Description
We are excited to announce that for the Fall, we will be releasing video recordings from our live chamber performances this season! As long as live performances with the full orchestra are not possible, the ASO will continue to make archived recordings available via ASO online. Content includes live video recordings of SummerScape operas as well as audio recordings from previous ASO concerts, all of which you can enjoy in your home.
We are grateful to the ASO's orchestra committee, the American Federation of Musicians, Bard's SummerScape festival, and the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts who worked with us to make this content available.
The COVID-19 crisis continues to threaten the ASO's ability to remain operational during this uniquely challenging time. If you are in a position to do so, please consider making a donation to the ASO. Your support at any level will provide crucial support towards ensuring the orchestra's ability to provide great music within the means of everyone.
Streaming Now
Mass No. 3 in F Minor “Great”
Online
Completed in 1868, Austrian composer, organist, and professor Anton Bruckner’s Mass No. 3 in F minor first premiered in 1872. Despite garnering less than favorable reviews during initial rehearsals from…
United We Play
Online
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…
Spiritual In Nature
Online
During a live socially-distanced chamber music performance at the Washington Lake Park Amphitheater in Sewell, NJ, a string quartet of ASO members performed these two works by living composers Adolphus…
String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 (1935)
Online
The middle movement of Samuel Barber’s String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11 (1935), later arranged by the composer for orchestra as Adagio for Strings, is “one of the most…
The Magic of Nino Rota
Online
A string quartet of ASO musicians performs the works of Italian-born Nino Rota (1911-1979). Born into a family of musicians, Rota was no stranger to music and was a child…
Das Paradies und die Peri
Online
Much of Robert Schumann’s (1810-1856) opus is a testament to the influence of literature on his life. The son of a book publisher and dealer, Schumann was heavily immersed in…
Composer in Context: William Grant Still
Online
Ranked among the greatest American composers, William Grant Still was nicknamed the “Dean of African American Composers” for the many firsts he achieved during his substantial career. He was the…
The Dream of Gerontius
Online
Widely regarded as the masterpiece of his oeuvre, Sir Edward Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius (1900) tells the tale of a man traversing the path from death to Purgatory. Based…
Composer in Focus: Richard Strauss
Online
One of the most revered Romantic composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Richard Strauss’s symphonic poems and operas remain an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire. This…
Suite from The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh
Online
One of “The Five,” a group of 19th-century composers in Russia, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) was well known for his development of a distinctly Russian style of classical music. His musical…
Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid)
Online
Alexander von Zemlinsky (1871-1942) first premiered his symphonic poem Die Seejungfrau (The Mermaid, 1903) during the Vereinigung Schaffender Tonkünstler’s second concert in 1905. Though the piece was based on Hans…
Le Roi Malgré Lui
Online
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…
Mexican Modernists
Online
This week’s offering from the archives of the Bard Music Festival celebrates the music of two seminal composers from south of the border: Carlos Chávez and Silvestre Revueltas. In times…
Violin Concerto No. 1
Online
Nowadays unjustly neglected, Neoclassical composer Walter Piston is often praised for his individuality and disciplined handling of material, which is highly evident in Violin Concerto No. 1. In his youth, Piston taught himself how to…
Composer in Context: Sergey Taneyev
Online
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…
Symphony No. 7
Online
Arguably one of the greatest German symphonists of the 20th century, Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905-1963) was the youngest of four, born to an artistically inclined family. Between 1924 and 1929,…
The Wreckers
Online
Written by Dame Ethel Smyth, English composer and leader in the women’s suffrage movement, The Wreckers was first performed in Germany in 1906 and was mounted in the composer’s homeland…
Serenade No. 1 Op. 9
Online
Robert Fuchs (1847-1927) has been popularly noted as leaving his biggest mark on the classical music landscape as a teacher. A largely impactful force of Austrian Romanticism, notable students of…
Recent Performances
Composer in Context: Carl Maria von Weber
Online
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…
Symphony No. 1
Online
Roger Sessions, a composer with a profound impact on the American musical scene post-World War II, completed his first symphony in 1927, at the age of thirty. This early three-movement…
Demon
Online
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…
The Miracle of Heliane
Online
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…
Symphony No. 6
Online
Although Nikolai Miaskovsky is among the most unknown and rarely performed composers today, he was regarded as leading a Russian symphonist during his lifetime. After an early education in the…