‘Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
When Uricon the city stood:
‘Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.

Then, ’twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,
It blows so hard, ’twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.

From far, from eve and morning
From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.

Now—for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart—
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind’s twelve quarters
I take my endless way.

Is my team ploughing?
“Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?”

Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.

“Is my girl happy,
That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
As she lies down at eve?”

Ay, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep:
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.

“Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?”

Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.

Oh, when I was in love with you
Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they’ll say that I
Am quite myself again.

Bredon Hill
In summertime on Bredon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
My love and I would lie,
And see the coloured counties,
And hear the larks so high
About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
In valleys miles away;
“Come all to church, good people;
Good people come and pray.”
But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer
Among the springing thyme,
“Oh, peal upon our wedding,
And we will hear the chime,
And come to church in time.”

But when the snows at Christmas
On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
And stole out unbeknown
And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,
Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
And so to church went she,
And would not wait for me.

The bells they sound on Bredon,
And still the steeples hum,
“Come all to church, good people.”—
O noisy bells, be dumb;
I hear you, I will come.
I will come.

Clun
In valleys of springs of rivers,
By Ony and Teme and Clun,
The country for easy livers,
The quietest under the sun,

We still had sorrows to lighten,
One could not be always glad,
And lads knew trouble at Knighton,
When I was a Knighton lad.

By bridges that Thames runs under,
In London, the town built ill,
‘Tis sure small matter for wonder
If sorrow is with one still.

And if as a lad grows older
The troubles he bears are more,
He carries his griefs on a shoulder
That handselled them long before.

Where shall one halt to deliver
This luggage I’d lief set down?
Not Thames, not Teme is the river,
Nor London nor Knighton the town:

‘Tis a long way further than Knighton,
A quieter place than Clun,
Where doomsday may thunder and lighten
And little ’twill matter to one.

At the young age of 24, Richard Strauss composed the tone poem Don Juan; his first major work. Strauss drew inspiration from the poem written by Nikalaus Lenau of the same name which he cited. He composed this tone poem not too long after he conducted Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Munich. Strauss put a preface in the published score with extracts from Lenau’s poem.

“The charmed circle of many kinds of beautiful, stimulating femininity . . . I should like to traverse them in a storm of pleasure, and die of a kiss upon the lips of the last woman.” –Nikolaus Lenau

Though Strauss prefaced this quote, he never provided a detailed plot for this tone poem, which leaves the narrative to be largely interpreted by the listener. Strauss chose in Don Juan to take the opposite approach of what Franz Liszt does in his symphonic poems by shaping the musical form around the programmatic material. The overall outline of this piece is to showcase Don Juan’s story with themes of heroism, love, disillusionment, and tragedy.

Don Juan opens in dazzling fashion with an upward orchestral flourish and the strings’ introduction of the heroic theme representing the main character. What follows is a series of episodes portraying Don Juan’s many conquests. Then, once it emerges that Don Juan will conclude in triumph, Strauss shows the theme reminiscent of his end. The flurry of sounds slams to a halt and the orchestra’s problematic repose is pierced by the trumpets’ dissonant interjection. It all comes to an end with three pianissimo chords that seal Don Juan’s fate. The optimistic protagonist’s quest of the ideal moment ends in a duel where Don Juan dies. Victory has come to seem as pointless as everything else in his reality.

Although poet Alfred Edward Houseman was not himself a Shropshire Lad (“I was born in Worcestershire, not Shropshire, where I have never spent much time,” he wrote to a friend years after the publication of A Shropshire Lad), his collection of poems filled with evocative descriptions of the landscape and the story spun of its young proved comforting to generations of Britain’s youth. Faced with the challenges of adolescence and the terrors of early 20th-century warfare, countless turned to Houseman’s pack of 63 writings to explain the tragedies of their time. Perhaps one such lad might be tempted to set a few to music?

Enter Ralph Vaughan Willams. After first composing a six-poem cycle for tenor and piano quintet in 1909, he orchestrated it in 1924. Despite being another Shropshire neighbour—shoot!—Vaughan Willams knew the landscape. The River Severn, which features heavily in the opening eponymous song, wound through his home county of Gloucestershire. In any case, Houseman’s rolling hills are never far from wherever one finds oneself on the Isle.

Speaking of British clichés, it’s time to talk about the weather. We start trapped in a gale atop Wenlock Edge as an inner turmoil enraptures the subject. As rain lashes trees and sapling’s boughs creak, listen for the sul ponticello (on the bridge) strings emulating the wind whistling through the branches. As the weather clears and the winds announce daybreak we move to “From far, from eve and morning”. Here our protagonist contemplates whether to pry open the feelings of his beloved, or to “take my endless way”. Distant horns open “Is my team ploughing?” before work begins, hurried along by chugging flutes and clarinets and swooping strings. Back and forth we go, as the lad drifts into daydreams of his girl interrupted by streaks of paranoia and forbidden loves.

