The Fisher Center at Bard, one of the country’s leading multidisciplinary producing houses, announces Bard SummerScape 2025, June 27 – August 17, offering extraordinary support to artists to realize ambitious and visionary projects.
This year, across multidisciplinary programming in dance, opera, and music, classical compositional legacies are explored in exhilarating new ways and brought into revelatory discussion with the contemporary world.
SummerScape 2025 premieres major work from Fisher Center LAB Choreographer-in-Residence Pam Tanowitz, following the success of Four Quartets, her take on T. S. Eliot’s masterpiece of the same name; the outdoor performance I was waiting for the echo of a better day; and Song of Songs, her Biblical poem-inspired collaboration with David Lang.
With her latest, Pastoral, Tanowitz continues her series of groundbreaking performances that respond to masterworks of the past, collaborating with painter Sarah Crowner and composer Caroline Shaw to create a work that muses on and transforms Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F Major.
Pastoral sets the stage for a SummerScape replete with enthralling considerations of classical music: the festival’s other centerpiece production is Bedřich Smetana’s seldom performed opera Dalibor, July 25 – August 3. Dalibor is directed by Jean-Romain Vesperini—returning to the festival after staging Saint-Saëns’ likewise rare Henri VIII at SummerScape in a vibrant, lovingly treated production with the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leon Botstein. Dalibor follows a 15th-century knight on trial for his role in a peasant uprising; this year’s production is the 1868 Czech opera’s first full staging in the United States.
The Bard Music Festival returns for the 35th year with an in-depth journey into the dynamic and genre-spanning compositions of Bohuslav Martinů (August 8–10, 14–17). Over two weekends, the festival presents kaleidoscopic, performance-and-panel-based explorations of Martinů’s work: A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century (August 8–10) and Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century(August 14–17).
The Spiegeltent is back at SummerScape for its 18th year, abounding with music, performance, dancing, and other forms of revelry for the entirety of the festival. Spiegeltent offerings have enchanted guests since its introduction to the festival in 2006. This year, its programming is curated by Jason Collins, Fisher Center Producer & Spiegeltent Curator. Familiar faces return: choreographer, dancer, and comedian Adrienne Truscott will be this season’s emcee, with Andy Monk as the host and co-curator of the Spiegeltent’s After Hours series. This summer also sees the beloved Bluegrass on Hudson series return for a third year, guest curated by Ruth Oxenburg and Rob Schumer.
Tickets go on sale to Fisher Center and Bard Music Festival members on Tuesday, February 25, and to the general public on Wednesday, March 5. Tickets for mainstage events start at $25. Spiegeltent tickets go on sale in April. For more information regarding tickets, visit fishercenter.bard.edu.
SummerScape 2025 Schedule
Pastoral –
Fisher Center LAB Commission/World Premiere
Friday, June 27 at 7 pm
Saturday, June 28 at 7 pm
Sunday, June 29 at 3 pm
Sosnoff Theater
Dalibor –
SummerScape Opera/New Production
Friday, July 25 at 6:30 pm
Sunday, July 27 at 2 pm
Wednesday, July 30 at 2 pm
Friday, August 1 at 4 pm
Sunday, August 3 at 2 pm
Sosnoff Theater
The 35th Bard Music Festival
Martinů and His World
Weekend One: A Musical Mirror of the 20th Century
Program One: The Peripatetic Career –
Friday, August 8
Sosnoff Theater
7 PM Performance with Commentary
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Double Concerto, H271 (1938)
Piano Quartet No. 1, H287 (1942)
Symphony No. 2, H295 (1943)
Fantasia, H301 (1944)
Petrklíč / Primrose, H348 (1954)
Panel One –
Why Martinů: Understanding Classical Music, Past and Future
Saturday, August 9
Olin Hall
10 AM – 12 noon
Free and open to the public.
