Concerts

Performed live at Bryant Park on September 17, 2022, Celebrating New York, highlighted composers who have influenced the artistic landscape of New York and works that were inspired by our great city. A full livestream of the concert is available to watch on-demand on ASO Online through November 1, 2022.  The program opens with a…

A truly American genre, the ASO presented this jazz ensemble as a salute to America’s jazz royalty: New Jersey-native jazz pianist, organist, and composer Count Basie, considered one of the all-time greatest bandleaders; singer and jazz pianist Nat King Cole, the first Black American to host a TV variety show; and Duke Ellington, whose totally…

United We Play is a short film inspired by the current turbulent times, and the belief that strength comes through adversity—where there is divide, there is also community. The project combines the talents of Marcus Roberts, The Modern Jazz Generation, and the ASO’s string section in a musical, visual, and narrative digital experience that speaks…

Set in an unnamed totalitarian state, The Miracle of Heliane (Das Wunder der Heliane) features an intricate, erotic triangle between a ruthless despot, The Ruler; his beautiful and neglected wife, Heliane; and a young, messianic Stranger. An allegorical tale, about the destruction of a dictatorship by a woman, Heliane premiered to great acclaim in Hamburg in 1927, and remains…

In collaboration with Bard’s Fisher Center, ASO Online illuminates the work of German Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber, featuring his Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1 and Bard SummerScape Opera: Euryanthe. Carl Maria von Weber’s short life was marked by many lows—frequent illnesses, an arrest on embezzlement and other charges—but he also…

A great nation in turmoil after the abrupt end to a ruling dynasty leaving no clear path forward. This was Russia in the Time of Troubles, the seventeenth-century period in which Antonín Dvořák set his 1882 opera Dimitrij. A stellar cast along with the Bard Festival Chorale animate this powerful production by Anne Bogart for…

SummerScape’s production of Anton Rubinstein’s operatic masterpiece Demon first premiered to great acclaim in 1871. Although performed frequently in Russia, the work remains something of a rarity in the West today. Conducted by Leon Botstein and directed by the renowned American director Thaddeus Strassberge. Based on the renowned fantasy poem by Mikhail Lermontov, Demon boasts…

A contemporary of Saint-Saëns, Emmanuel Chabrier was an independent-minded and important innovator—many saw him as having paved the way for French modernism. With his comic opera The King in Spite of Himself, he succeeded in creating a sophisticated and forward-looking piece. This stylish and elegant production from the 2012 Bard SummerScape festival as directed by…

A highly gifted pianist and composer, Taneyev was a protégé and champion of Tchaikovsky’s, serving as a soloist in early performances of the older composer’s piano concertos. Taneyev was one of Russia’s most influential music theorists, teaching for nearly three decades at the Moscow Conservatory where his students included Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and Glière; Stravinsky later…