A short tongue-in-cheek interlude, “Oh, when I was in love with you”, is followed by “Bredon Hill”, with hopeful, shimmering strings. But alas, our lad is an unlucky one, as orchestra wedding bells are broken by ominous tolls of the funeral procession of his beloved. Finally, on to “Clun”, where a now London-based lad longs for the simple life again. We’re taken up and up by solo strings, past London, Knighton, and Clun, to high, pure, heavenly harmonics to close.

Mary II was Queen of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until her death in 1694. English composer Henry Purcell, who had previously written odes for six of the queen’s birthdays, wrote a final piece for the queen upon her death. Funeral Music for Queen Mary was first performed at Queen Mary’s funeral service in early 1695, and then performed again later that year at Purcell’s own funeral service. It was originally written as a pairing of a march and a canzona to be played by a quartet of trumpets.

Following the premiere of the piece, Purcell reused the music to serve as background in Thomas Shadwell’s play The Libertine in late 1695. Later, in the mid-1700s, English composer William Croft intentionally imitated parts of Funeral Music for Queen Mary in the vocal score for his Funeral Sentences. Purcell’s music continued to be adapted and arranged, perhaps most notably for a modern audience by Wendy Carlos in the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange.

More recently, American composer Steve Stucky again reorchestrated the funeral music in the early 1990s at the request of the LA Philharmonic. Stucky’s arrangement called for a group of instruments including full woodwind, brass, and percussion sections, as well as piano and harp. Stucky said of his arrangement, “In working on the project I did not try to achieve a pure, musicological reconstruction but, on the contrary, to regard Purcell’s music, which I love deeply, through the lens of three hundred intervening years. Thus, although most of this version is straightforward orchestration of the Purcell originals, there are moments when Purcell drifts out of focus.”

Stucky’s arrangement joins the numerous arrangements and orchestrations of Purcell’s original material that have preceded it. His score, in particular its use of instruments such as contrabassoon, tuba, and vibraphone—none of which had been invented when Purcell was composing—imagines the Funeral Music for Queen Mary in a contemporary style while staying true to the original source material.

In his twenties, when most people were still searching for direction, Samuel Barber had already discovered his own musical voice: sincere, lyrical, and refined. Symphony No. 1 was composed in 1936 during his residency at the American Academy in Rome, where he studied on a fellowship. The premiere, conducted by Bernardino Molinari in Rome, was met with immediate success. The following year, conductor Artur Rodziński introduced the work to American audiences with the Cleveland Orchestra, and it soon became the first American symphony ever performed at the Salzburg Festival.

“The form of my Symphony in One Movement is a synthetic of the four-movement classical symphony”, he wrote in the program note, For me this feels like a tribute to Sibelius’s Seventh Symphony. This single-movement work unfolds in a compact structure of four interconnected sections, much like the four movements of a traditional symphony: a fast and sonorous opening, followed by a quicker section in triple meter functioning as a scherzo, a slow andante, and finally a solemn conclusion in the form of a passacaglia. The three themes introduced in the opening allegro recur throughout the piece, particularly the expansive first theme, which serves as the work’s central unifying idea. In the scherzo, it reappears in disguise through rapidly repeated notes, and later forms the passacaglia melody played by the cellos and double basses in the finale.

I imagine that many listeners, like myself, first encountered Barber’s music through his famous Adagio for Strings, adapted from the second movement of his First String Quarte—perhaps in a film, or during a moment of solemn remembrance. At times one might recall the lush emotional sound of Hollywood composers such as Max Steiner or James Horner, and wonder whether their music drew inspiration from Barber’s lyrical legacy. Perhaps you will find your own answer within his music.

Mr. Schwartzman’s credits as assistant conductor include recordings for Albany Records, Bridge Records, Naxos Records, Hyperion Records, and a Grammy-nominated world-premiere recording for Chandos Records. He had a twelve-year tenure as music director of the Blue Hill Troupe and has been assistant conductor for the American Symphony Orchestra since 2012. He has appeared as both assistant conductor and conductor at Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival at The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts. He is currently resident conductor of The Orchestra Now (TŌN) and music director of the Bard College Community Orchestra. In addition to degrees in Piano Performance and Orchestral Conducting, he earned a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Oberlin College.

