’24, who is majoring in piano performance and economics, is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Hungary. Film and electronic arts graduate Elizabeth Sullivan ’23 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany. Mathematics major Skye Rothstein ’24 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany.
Fulbright is a program of the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.
Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.
Sara Varde de Nieves ’22, who was a joint major in film and electronic arts and in human rights at Bard, has been selected for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Chile for the 2024–25 academic year. Their project, “Regresando al Hogar/Returning Home,” aims to preserve the legacy of Villa San Luis, a large-scale public housing complex built in Las Condes, Santiago, Chile from 1971 to 1972. Through a multi-format documentary comprising interviews with former residents and project planners, archival documents, and footage of the current buildings, Varde de Nieves seeks to capture the collective memory of Villa San Luis’s original residents and planners. In executing this project, Varde de Nieves aims to expand the label of “heritage conservation” to include buildings and infrastructure that are not considered culturally significant as classic historical monuments and to make connections among narrative, memory, ephemera, and the historical archive. “I’m very excited to conduct in-person research on Villa San Luis, an innovative project that strove for class integration and high-quality construction. During my time abroad, I hope to foster long-lasting relationships and get acquainted with Chile's fascinating topography,” says Varde de Nieves.
While at Bard, Varde de Nieves worked as an English language tutor in Red Hook as well as at La Voz, the Hudson Valley Spanish language magazine. Their Senior Project, “Re-igniting the Clit Club,” a documentary about a queer party in the Meatpacking district during the 1990s, won multiple awards at Bard.
Jonathan Asiedu ’24, a written arts major, has been selected for an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) Fulbright to Spain. His teaching placement will be in the Canary Islands. While in Spain, Asiedu plans to hold weekly poetry workshops in local cultural centers, communities, and schools. He hopes to invite the community to bring in their work or poems that speak to them, to share poets and writers and the ways they speak to us. “Studying poetry, learning pedagogical practices to inform my future as an educator, and mentorship opportunities throughout my college career have shaped both my perception of education and the work that needs to be done to improve students’ experiences within the educational system,” he says.
At Bard, Asiedu serves as a lead peer counselor through Residence Life, an Equity and Inclusion Mentor with the Office of Equity and Inclusion, admission tour guide, and works as a campus photographer. Moreover, this past year, he gained TESOL certification and has served as an English language tutor, as well as a writing tutor at the Eastern Correctional Facility through the Bard Prison Initiative. Asiedu, who is from the South Bronx, decided early on that he wanted to speak Spanish and has taken the Spanish Language Intensive at Bard, which includes four weeks of study in Oaxaca, Mexico. After the completion of his Fulbright ETA, he plans to pursue a master degree in education with a specialization in literature from Bard’s Master of Arts in Teaching program.
Three Bard students have also been named alternates for Fulbright Awards. Bard Conservatory student Nita Vemuri ’24, who is majoring in piano performance and economics, is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Hungary. Film and electronic arts graduate Elizabeth Sullivan ’23 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany. Mathematics major Skye Rothstein ’24 is an alternate for a Fulbright Study/Research Award to Germany.
Fulbright is a program of the US Department of State, with funding provided by the US Government. Participating governments and host institutions, corporations, and foundations around the world also provide direct and indirect support to the program.
Fulbright alumni work to make a positive impact on their communities, sectors, and the world and have included 41 heads of state or government, 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 80 MacArthur Fellows, and countless leaders and changemakers who build mutual understanding between the people of the United State and the people of other countries.
Photo: L-R: Fulbright winners Sara Varde de Nieves ’22 and Jonathan Asiedu ’24 (photo by Chris Kayden).
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Student | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Awards,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program,Human Rights,Office of Equity and Inclusion Programs (OEI),Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Student | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Awards,Dean of Studies,Division of Languages and Literature,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program,Human Rights,Office of Equity and Inclusion Programs (OEI),Written Arts Program |
April 2024
04-29-2024
New Muse 4tet, an ensemble led by jazz faculty member Gwen Laster, was awarded a $11,300 Performance Plus grant by Chamber Music America, a national network for ensemble music professionals. The grant will enable New Muse 4tet to record new music, building off of the successes of their debut album, Blue Lotus. The grant will also enable coaching sessions from jazz pianist and composer Michele Rosewoman, helping New Muse 4tet build new works through the lenses of jazz composition and Caribbean folkloric idioms.
Photo: Gwen Laster.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Jazz in the Music Program,Music Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Jazz in the Music Program,Music Program |
04-16-2024
Jeffrey Gibson, artist in residence at Bard College, was once advised to tone down his work: to make it less colorful, less bold. “We’ve been dismissed as garish and too much, because of our use of color,” Gibson told the New York Times. Now, Gibson will be the first Native artist to represent the United States in the Venice Biennale with a solo exhibition—his embrace of color having propelled him to this stage. In a profile of Gibson for the Times, Jillian Steinhauer traced Gibson’s history as an artist, his preparation for the Biennale, and his relationship to the US. “I have a complicated relationship with the United States,” he said. His project for the Biennale “aims to interweave a Native American narrative with other histories of struggle and freedom,” borrowing its title from a poem by Bard alumna Layli Long Soldier MFA ’13. “‘The space in which to place me’ seemed like this idea of both decentralizing things and making things central that are oftentimes on the periphery,” Gibson said. The 2024 Venice Biennale runs April 20 through November 24, 2024.
Photo: Jeffrey Gibson. Photo by Brian Barlow
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Faculty,Studio Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Faculty,Studio Arts Program |
04-09-2024
Walid Raad, currently distinguished visiting professor of photography, will begin his tenured appointment at Bard College in fall 2024 as professor of photography in the Division of the Arts. Raad is an artist whose works include photography, video, mixed media installations, and performances. His works include the creation of The Atlas Group, a 15-year project between 1989 and 2004 about the contemporary history of Lebanon, as well as the ongoing projects Scratching on Things I Could Disavow and Sweet Talk: Commissions (Beirut). His books include Walkthrough, The Truth Will Be Known When The Last Witness Is Dead, My Neck Is Thinner Than A Hair, and Let’s Be Honest The Weather Helped.
Raad’s solo exhibitions have been featured at institutions including the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), Museo Nacional Thyssen Bornemisza (Madrid), Louvre (Paris), The Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden), ICA (Boston, USA), Museo Jumex (Mexico City, Mexico), Kunsthalle Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland), The Whitechapel Art Gallery (London, UK), Festival d’Automne (Paris, France), Kunsten Festival des Arts (Brussels, Belgium), The Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, Germany).
His works have also been shown in Documenta 11 and 13 (Kassel, Germany), The Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy), Whitney Bienniale 2000 and 2002 (New York, USA), Sao Paulo Bienale (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Istanbul Biennal (Istanbul, Turkey), Homeworks I and IV (Beirut, Lebanon) and other institutions across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. In addition, Raad is the recipient multiple grants, prizes, and awards, including the Aachener Kunstpreis (2018), ICP Infinity Award (2016), the Hasselblad Award (2011), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009), the Alpert Award in Visual Arts (2007), the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2007), the Camera Austria Award (2005), and a Rockefeller Fellowship (2003). Raad was named Harvard University’s Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies (AFVS) 2024 Solomon Fellow and is in residence at AFVS from April 7 to 13, 2024.
Raad’s solo exhibitions have been featured at institutions including the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), Museo Nacional Thyssen Bornemisza (Madrid), Louvre (Paris), The Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Moderna Museet (Stockholm, Sweden), ICA (Boston, USA), Museo Jumex (Mexico City, Mexico), Kunsthalle Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland), The Whitechapel Art Gallery (London, UK), Festival d’Automne (Paris, France), Kunsten Festival des Arts (Brussels, Belgium), The Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, Germany).
His works have also been shown in Documenta 11 and 13 (Kassel, Germany), The Venice Biennale (Venice, Italy), Whitney Bienniale 2000 and 2002 (New York, USA), Sao Paulo Bienale (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Istanbul Biennal (Istanbul, Turkey), Homeworks I and IV (Beirut, Lebanon) and other institutions across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Americas. In addition, Raad is the recipient multiple grants, prizes, and awards, including the Aachener Kunstpreis (2018), ICP Infinity Award (2016), the Hasselblad Award (2011), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009), the Alpert Award in Visual Arts (2007), the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2007), the Camera Austria Award (2005), and a Rockefeller Fellowship (2003). Raad was named Harvard University’s Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies (AFVS) 2024 Solomon Fellow and is in residence at AFVS from April 7 to 13, 2024.
