The Bard Music Festival was founded in 1990 to promote new ways of understanding and presenting the history of music to a contemporary audience. Each year, a single composer is chosen as the main subject. The biography of the composer, the influences and consequences of that composer’s achievement, and all aspects of the musical culture surrounding the time and place of the composer’s life are explored. By linking music to the worlds of literature, painting, theater, philosophy, and politics, the festival brings two kinds of audiences together: those with a long history of interest in concert life, and first-time listeners, who find the festival an ideal place to learn about and enjoy the riches of our musical past.

The festival also seeks to bridge the worlds of performance and scholarship in new and exciting ways. As a result of this collaboration, each concert is curated and the concert format varies, so that different genres and instrumental groupings appear in a single program, breaking the mold of the standard vocal recital, piano recital, or quartet concert. The festival’s tradition of presenting concert operas was replaced by performances of staged operas, made possible by the opening of The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in 2003.

The Bard Music Festival weekends are part of many exciting performances and events that make up the Bard SummerScape. Visit the Bard SummerScape website for additional events.

Princeton University Press will again publish a book of new scholarship and interpretation as well as documents, many previously unavailable in English. This year’s volume, Shostakovich and His World, the 15th in the series, is edited by Laurel E. Fay.

Leon Botstein, Christopher H. Gibbs, and
      Robert Martin, Artistic Directors
Laurel E. Fay, Scholar-in-Residence 2004