TŌN performs dozens of concerts a year at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fisher Center at Bard. Specializing in both familiar and rarely heard repertoire, the orchestra has given numerous New York, U.S., and world premieres, and has performed the work of living composers, including Joan Tower, Jessie Montgomery, Jonny Greenwood, and Tania León. In May 2025, TŌN performed two concerts in Koblenz and Nuremberg, Germany marking 80 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany. In 2023, TŌN appeared with Bradley Cooper in the Academy Award-nominated film Maestro, and was featured on the Grammy-winning Deutsche Grammophon soundtrack, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The orchestra has performed with many other distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Leonard Slatkin, Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi, Stephanie Blythe, Fabio Luisi, Vadim Repin, Joseph Young, Peter Serkin, Naomi Woo, Peter Moore, Tan Dun, and JoAnn Falletta. 

TŌN has released several albums on the Hyperion, Sorel Classics, and AVIE labels. Fall 2025 releases include Premieres with violinist Gil Shaham and Transcription as Translation. Other highlights include 2024’s The Lost Generation and Exodus, and rare recordings of Othmar Schoeck’s Lebendig begraben and Bristow’s Arcadian Symphony. Recordings of TŌN’s live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard regularly on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and the orchestra has appeared over 100 times on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide.

Visit ton.bard.edu to find out more about TŌN’s academic program, concerts, musicians, albums, and broadcasts; sign up for the email list; and support the orchestra with a donation.

Marian Antonette V. Mayuga Concertmaster
Haley Maurer Gillia
Luca Sakon
Lap Yin Lee
Chance McDermott
Yuchen Zhao
Heather Lambert
Mingyue Xia
Yaewon Choi
Angeles Hoyos TŌN ’25

Yuxuan Feng Principal
Carlos Torres
Shan (Serena) Bai
Hanyu Feng
Leonardo Pineda ’15 TŌN ’19
Kathryn Aldous
Nicholas Pappone
Gökçe Erem

Flavia Pájaro-van de Stadt Principal
Casey Lebkicker
Enoch Ng
Yuxuan Zhang
Chia-Mei (Lily) Li 
Carla Mendoza Trejo
Tania Ladino Ramirez not performing in this concert

Shawn Thoma Principal
Hannah Brown
Alfred Western
Christiaan Stefanus Van Zyl
Kate Hwang
Nohyoon Kwak
Dariimaa Batsaikhan not performing in this concert
Elvira Hoyos Malagon not performing in this concert

Jack Corcoran Principal
Jud Mitchell
Zacherie Small
Shion Kim
Holdan Arbey Silva Acosta not performing in this concert

Olivia Chaikin Principal (Strauss, Vaughan Williams)
Wen-Hsiu (Angela) Lai Principal (Purcell, Barber)
Youbeen Cho

David Zoschnick Principal (Strauss, Vaughan Williams), English Horn (Purcell, Barber)
Quinton Bodnár-Smith Principal (Purcell, Barber)
Nathalie Graciela Vela English Horn (Strauss, Vaughan Williams)

Zachary Gassenheimer Principal (Strauss), Bass Clarinet (Barber)
Dávid Kéringer Principal (Vaughan Williams)
Craig Swink Principal (Purcell, Barber)

Shelby Capozzoli Principal (Strauss, Vaughan Williams)
Kylie Bartlett Principal (Purcell, Barber)
Peter Houdalis Contrabassoon

Lee Cyphers Principal (Strauss, Vaughan Williams), Assistant (Purcell, Barber)
Jaxson Padgett Principal (Purcell, Barber), Assistant (Strauss, Vaughan Williams)
Jack Sindall
Felix Johnson
Daniel Itzkowitz

Jid-anan Netthai Principal (Strauss, Vaughan Williams)
Giulia Rath Principal (Purcell, Barber)

Zachary Johnson Principal (Strauss, Vaughan Williams)
Yuki Mori Principal (Purcell, Barber)
Charlie Hall Bass Trombone

Tyler Woodbury

Cooper Martell
Pei Hsien (Ariel) Lu not performing in this concert

Philip Drembus Principal (Strauss, Vaughan Williams)
Nick Goodson Principal (Purcell, Barber)
Luca Esposito TŌN ’25

Zibin Zhou

Francis Chung-Yang Huang

Joseph J. Baxer and Barbara Bacewicz
E&V ProArte Fund
Karl Moschner and Hannelore Wilfert
Michael L.  Privitera
Emily Sachar

Michael E. Dorf and Sarah Connors
Irene and Tom Esposito
Kassell Family Foundation of the Jewish Communal Fund
The Merrill G. and Emita E. Hastings Foundation