Photo: Walid Raad.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of the Arts,Photography Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Academics,Division of the Arts,Photography Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
04-01-2024
Bard College senior Melonie Bisset ’24, a film and electronic arts major, has won a highly selective Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) for the 2024 summer session. CLS, a program of the US Department of State, provides recipients with overseas placements that include intensive language instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences designed to promote rapid language gains. Each summer, American undergraduate and graduate students enrolled at US colleges and universities across the country, spend 8 to 10 weeks learning one of 13 languages at an intensive study abroad institute. The CLS Program is designed to promote rapid language gains and essential intercultural fluency in regions that are critical to US national security and economic prosperity. The languages include Arabic, Azerbaijani, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu.
Bisset will study Portuguese at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The CLS Program in Rio de Janeiro provides a language learning environment designed to cover the equivalent of one academic year of university-level Portuguese study during an eight-week period. While in Brazil, Bisset will live with a local host family, eating breakfast with them each morning and spending free weekends with them. Host families help students integrate into daily life in Rio de Janeiro, introduce them to their extended networks, and create opportunities for them to practice their Portuguese in a more relaxed setting. Students also meet with a language partner several hours per week to practice conversational language skills and explore the city, planning their own activities with their language partners based on their interests.
Bisset writes that her interests have always been at the intersection of multiple cultures. That is where she feels most like herself—where she belongs. Accordingly, that is why Brazilian culture has always captivated her: its intense mix of diverse cultures. Aside from music and dance, she is also attracted to Brazilian filmmakers engaged in debates surrounding ecocinema, poverty, and multiculturalism. Her ultimate goal is to create a US-based nonprofit that facilitates cross cultural exchange and understanding through language and art.
“I am extremely grateful to receive the Critical Language Scholarship, and even more excited for the opportunity to study Portuguese in Rio de Janeiro this summer,” says Bisset. “As a multicultural-multiracial English, Mandarin, and Spanish speaker, a certified TESOL instructor, a filmmaker, an Argentine Tango dancer, a translator, and most importantly a story teller, my aspiration has always been to facilitate greater intercultural understanding through engagement with the arts and languages. I hope to establish my own organization dedicated to these dreams one day. This immersive language and cultural experience will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on my personal life and career development.”
The CLS Program is part of a US government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain critical language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to US economic competitiveness and national security. Approximately 500 competitively selected American students at US colleges and universities participate in the CLS Program each year.
“Critical” languages are those that are less commonly taught in US schools, but are essential for America’s engagement with the world. CLS plays an important role in preparing US students for the 21st century’s globalized workforce, increasing American competitiveness, and contributing to national security. CLS scholars serve as citizen ambassadors, representing the diversity of the United States abroad and building lasting relationships with people in their host countries.
For further information about the Critical Language Scholarship or other exchange programs offered by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, please visit http://www.clscholarship.org/ and https://studyabroad.state.gov/.
Bisset will study Portuguese at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The CLS Program in Rio de Janeiro provides a language learning environment designed to cover the equivalent of one academic year of university-level Portuguese study during an eight-week period. While in Brazil, Bisset will live with a local host family, eating breakfast with them each morning and spending free weekends with them. Host families help students integrate into daily life in Rio de Janeiro, introduce them to their extended networks, and create opportunities for them to practice their Portuguese in a more relaxed setting. Students also meet with a language partner several hours per week to practice conversational language skills and explore the city, planning their own activities with their language partners based on their interests.
Bisset writes that her interests have always been at the intersection of multiple cultures. That is where she feels most like herself—where she belongs. Accordingly, that is why Brazilian culture has always captivated her: its intense mix of diverse cultures. Aside from music and dance, she is also attracted to Brazilian filmmakers engaged in debates surrounding ecocinema, poverty, and multiculturalism. Her ultimate goal is to create a US-based nonprofit that facilitates cross cultural exchange and understanding through language and art.
“I am extremely grateful to receive the Critical Language Scholarship, and even more excited for the opportunity to study Portuguese in Rio de Janeiro this summer,” says Bisset. “As a multicultural-multiracial English, Mandarin, and Spanish speaker, a certified TESOL instructor, a filmmaker, an Argentine Tango dancer, a translator, and most importantly a story teller, my aspiration has always been to facilitate greater intercultural understanding through engagement with the arts and languages. I hope to establish my own organization dedicated to these dreams one day. This immersive language and cultural experience will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on my personal life and career development.”
The CLS Program is part of a US government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. CLS scholars gain critical language and cultural skills that enable them to contribute to US economic competitiveness and national security. Approximately 500 competitively selected American students at US colleges and universities participate in the CLS Program each year.
“Critical” languages are those that are less commonly taught in US schools, but are essential for America’s engagement with the world. CLS plays an important role in preparing US students for the 21st century’s globalized workforce, increasing American competitiveness, and contributing to national security. CLS scholars serve as citizen ambassadors, representing the diversity of the United States abroad and building lasting relationships with people in their host countries.
For further information about the Critical Language Scholarship or other exchange programs offered by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, please visit http://www.clscholarship.org/ and https://studyabroad.state.gov/.
Photo: Bard College student Melonie Bisset ’24.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Dean of Studies,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program,Foreign Language,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Student |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Dean of Studies,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program,Foreign Language,Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures Program,Student |
March 2024
03-26-2024
Bard College alumna and Studio Arts faculty member Tschabalala Self has won the prestigious Fourth Plinth Commission with her sculpture Lady in Blue. Her work will be installed in Trafalgar Square in 2026 in what Justine Simons, London’s deputy mayor for culture and the creative industries, refers to as “the most successful public art commission in the world.” Self shares the honor with Romanian-born artist Andra Ursuţa, whose Untitled will be installed in 2028.
“My work Lady in Blue will bring to Trafalgar Square a woman that many can relate to,” Self said in a statement. “She is not an idol to venerate or a historic figurehead to commemorate. She is a woman striding forward into our collective future with ambition and purpose. She is a Londoner, who represents the city’s spirit.”
“My work Lady in Blue will bring to Trafalgar Square a woman that many can relate to,” Self said in a statement. “She is not an idol to venerate or a historic figurehead to commemorate. She is a woman striding forward into our collective future with ambition and purpose. She is a Londoner, who represents the city’s spirit.”
Photo: Tschabalala Self, Lady in Blue (2024). Photo: James O. Jenkins. Image courtesy of GLA.
Meta: Subject(s): Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Master of Fine Arts (Bard MFA),Studio Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Master of Fine Arts (Bard MFA),Studio Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
03-26-2024
“James Fuentes Gallery, long a forward-looking presence in the contemporary art scene on New York’s Lower East Side, is the latest space to decamp to Tribeca,” writes Jillian Billard for the Art Newspaper. The eponymous gallery of alumnus James Fuentes ’98, who will be awarded the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters at this year’s Bard College Awards, has long championed “artists with practices outside the commercial conventions of the contemporary art market.” This curatorial focus, Fuentes says, was first furnished at Bard. “I kind of picked up this idea of curating as a profession through osmosis, studying adjacent to the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies and spending time in the library founded by Marieluise Hessel,” Fuentes says. “The program planted a seed.”
Photo: James Fuentes ’98.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Anthropology Program,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Anthropology Program,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program |
03-12-2024
Rita McBride ’82 spoke with Art Newspaper about her exhibition Particulates, which was on view at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. The exhibition, which built on McBride’s past work Portal, was “composed of high-intensity laser beams, water molecules, and dust particles dancing mid-air.” The exhibition was installed in conjunction with a renovation of the Hammer Museum, which McBride said influenced her artistic process. “I was thinking about it as a corporate ruin: what things were important to keep and what things were important to get away from as they went forward with their renovations,” McBride said. “Particulates can exist anywhere—any size, any scale—so it can take on hermetic situations or, like this one, open to the street and to a more narrative space than at Dia or in Liverpool.”
Photo: Rita McBride ’82. Image courtesy the artist’s website
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program |
February 2024
02-28-2024
Bard Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Yebel Gallegos will spend the week of March 18– 22 in the MADarts Residency Program, which provides artists and their collaborators unlimited access to a dance studio and a quiet, comfortable living space at the Modern Accord Depot in Accord, New York. Gallegos will continue work on his long-term dance production project, MACHO Sensibilities, which critically examines the imposition of machismo on male-identifying dancers of Mexican and Mexican-American descent. During the residency, he will be developing a new section with his collaborators that is set to premiere at the Faculty Dance Concert, taking place in the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts’ LUMA Theater at Bard College in spring 2024.The section will be a trio comprising three Mexican and Mexican-American artists including Gallego, costume and stage designer David Arevalo, and composer/sound designer/percussionist Jonathan Rodriguez. This research project is anchored in autoethnographic writing, oral history research, and movement analysis. “I define machismo as an exaggerated performance of a ‘man’s role’ as it is encouraged by the confines of heteronormativity and patriarchy. Machismo overshadows the individuality of gender representation, preventing the inclusion of diverse interpretations of masculinity in society,” writes Gallego.
