Special Features of the Curriculum
Longy School of Music of Bard College offers degree or diploma programs in twelve departments. These are well-conceived and richly appointed with numerous specialized courses. In addition, several special features of the curriculum provide defining experiences for Longy students, bringing students from different departments together and encouraging collaboration, exploration, and musical and personal growth.
EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION
The Experiential Education Program (EEP) is a vital component of Longy’s Conservatory curriculum, designed to prepare students for an increasingly diverse and complex world, to prepare them – in the words of our mission statement – “to make a difference in the world.”
Required of all students, this two-semester course includes active learning experiences, discussions, foundational readings, and interactive presentations. It culminates in student-designed and –led musical projects in various community venues in the greater Boston-Cambridge area. Throughout the year, students explore and strengthen the skills required to engage and communicate with audiences of all ages and backgrounds. They are challenged to think more deeply and broadly about music, its role in society, their career options, and the best use of their skills.
The first semester of the course includes:
- Introductory thinking: Key readings on the role of the arts and music in society and in education are included throughout the semester. Students address fundamental questions about how different audiences might be engaged. An experience in an artistic discipline other than music allows students to grapple with issues of familiarity, “expertise,” accessibility, and expectation.
- Skill Building: The use of questioning techniques and contextual information within musical events is addressed. Students gain experience designing active musical experiences for various ages and audiences and learn about optimal structuring of these experiences.
- Writing: Keeping a journal is a central component of the semester, where students are asked to relate ideas encountered in class and in readings to their own lives, experiences, and aspirations. Students also complete several essays and other brief writing assignments.
- Project Development: Students will also be guided in the beginning stages of designing their own musical projects, which they will carry out in the community under the guidance of an individual faculty mentor in the second semester. Students have the opportunity to try out their project ideas in a class laboratory setting, where they refine and sharpen their thinking and their communication skills.
The second semester of the course includes:
- Experiential Education Program Project: The pinnacle of the EEP experience is that each student, whether individually or in a group, will complete a multi-session musical project that engages an audience or population in the wider community. Each group will be responsible for organizing the logistics of the venue, as well as designing and presenting the content of the project. Students will choose their own faculty mentors who will oversee and attend the sessions. Past projects have been presented at venues such as public, charter, and private schools, colleges, universities, senior centers, galleries, living rooms, fire houses, hospitals, prisons, and shelters.
- Career Seminars: While implementing their projects in an independent-study like structure, students also meet as a large class several times during the semester for seminars that include topics such as grant writing, managing a career post-Longy, the life of a teaching artist, specializing in school residencies, writing program notes, and creating promotional materials.
CHAMBER MUSIC
Chamber music has enjoyed pride of place at Longy School of Music of Bard College since its founding in 1915. The promotion of this great art was essential to Georges Longy’s mission for the school; his belief and advocacy in the power of collaboration continues to inspire the work of Longy’s students and faculty. As an area of study for majors in instrumental and vocal performance, Early Music, and Modern American Music, or in the Artist Diploma program for established ensembles, chamber playing is a daily activity at the school.
The distinguished Pacifica Quartet, Longy’s Visiting Artists in Chamber Music since 2007, comes to the campus four times a year. During these visits, the quartet coaches instrumental and vocal chamber ensembles and works closely with students in Chamber Music Literature, Techniques of Chamber Music Coaching, Experiential Education, departmental seminars, and the Longy Conservatory Orchestra. Through the annual Pacifica Quartet competition, Conservatory students also have the opportunity to collaborate with the quartet in concert.
LONGY CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
The Longy Conservatory Orchestra (LCO), consisting of all string, woodwind, and brass students, is the primary ensemble for orchestral training and repertoire at Longy. The LCO presents six concerts per season, exploring a wide range of repertoire encompassing baroque and contemporary music in addition to the classical and romantic orchestral canon.
Concerts are performed in Longy’s Pickman Hall with occasional performances off-campus. Sectionals and training sessions with faculty members provide well-rounded instruction in orchestral technique, and collaborations with guest soloists afford students an opportunity to work with outstanding musicians from around the world.
The LCO also performs with Longy’s Opera Department in one fully-staged opera per season, works together with Longy’s composition department in a reading and workshop of student compositions, and participates in Longy’s concerto competition. The final concert of each academic year typically includes a work by a Longy student composer and a work performed with a concerto competition winner followed by a major orchestral work.
LONGITUDE
Longitude, Longy’s new-music ensemble, is dedicated to the study and performance of 20th- and 21st-century music. The group performs three concerts per year and collaborates with Longy’s composition department in the “Longitude Commissioning Project,” a workshop and performance of premières written by student composers. Longitude’s concerts feature masterworks of the 20th century as well as the newest contemporary pieces, often working directly with composers in the process. Recent guests have included Leon Kirchner, John Harbison, Lee Hyla, and Donald Crockett, as well as Longy’s own composition faculty.
IMPROVISATION
Longy musicians practice solo and ensemble improvisation in a number of settings, and at least one improvisation course is required for students in the Undergraduate Diploma and Master of Music programs. Curricular offerings in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, Modern American Music, Voice, and Early Music allow students to develop deeper levels of creativity and greater expressive freedom, always emphasizing the crucial relationship between the imagination and the ear.
MIND/BODY PROGRAM
Realizing one’s full potential as a musician goes beyond what a student can learn in lessons and classes. Attaining a level of outstanding achievement as a performer depends not only on acquiring requisite musical tools but also on the integration of the physical, artistic, and emotional, through which the individual can acquire the confidence to perform with individuality, spirit, and communicative power.
Some Mind/Body Program course offerings focus on specific body-based disciplines, such as the Alexander Technique, the Feldenkrais Method®, and yoga, while others take a broader look at the role of mind and body with respect to musical performance.
The Alexander Technique works largely through kinesthetic awareness of the head, neck, and back relationship. F. M. Alexander found that this relationship not only reflects our physical, mental, and emotional states, but also plays an essential role in governing the overall coordination of our various faculties. Musicians have long recognized the Alexander Technique as an effective aid for improving coordination, perception, and control and for expressing their artistic intentions.
The Feldenkrais Method® educates the body/mind kinesthetically through precise observation and experiencing of the body’s natural movement patterns that underlie and strengthen subtle movements of the hands and fingers, the feet and toes, and the breath and vocal apparatus. Students learn how to access skeletal movement for greater mobility, to ensure connection and support in playing and performing, and how to rediscover natural coordination and integrated physical functioning.
Longy’s faculty practitioners also advocate for psychological well-being. Working with individuals and in group sessions, faculty members address performance anxiety, effective practicing, audition skills, student-teacher relationships, understanding and handling criticism, self-esteem, and other issues that can limit or strengthen performance. Mental skills training involves a combination of proven techniques, including deep guided visualization, relaxation techniques, and cognitive techniques to eliminate negative thought patterns.
Longy also provides guidance in case of physical injury by referring performers to well-informed medical practitioners.
Master of Music Degree
Graduate Performance Diploma
Artist Diploma
Dalcroze Certificate + License
Undergraduate Diploma
Bachelor of Music Degree
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