ON AND OFF CAMPUS: MUSIC

Walking in the Dark by Julia Bullock VAP ’11

If music were wine, 2022 would have to be counted as one of the great vintages for Bardians. And it’s not just us saying so. National Public Radio (NPR) included Walking in the Dark by Julia Bullock VAP ’11 on its list of the “10 Best Classical Albums of 2022,” calling her “a keen curator” with “a singularly expressive voice” and highlighting songs that showcase her “fiery side” as well as her “elegant phrasing” and “sense of social justice.” NPR chose Trans Feminist Symphonic Music by Gavilán Rayna Russom ’97 as one of the “11 Best Experimental Albums of 2022.” The 71-minute work, “expresses as much information as a novella . . . legibly investigating the futility of binaries through the spooky actions of sound. . . . The whole is greater than the sum of its alreadymagnificent parts—its conclusion, which is objectively correct, is that there are no right answers when it comes to the act of human being.”

The New York Times got into the act as well, naming the Angelica Sanchez Trio’s Sparkle Beings one of the “Best Jazz Albums of 2022.” The Times calls Sanchez, who joined the Bard faculty in fall 2022 as assistant professor of music, a “stalwart avant-garde pianist” who here “steers a new all-star trio.” The “melodies explode in her hand.”

The Orchestra Now (TŌN), the visionary orchestra and master’s degree program founded in 2015 by Bard College president, conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein, continues to produce recordings of both wellknown and less familiar repertoire. Recent releases include Classics of American Romanticism, featuring the first-ever complete recording of George Frederick Bristow’s “Arcadian” Symphony; Piano Protagonists, an album of piano concertos by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Frédéric Chopin (both on Bridge Records); and the soundtrack to the feature-length documentary Forte, which explores the notion of success through the lens of three female musicians (Sorel Classics).