Photo: Bard Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Yebel Gallegos.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Dance Program,Division of the Arts |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Dance Program,Division of the Arts |
02-20-2024
“The Harlem Renaissance has been a part of my lexicon since birth,” said Bard alumna Xaviera Simmons ’05 to the New York Times. Simmons, along with five other artists, were invited by the Times to reflect on the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance. Recent works by Simmons pay homage not only to artists like Jacob Lawrence, but to those whose contributions were either diminished or erased by history. Simmons’s work They’re All Afraid, All of Them, That’s It! They’re All Southern! The Whole United States Is Southern! elevates and recontextualizes the work done by the artist Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence’s wife, who cowrote the labels that accompany Lawrence’s famous Migration Series. Simmons’s piece recontextualizes Knight’s work and words in order to emphasize that “the text, which you don’t really pay much attention to, is just as critical” as the visuals.
Photo: Xaviera Simmons ’05. Photo by Jasmine Clarke ’18
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Photography Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Photography Program |
02-15-2024
A. Sayeeda Moreno, assistant professor of Film and Electronic Arts at Bard, was honored with a one-week residency to develop her upcoming feature film, Out in the Dunes, a coming-of-age romance set in 1990s Provincetown on Cape Cod. Immersing herself in the locale, she explored Provincetown to seek enrichment for her screenplay. Sayeeda also showcased three of her short films, Sin Salida, Bina, and White, at the Provincetown International Film Festival followed by a Q&A session, sharing the intricacies of her creative process as a writer and director with an engaged audience. The Provincetown Film Institute Women’s Residency Program offers established women-identifying filmmakers from around the world the opportunity to work in Provincetown during the off-season alongside other artists and writers who use the solitude of the outer Cape Cod area as inspiration for their work. Residents are selected by a panel of film industry professionals and given a small travel stipend, lodging, and roundtrip travel from Boston.
A. Sayeeda Moreno is a director and screenwriter whose award-winning short films and screenplays are nourished by the mythology of the New York City metropolis where she was born, and the exhilarating cast of characters that filtered through her bohemian home. She documents and filters this World through her own body and a body of work that is character-driven, utilizing genre to illuminate our human experiences: how we survive, what is in opposition to us, what our mind grapples with, and how we love. Sayeeda is a Film Independent, Sundance Women in Finance, and Tribeca All Access Fellow and earned her MFA in Film from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts as a dean’s fellow. She is developing her feature film Out in the Dunes and has been an assistant professor in Film and Electronic Arts at Bard College since 2018.
Dune shack on Cape Cod where Moreno spent her residency. Photo by A. Sayeeda Moreno
Photo: Assistant Professor of Film and Electronic Arts at Bard A. Sayeeda Moreno.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program |
02-13-2024
Listening to music, often a solitary activity, takes on new dimensions among a group of friends who have been meeting for 15 years to encounter songs together. Associate Professor of Photography Tim Davis ’91 writes about the Golden Ears and their weekly meetups in Tivoli, New York, and the particular pleasure of gathering to share music. “By now we’re used to listening to music for one another, in a way that privileges adventure over taste,” he writes. “Having a listening group as a sounding board of directors turns the sprawl of music history into a rolling conversation with friends, a renewable resource, an endless delight.”
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Photography Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Photography Program |
02-06-2024
Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Sarah Hennies; New Red Order, an Indigenous art collective whose core contributors are Bard alumni Adam Khalil ’11 (Ojibway) and Zack Khalil ’14 (Ojibway); and Trisha Baga MFA ’10 have received 2024 United States Artist (USA) Fellowships in the disciplines of Music and Visual Arts. Hennies, New Red Order, and Baga are among this year’s 50 awardees, encompassing artists and collectives spanning multiple generations, who are dedicated to their communities and committed to building upon shared legacies through artistic innovation, cultural stewardship, and multifaceted storytelling. USA Fellowships provide $50,000 in unrestricted money to artists across 10 creative disciplines. In addition to the award, current fellows have access to financial planning, career consulting, legal advice, and other professional services as requested.
Sarah Hennies is a composer based in Upstate NY whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer and trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought.
New Red Order is a public secret society facilitated by core contributors Adam Khalil (Ojibway), Zack Khalil (Ojibway), and Jackson Polys (Tlingit) that collaborates with informants to create exhibitions, videos, and performances that question and rechannel subjective and material relationships to indigeneity.
Trisha Baga is a Filipino-American artist working in stereoscopic 3D video installation, paint, clay, consumer grade electronics, and community performance. Compelled by an interest in what they call “the stuff that makes things stick together,” Baga recombines objects and images into scenarios that address issues related to the environment, technology, and identity.
Representing a broad diversity of regions and mediums, the USA Fellows are awarded through a peer-led selection process in the disciplines of Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Film, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing.
Sarah Hennies is a composer based in Upstate NY whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer and trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought.
New Red Order is a public secret society facilitated by core contributors Adam Khalil (Ojibway), Zack Khalil (Ojibway), and Jackson Polys (Tlingit) that collaborates with informants to create exhibitions, videos, and performances that question and rechannel subjective and material relationships to indigeneity.
Trisha Baga is a Filipino-American artist working in stereoscopic 3D video installation, paint, clay, consumer grade electronics, and community performance. Compelled by an interest in what they call “the stuff that makes things stick together,” Baga recombines objects and images into scenarios that address issues related to the environment, technology, and identity.
Representing a broad diversity of regions and mediums, the USA Fellows are awarded through a peer-led selection process in the disciplines of Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Film, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art, and Writing.
Photo: L-R: Sarah Hennies, photo by Mara Baldwin; New Red Order (detail), photo courtesy of the artists; and Trisha Baga, photo by Molly Dektar have won 2024 United States Artist (USA) Fellowships.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Awards,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Music Program | Institutes(s): MFA |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Awards,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Music Program | Institutes(s): MFA |
02-06-2024
At the 66th annual GRAMMY Awards ceremony, the Recording Academy honored the 2024 GRAMMY winners. Among them, Bard Composer in Residence Jessie Montgomery won Best Contemporary Classical Composition, her first GRAMMY award, for her composition “Rounds.” Bard Conservatory of Music’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program alumna Julia Bullock MM ’11 also won her first GRAMMY award, winning Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for her album Walking in the Dark. Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe is featured on the album Blanchard: Champion, which won for Best Opera Recording.
Jessie Montgomery’s “Rounds” is a composition for piano and string orchestra inspired by the imagery and themes from T.S. Eliot’s epic poem Four Quartets, fractals (infinite patterns found in nature that are self-similar across different scales), and the interdependency of all beings.
Julia Bullock’s Walking in the Dark was recorded with her husband, conductor and pianist Christian Reif, and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. The album combines orchestral works by American composers John Adams and Samuel Barber with a traditional spiritual and songs by jazz legend Billy Taylor and singer-songwriters Oscar Brown, Jr., Connie Converse, and Sandy Denny.
The Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Terence Blanchard’s Champion, an opera about young boxer Emile Griffith who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, was conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and featured a cast including mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Kathy Hagen.![Artistic Director of the Bard College Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe Artistic Director of the Bard College Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe](https://tools.bard.edu/wwwmedia/pr/multi/images/19843/StephanieHeadshot2sq.jpg)
The GRAMMYs are voted on by more than 11,000 music professionals—performers, songwriters, producers, and others with credits on recordings—who are members of the Recording Academy.
Further Reading:
Jessie Montgomery’s “Rounds” Wins 2024 GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Julia Bullock Wins First Grammy Award with Walking in the Dark, Her Solo Album Debut
The Metropolitan Opera wins 2024 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for Terence Blanchard’s Champion
Jessie Montgomery’s “Rounds” is a composition for piano and string orchestra inspired by the imagery and themes from T.S. Eliot’s epic poem Four Quartets, fractals (infinite patterns found in nature that are self-similar across different scales), and the interdependency of all beings.
Julia Bullock’s Walking in the Dark was recorded with her husband, conductor and pianist Christian Reif, and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. The album combines orchestral works by American composers John Adams and Samuel Barber with a traditional spiritual and songs by jazz legend Billy Taylor and singer-songwriters Oscar Brown, Jr., Connie Converse, and Sandy Denny.
The Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Terence Blanchard’s Champion, an opera about young boxer Emile Griffith who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, was conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and featured a cast including mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Kathy Hagen.
![Artistic Director of the Bard College Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe Artistic Director of the Bard College Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe](https://tools.bard.edu/wwwmedia/pr/multi/images/19843/StephanieHeadshot2sq.jpg)
Artistic Director of the Bard College Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe
The GRAMMYs are voted on by more than 11,000 music professionals—performers, songwriters, producers, and others with credits on recordings—who are members of the Recording Academy.
Further Reading:
Jessie Montgomery’s “Rounds” Wins 2024 GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition
Julia Bullock Wins First Grammy Award with Walking in the Dark, Her Solo Album Debut
The Metropolitan Opera wins 2024 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for Terence Blanchard’s Champion
Photo: L-R: Bard Composer in Residence Jessie Montgomery (photo by Jiyang Chen) and Julia Bullock MM '11 (photo by Allison Michael Orenstein) win 2024 GRAMMY Awards.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Bard Conservatory,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Bard Conservatory,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
02-05-2024
Ephraim Asili MFA ’11, associate professor of film and electronic arts and director of the Film and Electronic Arts Program, has won a 2024 Creative Capital Award for $50,000 to support his documentary film Eternal Rhythm. Creative Capital Awards provide artists with unrestricted project funding up to $50,000, bespoke professional development services, and community-building opportunities.
Eternal Rhythm explores the personal and artistic relationship between Don and Moki Cherry after the couple moved from New York to Moki’s native Sweden in 1970. There they began a decade-long collaboration that merged multicultural expressions of art, music, and radical living into a synergetic model for communal creativity.
Creative Capital’s “Wild Futures: Art, Culture, Impact” Awards in Visual Arts and Film/Moving Image total $2.5 million in grants to artists for the creation of 50 groundbreaking new works. Chosen from 5,600 applications, this year’s awards will fund 28 innovative visual arts projects and 22 film/moving image projects, representing 54 artists in total.
Eternal Rhythm explores the personal and artistic relationship between Don and Moki Cherry after the couple moved from New York to Moki’s native Sweden in 1970. There they began a decade-long collaboration that merged multicultural expressions of art, music, and radical living into a synergetic model for communal creativity.
Creative Capital’s “Wild Futures: Art, Culture, Impact” Awards in Visual Arts and Film/Moving Image total $2.5 million in grants to artists for the creation of 50 groundbreaking new works. Chosen from 5,600 applications, this year’s awards will fund 28 innovative visual arts projects and 22 film/moving image projects, representing 54 artists in total.
Photo: Ephraim Asili MFA ’11, associate professor of film and electronic arts and director of the Film and Electronic Arts Program. Photo by Lou Jones
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program |
02-01-2024
Artistic Director of Bard Conservatory of Music’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program and acclaimed mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe spoke to The Daily Catch ahead of her concert performance, Stephanie Blythe Sings Brahms, with The Orchestra Now at the Fisher Center on February 3–4. Renowned for the emotional depth of her performances, Blythe connects the lines of Brahm’s “Alto Rhapsody,” which uses Goethe’s poetry for lyrics, to “a feeling of a place where you can breathe. I understand the notion of breaking through and wanting to breathe. When you understand the universality of this music, you understand its essential nature,” says Blythe, who believes opera, when presented for what it actually is, can appeal to a broader, more popular audience. “Being able to illuminate and elevate opera in a new way is really important,” she said. “I find that far too often people who present opera feel like they need to repackage it. Opera doesn’t need to be excused. You don’t need to make it something else for people to appreciate it.”
Photo: Artistic Director of Bard Conservatory of Music’s Graduate Vocal Arts Program and acclaimed mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Opera | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Opera | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
January 2024
01-31-2024
“Every year since 2009, a handful of artists, engineers, musicians, and hobbyists from around the world arrive in Atlanta, Georgia, with one-of-a-kind instruments in tow,” writes Andrew Paul for Popular Science. Among them is Pippa Kelmenson ’17, inventor of the Bone Conductive Instrument, or BCI. Popular Science named the BCI, which “emits sound signals to vibrate individual body resonant frequencies to aid hard-of-hearing users,” as one of 2023’s most innovative musical inventions. According to Kelmenson, the BCI “calls for an inclusive and innovative way for users across the hearing spectrum to interact with sound.”
Photo: The Bone Conductive Instrument, or BCI, by Pippa Kelmenson ’17. Image courtesy the artist’s website
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Music Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Music Program |
01-29-2024
Bard College faculty members and alums will be among the 71 artists and collectives selected to participate in this year’s Whitney Biennial, the 81st installment of the landmark exhibition series. Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing opens on March 20. Works by Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Sarah Hennies; Assistant Professor of American and Indigenous Studies, Distinguished Artist in Residence in Studio Arts, and Bard MFA Faculty in Music/Sound Kite MFA ’18; and Bard MFA Faculty in Sculpture Lotus Laurie Kang MFA ’15 will be featured alongside those by alums Diane Severin Nguyen MFA ’20, Carolyn Lazard ’10, and Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio ’12. The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College graduate Min Sun Jeon CCS ’22 helped to organize the exhibition.
The 2024 Whitney Biennial is organized by Chrissie Iles (Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator) and Meg Onli (Curator at Large), with Min Sun Jeon CCS ’22 and Beatriz Cifuentes. The performance program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curator Taja Cheek. The film program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curators Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr, and Zackary Drucker.
“After finalizing the list of artists last summer, we have built a thematic Biennial that focuses on the ideas of ‘the real,’” write the curators. “Society is at an inflection point around this notion, in part brought on by artificial intelligence challenging what we consider to be real, as well as critical discussions about identity. Many of the artists presenting works—including via robust performance and film programs—explore the fluidity of identity and form, historical and current land stewardship, and concepts of embodiment, among other urgent throughlines, and we are inspired by the work they are creating and sharing.”
The 2024 Whitney Biennial is organized by Chrissie Iles (Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Curator) and Meg Onli (Curator at Large), with Min Sun Jeon CCS ’22 and Beatriz Cifuentes. The performance program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curator Taja Cheek. The film program is organized by Iles and Onli, with guest curators Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr, and Zackary Drucker.
“After finalizing the list of artists last summer, we have built a thematic Biennial that focuses on the ideas of ‘the real,’” write the curators. “Society is at an inflection point around this notion, in part brought on by artificial intelligence challenging what we consider to be real, as well as critical discussions about identity. Many of the artists presenting works—including via robust performance and film programs—explore the fluidity of identity and form, historical and current land stewardship, and concepts of embodiment, among other urgent throughlines, and we are inspired by the work they are creating and sharing.”
Photo: Bard College faculty members Kite MFA ’18, Sarah Hennies, and Lotus Laurie Kang MFA ’15 are among the artists selected to participate in the Whitney Biennial 2024.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,American and Indigenous Studies Program,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Music Program | Institutes(s): MFA |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,American and Indigenous Studies Program,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Music Program | Institutes(s): MFA |
01-19-2024
Two Bard faculty members and two alumni/ae are recipients of MacDowell Fellowships. Carl Elsaesser, visiting artist in residence at Bard College in Film and Electronic Arts, has been awarded a MacDowell Fellowship to MacDowell's Residency Program in the Film/Video Artists category for fall/winter 2023. Elsaesser’s residency will support the completion of his project, Coastlines, a feature-length film that intertwines the ethnographic intricacies of Maine’s coastline with the intimate video diaries of a Portland family, inviting a reevaluation of evolving identities and artistic representation within the private and public spheres. Drawing from queer phenomenology and traditional historical narratives, the film challenges perceptions and redefines the boundaries of storytelling, revealing Maine’s dual role as a backdrop and active participant in shaping inhabitants’ sense of self.
Daaimah Mubashshir, playwright in residence at Bard, received a MacDowell Fellowship in MacDowell’s Artist Residency Program for fall 2023 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in support of their work on a new play about their great grandmother, Begonia Williams Tate, who defied all odds in Mobile, Alabama, in the late 19th century. Chaya Czernowin, a composer and Bard MFA ’88 in Music, and Bard alumna Hannah Beerman ’15, are also 2023 MacDowell Fellowship recipients. The MacDowell Fellowships are distributed by seven discipline-specific admissions panels who make their selections based on applicants’ vision and talent as reflected by work samples and a project description. Once at MacDowell, selected Fellows are provided a private studio, three meals a day, and accommodations for a period of up to six weeks.