Helen V. Atlas
Randy C. Faerber ’73
Gary M. Giardina
Bernard and Lisa S. King-Smith
The Masurovsky Family Gifting Fund
Christine T. Munson

Northwestern Mutual Foundation
Joseph and Barbara Schoenberg
Arlene and Gilbert Seligman
Marc A. and Dana Lim vanderHeyden

Sal Capolarello and George Wen
Curtis DeVito and Dennis Wedlick
Dr. Sanford Friedman and Virginia Howsam
Susan and Roger Kennedy
Edna and Gary Lachmund
Alison L. Lankenau
Judi Powers
Sara T. Rabbino
Richard and Enid Rizzo
Denise S. Simon and Paulo Vieiradacunha
Tryon Family Foundation

William Bell
Michelle Clayman
John Cubba and John Cirincion
Elizabeth Ely ’65
Peter and David Eng-Chernack
Maia Farish, in memory of Don Farish
Mildred Feinsilber
Mark L. Feinsod ‘94
Michel Goldberg and Frances Spark
Jan M. Guifarro
Scott Huang
Hudson Valley Chamber Music Circle
Innovation4Media
Laurie and Michael Pollock Fund of Fidelity Charitable
Tyler Lory, in memory of Michael Rauschenberg
Martha V. Lyon
Maury Newburger Foundation
Walter Mullin and Julian Kaplin
Arthur Reynolds
Bruce and Blanche Rubin
​Dan Schwartzman and Julie Nives, in memory of Irwin Schwartzman and Ernest Nives
Jennifer Shykula ’96 and Thomas Ochs
Alice Stroup, in memory of Timothy Stroup
David and Marcia Welles

Naja Armstrong
Arleen Auerbach
Robert and Cyndi Bear
Diane and Ronald Blum
Dora Jeanette Canaday, in honor of Tania Ladino Ramírez TŌN ‘26
Marc and Margaret Cohen, in honor of Colby Bond TŌN ’25
Nicole M. de Jesús ’94 and Brian P. Walker
Phyllis and Joe DiBianco
Hildegard F. Edling ’78 and Richard Edling
William Harrison
Brian J. Heck
Annette and Thomas Hofmann
Hospitality Committee for United Nations Delegations
Elena R. and Fred Howard
Erica Kiesewetter
Robert K. Montgomery
Ken and Lindsay Morgan
Helmut Norpoth
Michael J. Piecuch
Denise T. Pitcher
Susan Seidel
Anne-Katrin Spiess
Judith R. Thoyer
Gene L. Vidal
Gladys M. and Herman Whitfield Jr., in memory of Herman Whitfield III

Stephanie and Richard Bassler
Sol Bergelson
Stephanie G. Beroes
Marvin F. Bielawski
Marge and Edward Blaine
Richard Brand
Geri Brodsky
Diane Cunningham
Milad Daniari TŌN ’18
Thomas J. DeStefano
Vincent M. Dicks
Craig Diehl and Michael Koelsch
Janet Feldman
Renate L. Friedrichsen
Jeffrey E. Glen and Rosita Abramson
Tamara J. Gruszko
Nathan A. Hamm
Lee Haring
Michaela Harnick
William J. Harper
Jack Homer and Emily Hartzog
Arthur and Jane Lane
Phyllis Marsteller
Katharine McLoughlin
Warren R. Mikulka
Barry Nalebuff and Helen Kauder
Andrea and James Nelkin
Ross and Marianne Parrino
Michael P. Pillot
Kelly A. Preyer and James Blakney
Kurt and Lorenzo Rausch
Gerald E. and Gloria E. Scorse
Theodore J. Smith
John and Lois Staugaitis
Daniel J. Thornton 
Éric Trudel
Amparo Vollert
Susan L. Waysdorf and Mary K. O’Melveney
Hugh Young
Irene Zedlacher
Drs. Julie and Sandy Zito

Catherine Baiardi
Jinhi Baron
Katherine B. Berry
Roberta Brangam
Marie-Louise Brauch
Kent Alan Brown
Anusheh and Paul Byrne
Marsha S. Clark
Joan S. Cohen
David Covintree
Elizabeth Davis
Laura Fortenbaugh
Teresa Genin
Helena and Christopher H. Gibbs
Susan Goodstadt-Levin
Peter C. Goss
Nancy S. Hemmes
Suzanne Johnson
Robert V. Kamp
Minsun Kim
Nancy Lupton
Guenther May
Jane W. Meisel
Shirley A. Mueller and Paul Tepper
Jane O’Connor
Andrew Penkalo
Karen Peters
Cathy and Fred Reinis
Pat Rogers
Rosina Romano
Martin J. Rosenblum
Lisa Sambora
Mary T. Sheerin
Anne Sunners
The Talays
Kornelia Tamm
Jie Wu and Albert Pan