Program Two: The Emigree in Paris –
Saturday, August 9
Olin Hall
1 PM Preconcert Talk
1:30 PM Performance
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
String Trio No. 1, H136 (1923)
Flute Sonata, H306 (1945)
Duo No. 1 for Violin and Cello, H157 (1927)
Josef Suk (1874–1935)
Piano Quartet No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 1 (1891)
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major (1927)
Works by Jaroslav Řídký (1897–1956) and Alexandre Tansman (1897–1986)
Program Three: Music and Freedom –
Saturday, August 9
Sosnoff Theater
6 PM Preconcert Talk
7 PM Orchestral Performance
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Memorial to Lidice, H296 (1943)
Symphony No. 6 (Fantaisies symphoniques), H343 (1951–53)
Piano Concerto No. 4, “Incantation,” H358 (1956)
Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942)
Symphony No. 2 (1932)
Rudolf Firkušný (1912–94)
Piano Concertino (1929)
Program Four: The Search for a Distinctive Voice –
Sunday, August 10
Olin Hall
11 AM Performance with Commentary
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Les Rondes, H200 (1930)
String Quartet No. 7, “Concerto da camera,” H314 (1947)
The Fifth Day of the Fifth Moon, for piano, H318 (1948)
Variations on a Slovak Theme, H378 (1959)
Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915–40)
String Quartet No. 1, Op. 8 (1935)
Program Five: New Shores: Influences and Contexts –
Sunday, August 10
Sosnoff Theater
2 PM Preconcert Talk
3 PM Performance
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
La revue de cuisine, H161 (1927)
Harpsichord Concerto, H246 (1935)
Tre ricercari, H267 (1938)
Piano Sonata No. 1, H350 (1954)
Arthur Honegger (1892–1955)
Concerto da Camera, H196 (1948)
Aaron Copland (1900–90)
Sextet (1937)
The 35th Bard Music Festival
Martinů and His World
Weekend Two: Against Uncertainty, Uniformity, Mechanization: Music in the Mid-20th Century
Program Six: The Spiritual Quest –
Thursday, August 14, at 7 PM
Friday, August 15 at 3 PM
Church of the Messiah, Rhinebeck
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
The Mount of Three Lights, H349(1954)
Vigilie, H382 (1959)
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
From Mass in D Major, Op. 86 (1887)
Leoš Janáček (1854–1928)
Veni Sancte Spiritus (ca. 1903)
Constitues eos principes (1903)
Ave Maria (1904)
Postludium, from Glagolitic Mass (1926)
Petr Eben (1929–2007)
Finale, from Musica dominicalis (Sunday Music) (1958)
Program Seven: Myth, Faith, and Folklore –
Friday, August 15
Sosnoff Theater
6 PM Preconcert Talk
7 PM Performance
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Mariken de Nimègue, H236/2 I (1933–34)
Field Mass, H279 (1946)
Brigand Songs, H361 (1957)
Panel Two: Music and Politics: From the Habsburg Empire to Contemporary Populism and Autocracy –
Saturday, August 16
Olin Hall
10 AM – 12 noon
Free and open to the public.
Program Eight: Martinů and the Craft of Composition –
Saturday, August 16
Olin Hall
1 PM Preconcert Talk
1:30 PM Performance
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Duo No. 1, “Three Madrigals,” H313 (1947)
Cello Sonata No. 3, H340 (1952)
Nonet No. 2, H374 (1959)
David Diamond (1915–2005)
Quintet (1937)
Karel Husa (1921–2016)
Evocations de Slovaquie (1951)
Program Nine: Renewing the Public Power of Tradition –
Saturday, August 16
Sosnoff Theater
6 PM Preconcert Talk
7 PM Orchestral Performance
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Violin Concerto No. 2, H293 (1943)
The Epic of Gilgamesh, H351 (1955)
Jan Novák (1921–84)
Ignis pro Ioanne Palach (1969)
Program Ten: Martinů’s Legacy –
Sunday, August 17
Olin Hall
11 AM Preconcert Talk
11:30 AM Performance
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Three Czech Dances, H154 (1926)
Songs on One Page, H294 (1943)
Songs on Two Pages, H302 (1944)
Joan Tower (b. 1938)
Petroushskates (1980)
Kryštof Mařatka (b. 1972)
Báchorky, fables pastorales (2016)
Works by Jaroslav Ježek (1906–42), Frank Zappa (1940–93), and Iva Bittová (b. 1958)
Program Eleven: The Opera of Dreams: Martinů’s Julietta –
Sunday, August 17
Sosnoff Theater
2 PM Preconcert Talk
3 PM Semi-Staged Opera Performance
Bohuslav Martinů (1890–1959)
Julietta, H253 (1937) (Martinů, after Georges Neveux)
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