Daaimah Mubashshir, playwright in residence at Bard, received a MacDowell Fellowship in MacDowell’s Artist Residency Program for fall 2023 in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in support of their work on a new play about their great grandmother, Begonia Williams Tate, who defied all odds in Mobile, Alabama, in the late 19th century. Chaya Czernowin, a composer and Bard MFA ’88 in Music, and Bard alumna Hannah Beerman ’15, are also 2023 MacDowell Fellowship recipients. The MacDowell Fellowships are distributed by seven discipline-specific admissions panels who make their selections based on applicants’ vision and talent as reflected by work samples and a project description. Once at MacDowell, selected Fellows are provided a private studio, three meals a day, and accommodations for a period of up to six weeks.
Photo: Clockwise from top left: 2023 MacDowell Fellowship recipients Bard Visiting Artist in Residence Carl Elsaesser; Chaya Czernowin MFA ’88 (photo by Irina Rozovsky); Bard Playwright in Residence Daaimah Mubashshir (photo by Maya Sharpe); Hannah Beerman ’15 (photo by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey).
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program,Theater and Performance Program | Institutes(s): MFA |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Film and Electronic Arts Program,Theater and Performance Program | Institutes(s): MFA |
01-05-2024
Student Artwork Exhibited on Billboard in Hudson and in Temporary Installation in Richard Abraham’s Memorial Park in Red Hook
Bard Community Arts Collective and the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard are pleased to announce the installation of several student artworks in Dutchess County and Columbia County.How Long Will We Be Driving by Bard student James Wise ’26 is on view at a billboard located at 3391 US-9, Hudson, NY 12534 from December 20, 2023 to January 17, 2024. This work is presented through a partnership with Shandaken Projects’ public art initiative 14x48, which has exhibited new work by contemporary artists on billboards across New York State since 2021.
Additionally, works from students in the Studio Arts Program at Bard have been temporarily installed in Richard Abraham’s Memorial Park in Red Hook, as part of a pilot partnership with the Village of Red Hook’s Public Spaces Initiative Committee.
These projects originated in an Extended Media course taught by artist Julia Weist in the Studio Arts Program at Bard. This class explores the potential of presenting art in an expanded field of engagement, including in the public realm, asking students to consider how the interpretation of their work changes when it is experienced in a mass media or civic context. In addition to exercises and instruction in the classroom, students visited the offices of Shandaken Projects and met with the Village of Red Hook’s Chair for the Public Spaces Initiative Committee, Ash Bradley-Rickard, and the Red Hook Village Board to learn more about opportunities for artists in the public sector. Each student created a two-dimensional billboard proposal, reviewed by Shandaken Projects, and a three-dimensional public art proposal, which was presented at a Village Board meeting on November 13, 2023. One billboard proposal was selected by Shandaken Projects for production, and every student proposal was approved for temporary installation in Richard Abraham’s Memorial Park.
The selected billboard, created by James Wise, was created by layering more than 50 AI-generated images. At first glance from the vantage of a moving car, the image appears to be a standard insurance ad. A closer look reveals that the uncanny advertisement includes only one legible question—“How long will we be driving?”—along with other text-like elements that are distorted and nonsensical. The billboard’s question highlights several challenging issues related to emerging technologies and the future of our planet, such as the loss of human autonomy that may come from an increased reliance on AI (including through self-driving cars) and the impact of driving carbon-polluting cars on a warming climate. The figure at the center of the ad, the avatar created by artificial intelligence to represent an insurance salesman, represents another troubling facet of algorithmic technology: these tools often closely reflect those who create them. The AI field is predominately white and male, and Wise’s artwork asks us to consider if those individuals who are in the driver’s seat of our tech future broadly represent the diverse communities that will use artificial intelligence. Wise said of the project, “Making a piece for the public takes what I’ve been doing within a class environment to a larger, more diverse audience, so I approached it as such. I sought to create something with enough depth to conjure a diverse array of reactions, regardless of what I intended, and I hope to see that reflected in public feedback to the project."
The student artwork installed in Richard Abraham’s Memorial Park spanned a variety of materials, from sculptures made from wood and steel to large format photographic prints. Each was developed with the park’s landscape and context in mind. Several of the pieces are interactive and all were made to be installed without impacting the local habitat native to the site. Although the temporary installation was not open to the public, this project served as a pilot program allowing the Village and Bard Community Arts Collective to imagine future collaborative opportunities. A student in the course, Elena Schneider ’27, said of the project, “Being able to make something to be displayed in the landscape where we live pushed me to create something I really care about and am proud of. I put a lot of work into my sculpture and it was very rewarding to see it come to life in such a beautiful place. I hope to have more opportunities to present student work in public places.”
Photo: How Long Will We Be Driving by Bard student James Wise ’26 is on view at a billboard located at 3391 US-9, Hudson, NY 12534 from December 20, 2023 to January 17, 2024.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Community Engagement,Division of the Arts,Student,Studio Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Center for Civic Engagement |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Community Engagement,Division of the Arts,Student,Studio Arts Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Center for Civic Engagement |
December 2023
12-20-2023
Concerto for Piano (Homage to Beethoven) by Joan Tower, Asher B. Edelman Professor in the Arts and composition faculty of the Conservatory of Music at Bard, and Dark with Excessive Bright by Missy Mazzoli, Bard composer in residence, were both included in NPR's roundup of top ten classical albums of 2023. NPR music producer and classical music reviewer Tom Huizenga writes, "Now 85, Tower could rest on her achievements, but she's still fulfilling commissions with her singular, sturdy music," noting the many leading contemporary composers revere her, including Missy Mazzoli, whose album was also selected in this year's top ten. "[T]he album is tonal — in a Bartók or Joan Tower kind of way — with notes stacked to produce fresh, often unusual sounds," writes Huizenga, who says this album proves Mazzoli "can create shimmering instrumental music with large forces."
Photo: Missy Mazzoli’s Dark with Excessive Bright and Joan Tower’s Concerto for Piano (Homage to Beethoven).
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Division of the Arts,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Division of the Arts,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
12-19-2023
Trudy Poux ’26, a current theater and performance major at Bard, plays the lead character in the TV pilot Do Nothings, which tells the story of Tamarin, a teenage singer-songwriter plagued by paralyzing stage fright. Produced in the Hudson Valley by their director, educator, and filmmaker mother Amy Poux, the show was inspired by Trudy’s real-life experiences. Trudy, who cowrote the script with their mother, says that LGBTQ+ screen narratives tend to focus on tragedy or the build up to coming out, “but thereʼs not a lot of media that shows what itʼs like to live day-to-day as a nonbinary person whoʼs already come out . . . The story is about everything else that happens in high school as well and itʼs really inspiring to see a story like that.”
Photo: Trudy Poux ’26 at a screening of Do Nothings.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Theater and Performance Program,Theater Program |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Theater and Performance Program,Theater Program |
12-19-2023
Tschabalala Self ’12, visiting artist in residence at Bard, talks about being asked to do a portrait of Nicki Minaj for Vogue’s December digital cover—using photographer Norman Jean Roy’s cover shoot as a starting point. “I do not usually delve too deeply into realism,” she says, “so by working on this project, I realized something I already suspected, which is that a portrait is more about capturing someone’s aura, as opposed to their appearance.”
Photo: Image courtesy of the artist
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program |
12-19-2023
Alumnus Sam Asa Pratt ’14 performed at the 2023 Dance Magazine Awards Ceremony, where Pratt received a Harkness Promise Award alongside Amadi Washington. Their dance company, Baye & Asa, was praised by Harkness Foundation for Dance Executive Director Joan Finkelstein for its ability to “create political metaphors, interrogate systemic inequities, and contemporize ancient allegories.” Accepting the award, Pratt said, “In a contemporary world, there’s a lot of pressure to put yourself into a camp, to distill, succinctly and uncompromisingly, what you believe and where you stand. I think dance is uniquely positioned as an art form that can liberate thought into indeterminacy and to widen toward multiplicity instead of narrowing towards one singular thesis. Art remains one of the most advanced pieces of technology we have as a species.”
Photo: Baye & Asa. Image courtesy of the artists’ website
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Dance Program,Division of the Arts |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Dance Program,Division of the Arts |
12-12-2023
New York Times cochief art critic Holland Cotter names CCS Bard’s exhibition Indian Theater and An-My Lê: Between Two Rivers among his picks for the best art of 2023. “Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art and Self-Determination Since 1969 at the Hessel Museum, Bard College, was, hands down, the most stimulatingly inventive contemporary group show I saw this year,” writes Cotter about the large-scale exhibition curated by CCS Bard Fellow in Indigenous Curatorial Studies Candice Hopkins. Cotter calls the work of photographer An-My Lê, who is the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts at Bard, “lucid,” and notes that the main subject of Lê’s Museum of Modern Art survey, on view through March 9, is “war as a perpetual reality, nascent or active.”
