The Fisher Center at Bard Presents New Interpretations of Two Holiday Classics
The Fisher Center at Bard celebrates the holidays with two seasonal classics given fresh interpretations by world-renowned artists with deep connections to the college. Leon Botstein leads the Bard Conservatory Orchestra in a symphonic concert performance of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker on December 3, and the Fisher Center presents the world premiere of SITI Company’s reimagining of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, co-directed by Anne Bogart ‘74 and Tony Award winner Darron L West. The work, commissioned by the Fisher Center, is the final production in SITI Company’s 30th anniversary “Finale Season,” and runs for three performances, December 16-18.
The Fisher Center at Bard Presents New Interpretations of Two Holiday Classics
Bard Conservatory Orchestra, Conducted by Leon Botstein, Performs Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker for In-Person and Remote Audiences, December 3
Fisher Center Premieres SITI Company’s Production of Dickens’
A Christmas Carol, Co-Directed by Anne Bogart ’74 and Darron L West,
Concluding SITI Company’s “Finale Season,” December 16–18
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON —The Fisher Center at Bard celebrates the holidays with two seasonal classics given fresh interpretations by world-renowned artists with deep connections to the college. Leon Botstein leads the Bard Conservatory Orchestra in a symphonic concert performance of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker on December 3, and the Fisher Center presents the world premiere of SITI Company’s reimagining of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, co-directed by Anne Bogart ‘74 and Tony Award winner Darron L West. The work, commissioned by the Fisher Center, is the final production in SITI Company’s 30th anniversary “Finale Season,” and runs for three performances, December 16-18.
In its special holiday performance on December 3, the 80-piece Bard Conservatory Orchestra, with a 24-member children’s chorus, takes on Tchaikovsky’s score for perhaps the most widely performed holiday classic, the two-act ballet The Nutcracker. The concert showcases the skill of the exceptional young players comprising the orchestra. It gives Fisher Center audiences a world-class rendering of the music, which Bard visiting associate professor of music Peter Laki, in a program note, contends is “the only thing critics liked about the piece from the start,” and is “what has ensured The Nutcracker’s place in the repertoire for 130 years, and is likely to keep it there.”
After fruitful work-in-progress performances in December 2021, SITI Company returns to the Fisher Center to premiere a uniquely SITI A Christmas Carol. They conjure the ghosts of the past, present, and future to speak to our society’s immediate need for gratitude, charity, fairness, justice, and equity. The cast includes Akiko Aizawa, Will Bond, Gian-Murray Gianino, Leon Inguslrud, Ellen Lauren, Kelly Maurer, Barney O’Hanlon, Stephen Duff Webber, and special guests Violeta Picayo and Donnell E. Smith. The production features costumes and scenery by James Schuette, lighting by Brian H Scott, and sound by Darron L West.
Gideon Lester, Artistic Director of the Fisher Center, says, “For 30 years, the legendary SITI Company has been one of the most inspiring and influential American theater ensembles. It’s an honor for the Fisher Center at Bard to collaborate with the company to create their ‘finale’ production—a wholly original adaptation of A Christmas Carol that brings Dickens’ words to new life through the theatrical power of imagination—in SITI’s inimitable style. Anne Bogart is a Bard alum, so this is a fitting homecoming. We’re delighted to continue our collaboration with her at her alma mater and to welcome her superb collaborators back to the Sosnoff Theater.”
Anne Bogart has said, “SITI Company and I are thrilled to return to Bard to share our encounter with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I graduated from Bard in 1974, and my trajectory was deeply affected by all of my experiences there. Bard instilled in me a sense of adventure and an enduring curiosity.”
Performance Schedule and Tickets
Bard Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, performs The Nutcracker on Saturday, December 3, at 8 pm EST, in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. In-person tickets are available for a suggested donation of $15–20, and livestream access is pay-what-you-wish.
Fisher Center presents SITI Company’s A Christmas Carol Friday, December 16, at 8 pm; Saturday, December 17, at 6 pm; and Sunday, December 18, at 2 pm. Tickets are $25–65, with $5 tickets for Bard students made possible by the Passloff Pass and a 20% discount for groups of six or more.
Tickets for both events can be reserved at fishercenter.bard.edu, by phone at 845-758-7900 (Monday–Friday, 10 am–5 pm EST), or by email at [email protected].
