Mortimer Levitt

The 30th anniversary season of the Bard Music Festival a?" an exploration of a?oeKorngold and His Worlda?? a?" opens this Friday, August 9, with Weekend One: Korngold and Vienna. The first of the weekend's six themed concerts, Program One: a?oeErich Wolfgang Korngold: From Viennese Prodigy to Hollywood Master,a?? offers a broad overview of the composer's multi-faceted career.

This summer, 20 years since its celebration of Tchaikovsky, the 29th annual Bard Music Festival once again trains its focus on one of Russian Romanticism's most seminal composers, with a two-week, in-depth exploration of “Rimsky-Korsakov and His World.”

Music overflowing with the elegance and grace of four masterful French composers fills the program when the Brevard Symphony Orchestra presents The French Connection on Today, January 21, 2017, at the King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne. Gabriel Faure's sweetly somber Pavane opens the concert, followed by one of the most famous works for cello and orchestra - the First Cello Concerto by Camille Saint-Saens. Rising star Cicely Parnas makes her BSO debut with this tuneful showpiece. After intermission, two suites originally composed for piano are heard in their orchestral versions - Claude Debussy's charming Petite Suite is a setting of four miniature tone pictures. Maurice Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin salutes not just the great French Baroque master Francois Couperin - but also serves as a musical tribute to friends and colleagues of Ravel's who were lost during World War I. 

Music overflowing with the elegance and grace of four masterful French composers fills the program when the Brevard Symphony Orchestra presents The French Connection on Saturday, January 21, 2017, at the King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne. Gabriel Faure's sweetly somber Pavane opens the concert, followed by one of the most famous works for cello and orchestra - the First Cello Concerto by Camille Saint-Saens. Rising star Cicely Parnas makes her BSO debut with this tuneful showpiece. After intermission, two suites originally composed for piano are heard in their orchestral versions - Claude Debussy's charming Petite Suite is a setting of four miniature tone pictures. Maurice Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin salutes not just the great French Baroque master Francois Couperin - but also serves as a musical tribute to friends and colleagues of Ravel's who were lost during World War I. 

-This summer marks another historic milestone for the annual Bard SummerScape festival. For the first time since its founding, this season's focus is on the music and culture of Italy, with seven weeks of music, opera, theater, dance, film, and cabaret keyed to the theme of the 27th Bard Music Festival, "Puccini and His World." This intensive examination of the life and times of Giacomo Puccini opens a window onto Italy's rich musical heritage from Palestrina to Menotti, by way of the most popular and successful - yet, paradoxically, frequently critically underrated - opera composer of all time. Complementing the music festival, some of the Tuscan master's most compelling compatriots provide other key SummerScape highlights.

This summer marks another historic milestone for the annual Bard SummerScape festival. For the first time since its founding, this season's focus is on the music and culture of Italy, with seven weeks of music, opera,theater, dance, film, and cabaret keyed to the theme of the 27th Bard Music Festival, "Puccini and His World." This intensive examination of the life and times of Giacomo Puccini opens a window onto Italy's rich musical heritage from Palestrina to Menotti, by way of the most popular and successful - yet, paradoxically, frequently critically underrated - opera composer of all time. Complementing the music festival, some of the Tuscan master's most compelling compatriots provide other key SummerScape highlights. These include a rare, fully staged production of Iris, a forerunner of Madama Butterfly by Puccini's close contemporary Pietro Mascagni; the world premiere of Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed, four newly unearthed puppet plays from leading Italian Futurist Fortunato Depero, as reimagined by Dan Hurlin;the world premiere of Fantasque, a new ballet set to the music of Respighi and Rossini by John Heginbotham and Amy Trompetter; a film series on "Puccini and the Operatic Impulse in Cinema"; and the return of Bard's authentic and sensationally popularSpiegeltent,hosted by the inimitable Mx. Justin Vivian Bond. Taking place between July 1 and August 14 in the Frank Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and other venues on Bard College's stunning Hudson River campus, SummerScape's 2016 offerings provide new opportunities to discover that, as Time Out New York puts it, "the experience of entering the Fisher Center and encountering something totally new is unforgettable and enriching." Tickets go on sale on Monday, February 15; click here for more information.

Chart-toppers The Smithereens, renowned blues guitarist Coco Montoya, American Idol finalist Casey Abrams, classic '60s rock act Vanilla Fudge, and Texas-based rockers Green River Ordinance highlight the 50-plus free performances during the 2014 Levitt Pavilion SteelStacks Summer Concert Series

Friday, May 21st, found a sold out crowd at the GRAMMY Museum Sound Stage at LA Live as Levitt Pavilions presented 'An Evening with GRAMMY Legends Jimmy Webb & Thelma Houston.'