See the Best Art of 2023 from the New York Times
Read the New York Times Review of Indian Theater
Read the New York Times Review of An-My Lê: Between Two Rivers
See the Best Art of 2023 from the New York Times
Read the New York Times Review of Indian Theater
Read the New York Times Review of An-My Lê: Between Two Rivers
Photo: asinnajaq (Inuk), Still from Rock Piece, 2015. Photo courtesy the artist
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Photography Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Center for Curatorial Studies |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Photography Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Center for Curatorial Studies |
12-12-2023
A posthumous album by Richard Teitelbaum, a member of Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV) and former Bard College professor of music, has been included in Bandcamp’s 2023 list of Best Contemporary Classical Music. Symphony No. 107 — The Bard, a previously unreleased live recording, was performed in Olin Hall at Bard College in 2012, and was edited, mixed, and mastered by Matt Sargent, assistant professor of music at Bard, in October 2022. “The music builds from near-silence to unleash a spirited collage of texture and gesture, constantly mutating and blending, with live instrumental bits—on piano, shofar, or harmonica—seeping in, sometimes taking over, or blending within electronic soundscapes,” writes Peter Margasak for Bandcamp. Teitelbaum taught electronic and experimental music at Bard for over 30 years, and cochaired the music department of the Master of Fine Arts program. He was one of the founding members of the pioneering electronic music group MEV, created in Italy in 1966, together with Alvin Curran and Frederic Rzewski.
Photo: Richard Teitelbaum.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Music,Music Program | Institutes(s): MFA |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty,Staff | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Music,Music Program | Institutes(s): MFA |
12-05-2023
Professor Emeritus of Photography Larry Fink—who joined the faculty in 1988 and taught at Bard for three decades—has died at the age of 82. Professor Fink is known for his frank photographs of New York high society and Hollywood stars, as well as his intimate images of rural America. “He treated the classroom like it was the Village Vanguard,” Associate Professor of Photography Tim Davis ’91 tells the New York Times. “It was completely improvisatory. A critique would involve mouth trumpet sounds, his own poetic raps and scat singing; maybe at some point he’d pull out his harmonica. On the one hand, it kneecapped the whole idea of art education, and on the other, if you were listening, it was completely profound.”
“He adjusted the emotional temperature in any room,” writes Lucy Sante, who taught writing and photography at Bard for nearly 25 years, for Vanity Fair. “He was countrified, with his suspenders, his work boots, his wild grin and honking laugh, his utter disregard for decorum, but he had the chutzpah of a city boy and was so sophisticated he had no need to prove it. It further enhances any of his pictures to imagine Larry in the act of taking them.”
Mr. Fink was the recipient of two Guggenheim fellowships, in 1976 and 1979. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many other institutions in the United States and abroad. He worked on assignment for numerous publications, including Manhattan, Inc., Vanity Fair, and the New York Times, and was the author of 12 books.
A Fond Farewell to Photographer Larry Fink, 82 (Professor Sante for Vanity Fair)
In Memoriam: Bard Remembers the Life of Professor Larry Fink (from President Botstein)
“He adjusted the emotional temperature in any room,” writes Lucy Sante, who taught writing and photography at Bard for nearly 25 years, for Vanity Fair. “He was countrified, with his suspenders, his work boots, his wild grin and honking laugh, his utter disregard for decorum, but he had the chutzpah of a city boy and was so sophisticated he had no need to prove it. It further enhances any of his pictures to imagine Larry in the act of taking them.”
Mr. Fink was the recipient of two Guggenheim fellowships, in 1976 and 1979. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among many other institutions in the United States and abroad. He worked on assignment for numerous publications, including Manhattan, Inc., Vanity Fair, and the New York Times, and was the author of 12 books.
Further Reading
Larry Fink, Whose Photographs Were ‘Political, Not Polemical,’ Dies at 82 (New York Times)A Fond Farewell to Photographer Larry Fink, 82 (Professor Sante for Vanity Fair)
In Memoriam: Bard Remembers the Life of Professor Larry Fink (from President Botstein)
Photo: “Self Portrait With Molly” (1983). © Larry Fink, Courtesy Robert Mann Gallery
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Photography Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Photography Program |
12-05-2023
Isabel Ahlam Ahmed ’25, a Bard College student majoring jointly in film production and human rights, has received a scholarship from Fund for Education Abroad (FEA) for the spring 2024 semester. Ahmed is one of 66 undergraduates from around the country selected by 88 volunteer reviewers who scored 1,466 applications over three review phases, and with FEA's American University in Cairo (AUC) Access Partner Scholarship, she will attend AUC via the longstanding tuition exchange between AUC and Bard.
“As a first generation college student, I feel extremely proud and honored to be one of 66 people receiving an FEA scholarship,” Ahmed said. “For many students like me, the financial burden is a huge reason we are afraid to even consider going abroad, so receiving the FEA allows me to fully experience my excitement and plans. In addition to this, it also provides an FEA community of scholars and alumni to connect with, which has already made this process feel better supported, and I know it will feel even better to have access to this community while studying in Cairo.”
The Fund for Education Abroad supports US students with financial need who are traditionally underrepresented in study abroad. FEA aims to make life-changing, international experiences accessible to all by supporting students of color, community college, and first-generation college students. Of the 66 scholars awarded this application cycle, 90% identify as students of color and 39% identify as LGBTQ+. Males make up 32% of Spring 2024 Scholars; female, 64%; and non-binary, 4.5%. Additionally, 88% are first-generation college students, 30% are current or former community college students, and 67% have never left the US.
Since its inception in 2010, FEA has awarded more than $3.4 million in scholarships to more than 1,090 scholars, and supports students before, during, and after their study abroad experience with scholarships and programming.
“We are grateful to all of FEA’s supporters, donors, and partners who make study abroad scholarships possible,” said Angela Schaffer, the FEA executive director. “FEA is excited to be a part of the Spring 2024 Scholars’ international education journeys.”
“As a first generation college student, I feel extremely proud and honored to be one of 66 people receiving an FEA scholarship,” Ahmed said. “For many students like me, the financial burden is a huge reason we are afraid to even consider going abroad, so receiving the FEA allows me to fully experience my excitement and plans. In addition to this, it also provides an FEA community of scholars and alumni to connect with, which has already made this process feel better supported, and I know it will feel even better to have access to this community while studying in Cairo.”
The Fund for Education Abroad supports US students with financial need who are traditionally underrepresented in study abroad. FEA aims to make life-changing, international experiences accessible to all by supporting students of color, community college, and first-generation college students. Of the 66 scholars awarded this application cycle, 90% identify as students of color and 39% identify as LGBTQ+. Males make up 32% of Spring 2024 Scholars; female, 64%; and non-binary, 4.5%. Additionally, 88% are first-generation college students, 30% are current or former community college students, and 67% have never left the US.
Since its inception in 2010, FEA has awarded more than $3.4 million in scholarships to more than 1,090 scholars, and supports students before, during, and after their study abroad experience with scholarships and programming.
“We are grateful to all of FEA’s supporters, donors, and partners who make study abroad scholarships possible,” said Angela Schaffer, the FEA executive director. “FEA is excited to be a part of the Spring 2024 Scholars’ international education journeys.”
Photo: Isabel Ahlam Ahmed ’25.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Academics,Bard Network,Division of the Arts,Giving,Student |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Academics,Bard Network,Division of the Arts,Giving,Student |
12-05-2023
For W magazine, Camille Okhio interviewed Bard Artist in Residence Jeffrey Gibson about representing the United States in a solo exhibition at the upcoming Venice Biennale in 2024, his global journey as an Indigenous artist of Cherokee and Choctaw lineage, and his work. “Our motto in the Choctaw is self-determination,” says Gibson. “After college, my chief said to me, ‘You would be more effective out in the world; you don’t need to come back here. You are fulfilling what I have said our tribe will do one day if you go out and you are successful.’ I hope, through my practice, that I’m letting Indigenous people know they can move around the world freely.” Asked what has been left out of his narrative, Gibson answers: “The work is not beautiful for beauty’s sake. The beauty is a strategy.”
Photo: Artist in Residence Jeffrey Gibson. Photo by Brian Barlow
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,Division of the Arts,Studio Arts Program |
November 2023
11-29-2023
Samantha Simon ’26, a Bard student majoring in art history and visual culture, has been named as one of the members of the National Humanities Center’s 2023–24 Leadership Council. As a member of the council, which was established to help prepare a select group of students with humanities-based leadership skills, Simon will join 31 other students from around the US in a unique series of interactive experiences with humanities scholars and leaders.