Post Date: 11-16-2022
Rebecca Granato ’99, Bard VP for Global Initiatives and Director of OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives, Speaks with the Council on Foreign Relations about Migration, Refugees, and Education
Speaking with the Council on Foreign Relations, Rebecca Granato ’99, vice president for global initiatives for Bard College and director of OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives, spoke to the need for systematized enrollment of refugee students into institutions of higher education. Noting that “primary and secondary education for refugees is most frequently treated as an emergency response,” Granato outlined the impact that a more inclusive educational approach would have for displaced students.Rebecca Granato ’99, Bard VP for Global Initiatives and Director of OSUN Hubs for Connected Learning Initiatives, Speaks with the Council on Foreign Relations about Migration, Refugees, and Education
Post Date: 11-08-2022
Crisis Makes a Book Club, A New Exhibition by Xaviera Simmons ’05, Reviewed in the New York Times
“Everybody loves a Toni Morrison, an Audre Lorde, a James Baldwin,” Bard alumna Xaviera Simmons ’05 said to the New York Times. “Books are fabulous, but you can’t stay in a book club or a reading circle or a listening stance and expect things to miraculously change.” Simmons’s new exhibition, Crisis Makes a Book Club, puts the question of the efficacy of reading groups as a means of accomplishing systemic change at the fore.Crisis Makes a Book Club, A New Exhibition by Xaviera Simmons ’05, Reviewed in the New York Times
Post Date: 10-25-2022
More Alumni/ae News
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Bard Alumna Lexi Parra ’18 for the Washington Post: As Gang, Police Violence Rages, a Caracas Neighborhood Tries to Connect
Bard Alumna Lexi Parra ’18 for the Washington Post: As Gang, Police Violence Rages, a Caracas Neighborhood Tries to Connect
On January 7, 2021, Venezuela’s Special Action Forces raided the La Vega neighborhood of Caracas, leaving 23 people dead in what the community calls the “La Vega massacre.” The special police unit has been accused of targeting working-class neighborhoods, criminalizing young men for where they live as it attempts to root out gang activity. As part of an ongoing project supported by the Pulitzer Center and a Getty Images Inclusion Grant, Bard alumna Lexi Parra ’18 gets to know the women of La Vega who are maintaining their community and pushing back against state and gang violence.
Lexi Parra majored in human rights and photography at Bard College.Further Reading
- As gang, police violence rages, a neighborhood tries to connect (Washington Post)
- Venezuelan-American Photographer Lexi Parra ’18 Named Recipient of a 2022 Getty Images Annual Inclusion Grant
- Bard College Student Wins Davis Projects for Peace Prize
Post Date: 10-18-2022
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Bard College Hosts Book Launch for Eden Revisited: A Novel by László Z. Bitó ’60 on October 22
Bard College Hosts Book Launch for Eden Revisited: A Novel by László Z. Bitó ’60 on October 22
Bard College will host a book launch and colloquium to honor the novel Eden Revisited, written by the late, distinguished alumnus László Z. Bitó ’60. Bitó, granted asylum from his native Hungary in 1956, went on to develop the gold standard drug for glaucoma as he pursued a celebrated scientific career at Columbia University. In later life, he devoted himself to writing and became a force in Hungarian intellectual life and philanthropy, and published numerous works. Eden Revisited is his first book to be published in English in more than a decade.
The colloquium brings together preeminent scholars of religion who will speak to the novel’s themes: Bruce Chilton ’71, director of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard, which is copublishing the book with Natus Books, Alan Avery-Peck, Kraft-Hiatt Professor in Judaic Studies at the College of the Holy Cross, and Claudia Setzer, professor of religion at Manhattan College. Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, will introduce the panel. A discussion with audience members will follow the talks.
The book launch and colloquium take place on Saturday, October 22 from 1:45 pm-3:15 pm in the Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space. It will also be livestreamed.
This event is part of Family and Alumni/ae Weekend at Bard College. Visit families.bard.edu for more information.
