Faculty & Staff

Faculty

Music Director

Leon Botstein is the president of Bard College, has been music director of the American Symphony Orchestra for 30 years, and is the conductor laureate and principal guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony. He has performed and recorded with major orchestras throughout the world, including the LA Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, among others. He is also artistic codirector of Bard SummerScape, which each year presents a fully-staged opera and celebrates the music world of a selected composer in the Bard Music Festival.

Academic Director and Associate Conductor

James Bagwell is a noted conductor of both orchestras and choruses. He has been choral director of the Bard Festival Chorale since 2003, and is principal guest conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra. He has been director of The Collegiate Chorale and The Dessoff Choirs. He regularly performs in the Cincinnati May Festival and guest conducts regularly throughout the country. Since 2002 he has been on the music faculty of Bard College and has taught at the Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Associate Conductor

Jindong Cai is the director of the US-China Music Institute and a professor of music at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. Prior to joining Bard he was a professor of performance at Stanford University. Over the 30 years of his career in the United States, Maestro Cai has established himself as an active and dynamic conductor, scholar of Western classical music in China, and leading advocate of music from across Asia. He is a three-time recipient of the ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music.

Resident Conductor

Zachary Schwartzman has conducted throughout the United States and in such countries as Brazil, England, and Bosnia. He is the music director of Blue Hill Troupe, and has been assistant conductor at the American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Music Festival since 2012. He was formerly house conductor of The Gilmmerglass Festival, and was assistant conductor at Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opera Atelier, among others.

Guest Conductors

Guest Conductors have included Fabio Luisi, Leonard Slatkin, Gerard Schwarz, Tan Dun, JoAnn Falletta, Neeme Järvi, Hans Graf, Joan Tower, Joseph Young, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Naomi Woo, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, Oleg Caetani, Federico Cortese, Jan Latham-Koenig, and Marcelo Lehninger.

Director of Orchestral Studies

Erica Kiesewetter is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she studied with Ivan Galamian. She has been Concertmaster of the American Symphony Orchestra, Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, Opera Orchestra of New York, New York Pops, Stamford Symphony, Long Island Philharmonic, and Amici New York. She has toured internationally and recorded with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. She has been Visiting Associate Professor of Music and Director of Orchestral Studies at Bard College since 2010.

Director of Chamber Music

Keisuke Ikuma is an oboist, English horn player, and conductor based in the New York metropolitan area. He is a member of Orchestra Lumos and the woodwind quintet Windscape, and has performed with leading ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. He serves as a chamber music instructor at Bard Conservatory and earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music.

First Year Seminar

Sima Mitchell is a music historian specializing in 20-century music and culture, opera, and reception of music. An author of books and articles on music history, she has also translated critical and biographical works about/by 20-century composers. She is a Visiting Associate Professor of Music and teaches the First Year Seminar in Orchestral Studies, which focuses on writing and thinking about repertoire.

Professional Studies & Teaching Artist Program

Leonardo Pineda, performer and teaching artist, principal conductor and artistic curator for the Orchestra San Antonio, teaches Professional Development and Teaching Artist courses, offering musicians and educators innovative tools to enhance and innovate concert experiences, deepen audience engagement, and address the evolving needs of the classical music field.