Nominated by faculty from colleges and universities across the country, the student council members will receive professional development and mentoring from leading scholars and other humanities professionals as well as research support, opportunities for networking, and access to National Humanities Center programming and expertise. In round tables and discussion sessions, they will explore the essential importance of humanistic perspectives in addressing the concerns of contemporary society, and may focus on specific projects and engagement with the communities at their institutions.
“The exceptional students selected for the council this year are pursuing an assortment of majors, from art history to biochemistry to Middle Eastern studies, but they all share a deep interest and passion for the humanities,” said Jacqueline Kellish, the National Humanities Center’s director of public engagement. “We are looking forward to working with these brilliant young people in the coming months and exploring with them the ways that their humanities knowledge and training can help them forge successful careers and make a difference in their communities and beyond.”
The National Humanities Center is a private, nonprofit organization, and the only independent institute dedicated exclusively to advanced study in all areas of the humanities. Through public engagement intimately linked to its scholarly and educational programs, the center promotes understanding of the humanities and advocates for their foundational role in a democratic society.
Nominated by faculty from colleges and universities across the country, the student council members will receive professional development and mentoring from leading scholars and other humanities professionals as well as research support, opportunities for networking, and access to National Humanities Center programming and expertise. In round tables and discussion sessions, they will explore the essential importance of humanistic perspectives in addressing the concerns of contemporary society, and may focus on specific projects and engagement with the communities at their institutions.
“The exceptional students selected for the council this year are pursuing an assortment of majors, from art history to biochemistry to Middle Eastern studies, but they all share a deep interest and passion for the humanities,” said Jacqueline Kellish, the National Humanities Center’s director of public engagement. “We are looking forward to working with these brilliant young people in the coming months and exploring with them the ways that their humanities knowledge and training can help them forge successful careers and make a difference in their communities and beyond.”
The National Humanities Center is a private, nonprofit organization, and the only independent institute dedicated exclusively to advanced study in all areas of the humanities. Through public engagement intimately linked to its scholarly and educational programs, the center promotes understanding of the humanities and advocates for their foundational role in a democratic society.
Photo: Samantha Simon ’26.
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Division of the Arts,Student |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Art History and Visual Culture,Division of the Arts,Student |
11-29-2023
Since its original publication in Mexico in 1955, Juan Rulfo’s sparse and haunting novel Pedro Páramo “has cast an uncanny spell on writers,” famously inspiring Gabriel García Márquez to write One Hundred Years of Solitude—yet for English-speaking readers it “remains something of a best-kept secret, a book that people either cherish or have never heard of,” writes Valeria Luiselli, Sadie Samuelson Levy Professor in Languages and Literature. “The book shows its readers how to read all over again, the same way The Waste Land or Ulysses does, by bending the rules of literature so skillfully, so freely, that the rules must change thereafter.” Rulfo once suggested that Pedro Páramo, the only book Rulfo ever published, was meant to be read three times before understood. “Maybe the novel was also meant to be translated three times before it seeped more broadly and indelibly into the Anglophone consciousness. Maybe its time has finally come,” writes Luiselli, who deems the Mexican novel’s newly published and third English language translation by Douglas J. Weatherford “by far, the best of Rulfo in English.”
Photo: Valeria Luiselli. Photo by Alfredo Pelcastre
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Written Arts Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Written Arts Program |
11-21-2023
Angelica Sanchez, assistant professor of music, was inspired by “the sounds of the pitch-dark woods at night” while composing her newest album, Nighttime Creatures. Reviewing the album for NPR’s Fresh Air, music critic Kevin Whitehead says that pastoral inspiration is felt throughout the record. “You get a sense of sonic depth, foreground versus background. That sort of spatial awareness is another thing one might cultivate in the woods at night, where the same animal cry can be charming or alarming, depending on distance,” Whitehead says. “For open-eared composer Angelica Sanchez, such encounters set the mind buzzing. On Nighttime Creatures, she bottles that open-air feeling and brings it into the studio.”
Photo: Angelica Sanchez conducting a rehearsal of the Sun Ra Ensemble at Bard College. Photo by Jonathan Asiedu ’24
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Music Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Faculty,Music Program |
11-16-2023
Five Bard Conservatory of Music and Music Program faculty members and alumni/ae have been nominated for the 2024 GRAMMY Awards. Artistic Director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program Stephanie Blythe is featured on the album Champion, nominated for Best Opera Recording. Bard Composers in Residence Jessie Montgomery and Missy Mazzoli are both nominees for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Mazzoli’s concerto Dark With Excessive Bright and Montgomery’s “Rounds” for piano and string orchestra (featured in pianist Awadagin Pratt’s Stillpoint) have been nominated for the GRAMMY. Julia Bullock MM ’11 has been nominated for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for her album Walking In The Dark. In the category of Best Contemporary Instrumental Album, music program alumnus Max Zbiral-Teller ’06, along with his House of Waters bandmates, has been nominated for On Becoming. The 2024 GRAMMYs, officially known as the 66th GRAMMY Awards, will take place Sunday, February 4 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
Photo: Clockwise from top left: Champion, featuring Stephanie Blythe; Gramaphone icon Courtesy of the Recording Academy® / Getty Images ©; Stillpoint, featuring Jessie Montgomery; Dark With Excessive Bright, by Missy Mazzoli; Walking In The Dark, by Julia Bullock; On Becoming, featuring Max Zbiral-Teller.
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Bard Conservatory,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Music,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni,Faculty | Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Bard Conservatory,Bard Graduate Programs,Division of the Arts,Music,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music |
11-14-2023
This fall, Bard College is launching the Bard Community Arts Collective, a collaboration between the Fisher Center at Bard, Bard Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard), the Bard Conservatory, and The Orchestra Now (TŌN). The aim of the collective is to inspire connection and community through arts-based educational programming, coordinated in partnership with local organizations and schools.
Bard has long partnered with Hudson Valley artists, organizations, and schools, including the school systems of Kingston, Rhinebeck and Red Hook, as well as organizations such as Kite’s Nest, and the Boys & Girls Club of Ulster County. The Community Arts Collective will make Bard’s resources more accessible to these and other community partners, assisting with the development of new programs and connections within the region. It will partner with schools and community organizations to link the College’s educational resources with community interests.
The Arts Collective’s programs include a wide variety of arts events that are open to the public. Weekly rehearsals by the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, including community engagement activities with the musicians and conductor, will be open to local school groups, and the Conservatory will perform at local events, such as its recent concert at the Dutch Reformed Church in Kingston as part of the “Burning of Kingston” festival, a historical reenactment that commemorates the events that occurred in the city during the Revolutionary War.
The Orchestra Now has opened several dress rehearsals to children from local daycare and school programs, while CCS Bard will host tours for young visitors at its current exhibition, Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, the first large-scale exhibition of its kind to center performance and theater as an origin point for the development of contemporary art by Native American, First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Alaska Native artists.
The College sponsors a variety of student-led initiatives through its CCE Trustee Leader Scholars (TLS) program, run by Paul Marienthal. Sister2Sister, a student-led mentorship program run by Bard alumni Skylar Walker, provides guidance and opportunities for young women of color in Kingston with an arts focus, and will start its 6th consecutive year providing regular after school activities and annual conferences.
“It's been an honor watching our program grow from what was once a student-led TLS project to an institutionally supported entity,” said Walker. “The most touching part about this experience has been being able to genuinely connect, empower, and inspire young women who look like me. I am incredibly grateful that Bard has provided a platform and a space for programs like ours, it is truly what our youth need.”
Another TLS program, the Musical Mentorship Initiative, which is led by Bard Conservatory students, has offered free music lessons to children of all ages since the pandemic began in 2020. “The students constantly create and run new projects. The key is student ownership. We are good cheerleaders, but students with their imaginations blazing do the heavy lifting,” explains Marienthal.
The Collective will make coordination and innovation easier for community partners, acting as a transparent entity for interested organizations and schools to approach with ideas for collaboration. “The concept of a collective is powerful—we already see a shift in how we collaborate with communities making the College’s resources easier to access and better reflect shared interests. Here, interdisciplinary approaches to learning can evolve to respond to the community’s needs and desires for arts programming,” observed CCE’s Vice President for Civic Engagement Erin Cannan. “The Hudson Valley has always been an incubator for art and art making, and Bard has played a key role. This approach allows us to reach new organizations, schools, communities, and helps our students learn the power of community art building.”
For more information, contact [email protected].