Alan Avery-Peck is Kraft-Hiatt Professor in Judaic Studies at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Massachusetts. At Holy Cross, he teaches courses on all aspects of Judaism, ranging from an introduction to Judaism to an upper-level seminar on theological responses to the Holocaust. A specialist in early rabbinic Judaism, Avery-Peck’s research focuses on early Rabbinic Judaism and the relationship between early Judaism and emergent Christianity, especially in the context of contemporary interfaith relations. Among other projects, he is part of a team of scholars and clergy producing a new presentation of the Revised Common Lectionary (http://readingsfromtheroots.bard.edu), that is, the list of Hebrew Bible and New Testament readings used in church worship. He is also a series editor and author for The New Testament Gospels in Their Judaic Context (Brill Publishers), and his commentary on Second Corinthians appears in The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford University Press).
Claudia Setzer (Ph. D. Columbia) is Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College in Riverdale, NY. Her books include, The Bible in the American Experience (Society of Biblical Literature, 2020 with David Shefferman), The Bible and American Culture: A Sourcebook (Routledge, 2011, with David Shefferman), Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (Brill, 2004), and Jewish Responses to Early Christians (Augsburg Fortress, 1994). She studies early Jewish-Christian relations, the development of belief in resurrection, women in the Greco-Roman era, nineteenth-century women interpreters of Scripture, and the Bible in American culture. She currently chairs the SBL group “The Bible in America” and is an associate editor for a forthcoming Study Bible from Westminster John Knox Press. In 2006, she founded the Columbia University Seminar on the New Testament. She is currently writing a book on the use of the Bible in progressive movements (abolitionism, women’s suffrage, civil rights, environmentalism, anti-trafficking).
Bruce Chilton ’71 is the Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Director of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College. He received his B.A. from Bard College; M.Div. and ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood from General Theological Seminary; and Ph.D. from Cambridge University. His books include Abraham’s Curse; Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography; God in Strength; Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography; Judaic Approaches to the Gospels; Mary Magdalene: A Biography; Revelation; Trading Places; Jesus’ Prayer and Jesus’ Eucharist; Forging a Common Future; Jesus’ Baptism and Jesus’ Healing; Visions of the Apocalypse; and Christianity: The Basics. He was editor in chief of Bulletin for Biblical Research and founding editor of Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Studying the Historical Jesus series (E. J. Brill and Eerdmans).
Post Date: 10-14-2022
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Bard Alumnus Paul Chan MFA ’03 Named 2022 MacArthur Fellow
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Bard College Presents Anthony Hecht Lectures in the Humanities Featuring Renowned Scholars Stephen Greenblatt and Adam Phillips
Bard College Presents Anthony Hecht Lectures in the Humanities Featuring Renowned Scholars Stephen Greenblatt and Adam Phillips
The Lecture Series, “Second Chances: Shakespeare and Freud,” Will Be Held in November
This November, Bard College presents renowned scholars Stephen Greenblatt and Adam Phillips delivering the Anthony Hecht Lectures in the Humanities in honor of preeminent poet, alumnus, and former Bard faculty member Anthony Hecht ’44. Greenblatt, who is the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, and Phillips, who is a visiting professor in the Department of English at the University of York, will present the lecture series, “Second Chances: Shakespeare and Freud.” Yale University Press will publish the lectures.
The lecture series includes “Shakespeare’s First Chance” by Stephen Greenblatt and “Freud’s First Chance,” by Adam Phillips on Thursday, November 10, at 5 pm; “Second Chances: For and Against” by Adam Phillips on Friday, November 11, at 10 am. Free and open to the public, these lectures will take place in Weis Cinema of the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College. A reception precedes each lecture. For more information about this lecture series, please call (845) 758-7405.
The final lecture in the series, “Shakespeare's Second Chances” by Stephen Greenblatt will be held on Wednesday, November 16 at 6:30pm at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. Tickets for the Morgan Library lecture are $25; $20 for Morgan Members and Bard College affiliates; and free for students with a valid ID. Reserve tickets here or call (212) 685-0008, ext. 560.
Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean scholar, literary historian, and author, is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is the author of 14 books, including Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics; The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve; The Swerve: How the World Became Modern; Shakespeare’s Freedom; Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare; Hamlet in Purgatory; Marvelous Possessions; and Renaissance Self-Fashioning. He is General Editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature and of The Norton Shakespeare, has edited seven collections of criticism, and is a founding editor of the journal Representations. His honors include the 2016 Holberg Prize from the Norwegian Parliament, the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and the 2011 National Book Award for The Swerve, MLA’s James Russell Lowell Prize (twice), among many others.
