A Winter Songfest At Bard Celebrates The Future Of Music

Lisa Green reports from Annandale-on-Hudson. Anyone in attendance at the Bard College Conservatory of Music’s "A Winter Songfest" on Sunday, December 7 will tell you that the future of vocal arts is secure. The graduate students, consummate professionals all, presented a program of festive songs and ensembles to benefit the Scholarship Fund of the Conservatory. Following the concert, guests who had made an additional contribution were invited to a post-concert reception on the stage in the Sosnoff Theater. There, they mingled with the performers, faculty members and Dawn Upshaw, the world-renowned soprano who is the artistic director of the Graduate Vocal Arts Program at Bard (she has also recently been appointed as head of the Vocal Arts Program at the Tanglewood Music Center, and received the 2014 Best Classical Vocal Solo Grammy award). Above, Dawn Upshaw with tenor Matthew Slipp and bass Andrew Munn.

John Winkler and Mary Jean Winkler of Millbrook flank Kathy De Las Heras of Salt Point; Soprano Adanya Dunn, who performed Joni Mitchell's "A River," with Lizabeth Malanga, mezzo soprano.

Gonzalo De Las Heras, chair of the advisory board of the Conservatory, Kelly Newberry, a mezzo soprano, and Robert Martin, director of the Conservatory.

Pianist Kayo Iwama, asssociate director of the Graduate Vocal Arts program, and Stephen Kaye, editor and publisher of The Millbrook Independent; Cellist Stanley Moore, Odile Chilton, professor of French, and Bruce Chilton of the school's Institute of Advanced Theology.

The Thorne family came out for the kid-friendly concert, which included the chorus of the Mill Road Elementary School. Eliza Thorne and Felicitas Thorne with Matilda Thorne and Estella Thorne;Jill Wertheim and Patricia Stensrub, both of Clinton Corners, meet Raymond Sokolov, food journalist and former food editor of The New York Times.