Bard has long partnered with Hudson Valley artists, organizations, and schools, including the school systems of Kingston, Rhinebeck and Red Hook, as well as organizations such as Kite’s Nest, and the Boys & Girls Club of Ulster County. The Community Arts Collective will make Bard’s resources more accessible to these and other community partners, assisting with the development of new programs and connections within the region. It will partner with schools and community organizations to link the College’s educational resources with community interests.
The Arts Collective’s programs include a wide variety of arts events that are open to the public. Weekly rehearsals by the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra, including community engagement activities with the musicians and conductor, will be open to local school groups, and the Conservatory will perform at local events, such as its recent concert at the Dutch Reformed Church in Kingston as part of the “Burning of Kingston” festival, a historical reenactment that commemorates the events that occurred in the city during the Revolutionary War.
The Orchestra Now has opened several dress rehearsals to children from local daycare and school programs, while CCS Bard will host tours for young visitors at its current exhibition, Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, the first large-scale exhibition of its kind to center performance and theater as an origin point for the development of contemporary art by Native American, First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Alaska Native artists.
The College sponsors a variety of student-led initiatives through its CCE Trustee Leader Scholars (TLS) program, run by Paul Marienthal. Sister2Sister, a student-led mentorship program run by Bard alumni Skylar Walker, provides guidance and opportunities for young women of color in Kingston with an arts focus, and will start its 6th consecutive year providing regular after school activities and annual conferences.
“It's been an honor watching our program grow from what was once a student-led TLS project to an institutionally supported entity,” said Walker. “The most touching part about this experience has been being able to genuinely connect, empower, and inspire young women who look like me. I am incredibly grateful that Bard has provided a platform and a space for programs like ours, it is truly what our youth need.”
Another TLS program, the Musical Mentorship Initiative, which is led by Bard Conservatory students, has offered free music lessons to children of all ages since the pandemic began in 2020. “The students constantly create and run new projects. The key is student ownership. We are good cheerleaders, but students with their imaginations blazing do the heavy lifting,” explains Marienthal.
The Collective will make coordination and innovation easier for community partners, acting as a transparent entity for interested organizations and schools to approach with ideas for collaboration. “The concept of a collective is powerful—we already see a shift in how we collaborate with communities making the College’s resources easier to access and better reflect shared interests. Here, interdisciplinary approaches to learning can evolve to respond to the community’s needs and desires for arts programming,” observed CCE’s Vice President for Civic Engagement Erin Cannan. “The Hudson Valley has always been an incubator for art and art making, and Bard has played a key role. This approach allows us to reach new organizations, schools, communities, and helps our students learn the power of community art building.”
For more information, contact [email protected].
Photo: The chamber music ensemble from Yonkers High School visited Bard College to meet with Bard Conservatory students as part of the Musical Mentorship Initiative, a CCE Trustee Leader Scholars (TLS) program. Photo by Nour Annan HRA ’23
Meta: Type(s): Staff | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Civic Engagement,Community Engagement,Community Events,Division of the Arts | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Center for Civic Engagement,Center for Curatorial Studies,Fisher Center,The Orchestra Now |
Meta: Type(s): Staff | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Civic Engagement,Community Engagement,Community Events,Division of the Arts | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Center for Civic Engagement,Center for Curatorial Studies,Fisher Center,The Orchestra Now |
11-07-2023
“Like so many documentary photographers, I often pick a post or set up a frame and wait for something to happen within it,” Sam Youkilis ’16 said to i-D. “I truly believe in the camera’s ability to will things happening within its frame.” After publishing his debut monograph, Somewhere, Youkilis spoke with i-D and Interview magazine about capturing the mundane, his use of vertical video, and finding a following on Instagram. “I’m lucky that I’ve been able to find success in what I do on Instagram in a really organic way,” Youkilis said to Quinn Moreland ’15 for Interview. “And I am lucky that I’m able to share my work in a diaristic way where it’s very much an insight into my life from morning to the end of the day.” Somewhere, which totals more than 500 pages in length, represents this diaristic practice in a physical format, with the size of the monograph somewhere between the size of a postcard and an iPhone, with a purposeful intermixture of the commonplace and the grandiose. “The point of the book, in a way, is to level any hierarchy across this imagery and present my work democratically so no moment is given more value than others,” Youkilis said.
Photo: Somewhere, the debut monograph of Sam Youkilis ’16. Courtesy Loose Joints
Meta: Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Photography Program |
Meta: Subject(s): Alumni/ae,Division of the Arts,Photography Program |
11-03-2023
The Bard Prison Initiative hosted its long-running orchestral concert program at Eastern Correctional Facility last week. Conducted by Leon Botstein, the program included Beethoven, Bartók, and Duke Ellington’s New World A-Comin’ performed by Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music Marcus Roberts, accompanied by Jason Marsalis and others from Roberts’ band The Modern Jazz Generation.
The Bard Conservatory Orchestra, an 80-student ensemble comprised primarily of undergraduates, performed on the stage of the prison’s auditorium for an audience of almost 150 incarcerated men. Yuchen Zhao, a second-year graduate student and violinist with the Conservatory Orchestra, told Andrew Checchia, who covered the concert for the Red Hook Daily Catch, that the men at Eastern were “the most focused audience in the world.”
“This is a great opportunity to come together and enjoy a unique experience,” said Daniel F. Martuscello III, acting commissioner of New York State’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, before the performance. “People go to prison as punishment, but they shouldn’t be defined by the worst moments of their life.”
The Bard Conservatory Orchestra, an 80-student ensemble comprised primarily of undergraduates, performed on the stage of the prison’s auditorium for an audience of almost 150 incarcerated men. Yuchen Zhao, a second-year graduate student and violinist with the Conservatory Orchestra, told Andrew Checchia, who covered the concert for the Red Hook Daily Catch, that the men at Eastern were “the most focused audience in the world.”
“This is a great opportunity to come together and enjoy a unique experience,” said Daniel F. Martuscello III, acting commissioner of New York State’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, before the performance. “People go to prison as punishment, but they shouldn’t be defined by the worst moments of their life.”
Photo: The Bard Conservatory Orchestra performed at Eastern Correctional Facility last Tuesday before more than 150 incarcerated men.
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Division of the Arts,Music,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Bard Prison Initiative |
Meta: Type(s): Article,Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Conservatory,Division of the Arts,Music,Music Program | Institutes(s): Bard Conservatory of Music,Bard Prison Initiative |
11-02-2023
At MoMA, Professor An-My Lê’s images of Vietnam, the American South, and the California desert “are tour-de-force beautiful.” Holland Cotter reviews Between Two Rivers, Lê’s MoMA exhibition, as a Critic’s Pick for the New York Times. “In Lê’s photographs we find the line between boot camp and theater, battle-prepping and playacting, almost comically blurred,” writes Cotter. An-My Lê is the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts at Bard College. She has been a member of the faculty since 1998.
Photo: The Bard Conservatory Orchestra performed at Eastern Correctional Facility last Tuesday before more than 150 incarcerated men.
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Photography Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Photography Program | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
October 2023
10-31-2023
Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music Marcus Roberts will receive this year’s Dorothy and David Dushkin Award at the Music Institute of Chicago gala, where he will also perform, in May 2024. Established more than 30 years ago and named for the Music Institute’s visionary founders, the award recognizes international luminaries in the world of music for their contributions to the art form and youth education.
Marcus Roberts is a highly acclaimed modern jazz pianist, composer, and educator who has graced the Music Institute of Chicago’s Nichols Concert Hall stage for many years. He is known for his ability to blend jazz and classical idioms into something wholly new and for his unique approach to jazz trio performance, which relies on all musicians sharing equally in shaping the direction of the music by using a system of musical cues and flexible forms to change its tempo, mood, texture, or form. He is the founder of the Modern Jazz Generation, a multigenerational ensemble that is the realization of his long-standing dedication to training and mentoring younger jazz musicians.
Marcus Roberts is a highly acclaimed modern jazz pianist, composer, and educator who has graced the Music Institute of Chicago’s Nichols Concert Hall stage for many years. He is known for his ability to blend jazz and classical idioms into something wholly new and for his unique approach to jazz trio performance, which relies on all musicians sharing equally in shaping the direction of the music by using a system of musical cues and flexible forms to change its tempo, mood, texture, or form. He is the founder of the Modern Jazz Generation, a multigenerational ensemble that is the realization of his long-standing dedication to training and mentoring younger jazz musicians.
Photo: Distinguished Visiting Professor of Music Marcus Roberts. Photo by John Douglas
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Jazz in the Music Program,Music,Music Program |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Division of the Arts,Jazz in the Music Program,Music,Music Program |