Adam Phillips, psychoanalyst and writer, was formerly Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital in London. He is a Visiting Professor in the Department of English at the University of York, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is the author of many books of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, most recently On Wanting To Change and On Getting Better.
The Anthony Hecht Lectures in the Humanities at Bard College were established in 2007 to honor the memory of this preeminent poet by reflecting his lifelong interest in literature, music, the visual arts, and our cultural history. Anthony Hecht graduated from Bard in 1944 and taught at the College from 1952–55 and 1962–66. Every two years a distinguished scholar delivers a series of lectures at Bard College and in New York City that addresses works close to Hecht’s own imagination and sympathies. Each lecture series is published by Yale University Press. Previous Hecht Lecture Series speakers include literary scholar and author Christopher Ricks; historian, critic, author, and broadcaster Simon Schama; renowned historian Garry Wills; classics scholar Mary Beard; literary critic and musicologist Daniel Albright; and artist and designer Maya Lin.
“It is a great honor that Anthony Hecht chose Bard as his home, both as a student and a faculty member, and we are delighted to recognize his extraordinary achievements through this important lecture series,” says Bard College President Leon Botstein.
Post Date: 10-10-2022
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Bard Biologists Elias Dueker, Gabriel Perron, Daniella Azulai ’17, and Mary Reid ’21 Copublish Study on the Impacts of Wastewater Treatment Discharge in Saw Kill River
Bard Biologists Elias Dueker, Gabriel Perron, Daniella Azulai ’17, and Mary Reid ’21 Copublish Study on the Impacts of Wastewater Treatment Discharge in Saw Kill River
Associate Professor of Environmental and Urban Studies M. Elias Dueker, Associate Professor of Biology Gabriel G. Perron, and Bard biology graduates Daniella Azulai ’17 and Mary Reid ’21 have copublished a new study, “Bacteria communities and water quality parameters in riverine water and sediments near wastewater discharges,” in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Data. Over five months, they monitored microbial contaminants relating to the treated water outflow of the wastewater treatment plant operated by Bard, which releases into the Saw Kill, a tributary of the Hudson River and also the source of fresh water for the campus. This is the first of many datasets and research papers that they hope to publish on Bard’s water system. Preliminary data analyses provide insight into the impacts of watershed-wide usage of the Saw Kill as both drinking water source and treated sewage receiver. Future use of this dataset will include a focus on endotoxins and antibiotic resistant bacterial genes, water contaminants only now gaining broader attention in water quality and microbiological sciences.
All of the sampling was conducted as a joint Bard Summer Research Institute project between Dueker’s lab and Perron's lab in summer 2015. Lab members included: Marco Spodek ’17, Beckett Lansbury ’16, Yuejiao Wan ’17, Pola Kuhn ’17, Haley Goss-Holmes ’17. Coauthors Azulai and Reid worked on this project both as undergraduate and post-baccalaureate students.
“This project demonstrates the power of community asking scientific questions, and academia–students, faculty, and staff–being able to help answer those questions through careful observational and applied research,” said Dueker. “Our hope is that this database serves as a tool for researchers and communities around the world trying to respond to stewardship challenges in a science-based and community-accessible way.”
Post Date: 10-04-2022
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Jonathan Becker Discusses the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Chernobyl, and the War in Ukraine with C Mandler ’19 for CBS News
Jonathan Becker Discusses the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Chernobyl, and the War in Ukraine with C Mandler ’19 for CBS News
As the world watches the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant suffer “weeks of shelling,” the potential for “another nuclear disaster on the scale of the Chernobyl explosion” looms large, writes Bard alum C Mandler ’19 for CBS news. The similarities between Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia are as much organizational as they are structural, says Jonathan Becker, executive vice president and vice president for academic affairs for Bard College. Both share “an environment… in which people are disincentivized from communicating genuine problems to higher-ups,” Becker says, which could result in a “series of mistakes, which are reinforced by a system which doesn't encourage transparent communication.” A nuclear disaster in Ukraine would be catastrophic on “both human and geopolitical” levels, Becker says. Should a nuclear disaster occur, “it will be difficult to imagine the path forward after that,” he said.
Post Date: 09-20-2022
Upcoming Events
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