Bard College Conservatory Orchestra to Play in Cuba

This was easily the most moving performance of this amazing piece that I have heard. Special credit goes, of course, to Botstein, but he had the help of some magnificent players.” Boston Music Intelligencer.

The visit of Bard will include a series of concerts directed by Maestro Leon Botstein that will take place in Cienfuegos (June 4), Santa Clara (June 6) and Havana (June 8-9). At the June 8 concert in Havana, Bard’s musicians will play together with the famous Cuban chamber orchestra Camerata Romeu, the first all-female string orchestra of Latin America, famous all over the world and conducted by Zenaida Romeu. On the June 9 concert will have the special participation as a soloist of the internationally recognized pianist Peter Serkin. As part of the tour, the musicians of the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra will participate in musical interchanges with Cuban students, chamber music workshops, will play “side by side” with musicians of the Cuban National Orchestra, directed by Maestro Perez Mesa and will visit Cuba’s University of Arts to share experiences about musical education. The Orchestra will also participate in workshops of Cuban traditional music in the cities they will be visiting.  

The Bard College Conservatory Orchestra’s concerts tour was planned and organized by Classical Movements in collaboration with the Cuban Music Institute. Classical Movements has an experience of more than 19 years organizing musical groups’ concerts tours to Cuba.  According to Neeta Helms, president of Classical Movements: “we are extremely delighted to bring one of America’s most prestigious conservatories and the world-renowned pianist Peter Serkin to Cuba. Together they will offer the Cuban people one of the most masterful concerts to be presented in Havana this year.”

This concerts and exchanges tour with the Bard Conservatory will build a positive musical relation between the two countries that will last in the future. "Given the recent opening of the United States towards Cuba, this tour offers us a great opportunity to establish new links between our students and this country’s young ones", says the director of the Bard Music Conservatory, Robert Martin. "Our tour through Cuba will take place in this historic point as the pace of relations with Cuba quickens because we think we can play a positive role, though music, in affecting the way that the relationship between our countries develops."

Translation: Liana Fleitas (Cubarte)