Leon Botstein News

The American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) presents Richard Strauss’ rarely-heard one-act opera Daphne on March 23, 8 pm, as part of its Vanguard Series at Carnegie Hall. Music director Leon Botstein leads the Orchestra, the Bard Festival Chorale, and soloists in the work’s first New York City performance in more than 15 years.

The American Symphony Orchestra continues its 2022-23 season on January 27 with a program at St. Bartholomew's Church, a New York National Historic Landmark, exploring music for organ and orchestra by Camille Saint-Saëns and Dame Ethel Smyth. It features soloist Paolo Bordignon, organist and choirmaster of the church and harpsichordist of the New York Philharmonic, along with soprano Anya Matanovic, mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti, tenor Joshua Blue, and bass Adam Lau.  

Ballet Hispánico will host an NYC Arts in Education Roundtable with Paul Thompson, Executive Director of the NYC DOE's Office of Arts and Special Projects, on December 5, 2022 at 10 a.m.

Following the American Symphony Orchestra's (ASO) immensely successful free opening concert at Bryant Park on Sept. 17, the Orchestra continues its 2022-23 season with two winter performances.

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.

The Orchestra Now (TŌN) welcomes the holiday season in Manhattan with two December concerts. Music Director Leon Botstein conducts the launch of The Orchestra Now’s popular Sight & Sound series at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Sunday, December 4 at 2 PM. 

Bard College has announced that Maya Lin, renowned worldwide for her art, architecture, landscapes, and memorials, has been chosen to design a new performing arts studio building for the Fisher Center at Bard, in partnership with architects Bialosky and Partners and theater and acoustic consultants Charcoalblue.

Music Director Leon Botstein conducts The Orchestra Now in the first concert of its annual Carnegie Hall series on Thursday, November 3 at 7 PM. The program offers rarely performed works by four early 20th century German and Austrian composers from The Lost Generation, whose music was unfairly ignored or suppressed during and following World War II.

On Friday, November 11, 2022, acclaimed pianist Orion Weiss will release his new album, Arc II: Ravel, Brahms, Shostakovich, on First Hand Records.

It seems everybody is having one of two reactions to Director Daniel Fish’s revival of OKLAHOMA! currently playing at the Ahmanson Theatre. But love it or hate it, so much of this update of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s acclaimed 1943 musical in which a farm girl is courted by two rival suitors, works.

The Los Angeles premiere of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! directed by Daniel Fish opens Thursday, September 15 at 8 p.m. at Center Theatre Group / Ahmanson Theatre. The tour will mark the first time a First-Class Equity production of Oklahoma! has toured North America in more than 40 years. This bold interpretation will play through October 16.

The Orchestra Now, the visionary orchestra and master’s degree program founded by Bard College president, conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein, returns to the stage for its eighth season on September 10, 2022.

Center Theatre Group will present the Los Angeles premiere of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “OKLAHOMA!” directed by Daniel Fish at the Ahmanson Theatre from September 13 through October 16, 2022.

Bryant Park Picnic Performances are still warming up with three newly announced free concerts spotlighting new and established voices in the fields of jazz, classical and global pop. On September 9, Jazz at Lincoln Center will bring a rising star in the jazz world to Bryant Park: the 20 year old trumpeter Summer Camargo, playing with her Sextet.

The Park Theatre performing arts center in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, will present one of Europe’s top guitarist virtuosos Pedro Jóia as he guest stars with The North Country Chamber Players in GUITAR HERO: A History of The Guitar From Baroque to Led Zeppelin.

Opening Friday, July 22, Richard Strauss's comic opera, The Silent Woman (“Die Schweigsame Frau”), receives a rare American presentation at Bard SummerScape. Harold Wilson, “a stentorian bass … with impressive focus, carrying power and quiet charisma” (New York Times), heads a strong cast in a new production by Christian Räth, whose SummerScape staging of Das Wunder der Heliane prompted Musical America to declare: “Opera productions don't get much better than this.”

The American Symphony Orchestra completes its 60th anniversary season on Friday, July 15, 2022 at 8 PM. The program, part of the Orchestra’s Vanguard Series and presented in a special collaboration with the Bard Music Festival, is conducted by Music Director Leon Botstein and features the U.S. premiere of Sergei Taneyev’s final work, At the Reading of a Psalm.

The American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) continues its 60th anniversary season on Sunday, June 5 with American Masters, a free symphonic concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center featuring the world premiere of Roberto Sierra’s newly commissioned Concerto for Electric Violin performed by acclaimed electric violinist Tracy Silverman. The program will also offer works by three Pulitzer Prize-winning composers: Melinda Wagner, Richard Wernick, and Shulamit Ran.

The American Symphony Orchestra (ASO) continues its 60th anniversary season on Sunday, June 5 with American Masters, a free symphonic concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center featuring the world premiere of Roberto Sierra’s newly commissioned Concerto for Electric Violin performed by acclaimed electric violinist Tracy Silverman.

The Bard Music Festival returns for its 32nd season this August, with an intensive two-week exploration of “Rachmaninoff and His World.” In twelve themed concert programs, Bard examines Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943), perhaps the last great exponent of Russian Romanticism, who nevertheless embodied many contradictions.