Lydia Chapin
Courtney R. Conte
Richard Desir, in memory of Pierre Desir
Lucinda DeWitt
Kimberly Floberg
Brenda Klein
Barbara Komansky
Elyse Lichtenthal
Pat Miller
Barbara Rabin
Robert B. Renbeck
Caroline Elizabeth Ryan
Shari Siegel
Lane Steinberg

Leon Botstein Music Director
James Bagwell Associate Conductor and Academic Director 
Jindong Cai Associate Conductor
Zachary Schwartzman Resident Conductor
Leonardo Pineda ’15 TŌN ’19 Guest Conductor for Educational Partnerships and Music Lecturer
Erica Kiesewetter Professor of Orchestral Practice
Keisuke Ikuma Director of Chamber Music
Sima Mitchell First Year Seminar Faculty
Nicolás Gómez Amín GCP ’25 Assistant Conductor

Kristin Roca Executive Director
Petra Elek Capabianca ’16 APS ’20 TŌN ’24 Orchestra Manager
Grace Anne Stage Manager and Assistant Orchestra Manager
Viktor Tóth ’16 TŌN ’21 Special Events Coordinator and Eastern/Central European Music Curator
Matt Walley TŌN ’19 Program Coordinator, Admissions and Artist Relations
Sebastian Danila Music Preparer and Researcher
Benjamin Oatmen Librarian
Shawn Hutchison TŌN ’22 Recruitment and Alumni/ae Coordinator

Brian J. Heck Director of Marketing
Nicole M. de Jesús ’94 Director of Development
Pascal Nadon Public Relations

Stephen Dean Orchestra Production Manager
Marlan Barry Head Classical Recording Engineer/Producer
Liz Cohen Orchestra Stage Manager
Nora Rubenstone-Diaz ’11 Associate Orchestra Production Manager
Ellie Wolfe-Merritt Orchestra Stage Manager
Mara Zaki ’25 Assistant Orchestra Stage Manager

James C. Chambers ’81 Chair
Emily H. Fisher Vice Chair
Brandon Weber ’97 Vice Chair, Alumni/ae Trustee
Elizabeth Ely ’65 Secretary; Life Trustee
Stanley A. Reichel ’65 Treasurer; Life Trustee
Fiona Angelini
Roland J. Augustine
Leon Botstein President of the College, ex officio
Mark E. Brossman
Marcelle Clements ’69 Life Trustee
Asher B. Edelman ’61 Life Trustee
Kimberly Marteau Emerson
Barbara S. Grossman ’73 Alumni/ae Trustee
Andrew S. Gundlach
Glendean Hamilton ’09
The Rt. Rev. Matthew F. Heyd
Catharine Bond Hill
Matina S. Horner ex officio
Charles S. Johnson III ’70
Mark N. Kaplan Life Trustee
George A. Kellner
Fredric S. Maxik ’86
Jo Frances Meyer ex officio
Juliet Morrison ’03
James H. Ottaway Jr. Life Trustee
Hilary Pennington
Martin Peretz Life Trustee
Stewart Resnick Life Trustee
David E. Schwab II ’52 Life Trustee
Roger N. Scotland ’93 Alumni/ae Trustee
Annabelle Selldorf
Mostafiz ShahMohammed ’97
Jonathan Slone ’84
James A. von Klemperer
Susan Weber

Leon Botstein President
Coleen Murphy Alexander ’00 Vice President for Administration
Jonathan Becker Executive Vice President; Vice President for Academic Affairs; Director, Center for Civic Engagement
Erin Cannan Vice President for Civic Engagement
Deirdre d’Albertis Vice President; Dean of the College
Malia K. Du Mont ’95 Vice President for Strategy and Policy; Chief of Staff
Peter Gadsby Vice President for Institutional Research; Registrar
Max Kenner ’01 Vice President; Executive Director, Bard Prison Initiative
Debra Pemstein Vice President for Development and Alumni/ae Affairs
David Shein Vice President for Student Success and Dean of Studies; Vice President for Network Integration
Taun Toay ’05 Senior Vice President; Chief Financial Officer
Stephen Tremaine ’07 Vice President of Network Education
Daniel Vasquez ’17 Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Institutional Initiatives
Dumaine Williams ’03 Vice President for Student Affairs; Dean of Early Colleges