Bard Alumni Ensemble Concert in New York

Join us for an exciting concert presented by the extraordinary musicians of the Bard Alumni Ensemble taking place on Sunday, May 24, 2026 at 3PM at the Hungarian House of New York!

PROGRAM

Six Bagatelles by György Ligeti

Luminous Chroma by Corey Chang ‘19

Ghost Variations by George Tsontakis

We Have_ _ _ by Jonathan Collazo ‘19

Wings by Joan Tower

Growing Block by Sarah Hennies

ABOUT THE ENSEMBLE

The Bard Alumni Ensemble consists of Bard Conservatory Alumni graduates from the class of ’12 to the class of ’25, hailing from three continents. While we did not attend all at the same time, we share a special musical bond and a unique approach to chamber music that we learned from the same professors during our times at Bard. After graduating and starting our professional careers, we understood how valuable this common understanding is, which has led us to starting an ensemble. As many great music institutions have established alumni groups, we wanted to take the initiative to represent Bard and give back to the conservatory where we all learned so much. Through presenting our ensemble to audiences and venues outside of Bard, we hope to extend the talent and excellence that the Annandale-On-Hudson campus fosters to a wider audience, inspiring young students to attend and encouraging music-lovers to support the institution.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Alberto Arias Flores is a Latin American French horn player dedicated to creating experiences through music making and music education. Originally from Lara-Venezuela, he began his musical studies in El Sistema where he was a member of National Children's Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in 2013 and Lara Symphony Orchestra in 2017. Graduated in 2023 from Bard Conservatory of Music with a double degree in music performance and French studies, he wrote his senior thesis combining the two fi elds: French Composers as Intellectuals: Music and Politics in Early 20th Century France, receiving the William Weaver Prize. Continuing his studies at Bard Conservatory, he earned a certifi cate on the Advanced Performance Studies program in 2025 under the tutelage of Barbara Jöstlein Currie, Julie Pilant, Jeff Lang and Hugo Valverde. In 2025 he also formed part of the OAcademy Orchestra Institute under the tutelage of Katy Woolley. Alberto has performed with groups such as Bard Music Festival, The Orchestra San Antonio, The Opera of San Antonio, The San Antonio Ballet and The Orchestra Now. Currently, he is pursuing his Master’s Degree in Music Performance at University of Maryland with Gregory Miller.

Corey Chang, described as “a major composer, maybe even the major composer of his generation” by The Millbrook Independent, is an American composer, pianist and educator currently based in Queens, New York. He is the recipient of a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, and the Indiana University New Music Ensemble Commission Award, and his music has been workshopped and performed by many leading musicians and ensembles both nationally and internationally.

His music has received performances in highly acclaimed spaces such as Carnegie Hall, National Sawdust, Sprague Hall, Vienna’s Ehrbar Hall, the Cité de la Musique, Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Arts On Site, The Center at West Park, the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in New Hampshire, and multiple other locations throughout NYC and Canada. Recent commissions include works for clarinetist Thomas Piercy & Random Access Music, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, the American Composers Orchestra EarShot program, the IU-Taiwan Music Project, and pianist Eunbi Kim & The Smithsonian Museum of Asian Art.

As a pianist, Chang has won awards from the Greater New Haven Woodwind Ensemble Concerto Competition, the Renée B. Fisher Piano Competition, and the Neighborhood Music School Performance Awards Competition. In 2016, he was a fi nalist in the Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition, performing Joan Tower’s Concerto for Piano (Homage to Beethoven).

Chang holds dual degrees in Composition and Mathematics from Bard College and a master’s degree in Composition from The Juilliard School, where he was a Morse Teaching Fellow and was awarded the Joseph W. Polisi “Artist as Citizen” prize. He recently completed his doctorate at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, where he was Associate Instructor of Composition, and continues to serve as Director of the Jacobs Composition Academy Summer Intensive Program.

Tori Conner’s journey as an oboist is one driven by passion, dedication, and a lifelong commitment to musical excellence. A native of Houston, Texas, Tori has been captivated by the sound of the oboe for over 12 years.

Tori holds a Bachelor of Music in Oboe Performance with a minor in Arts Administration from Louisiana State University and a Master of Music in Oboe Performance from the Bard Conservatory. While at Bard, she performed with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra, The Orchestra Now at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Bard’s East West Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. Her orchestral experience includes the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, the Rapides Symphony Orchestra, and the LSU Symphony Orchestra, where she won fi rst place in the 2021 Spring Auditions.

In addition to her orchestral work, Tori has played with the Louisiana State University Wind Ensemble and is an active chamber musician in her community. During the summer months, Tori has attended prestigious festivals such as the Mostly Modern Music Festival, the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, and the Hidden Valley Oboe Seminar.

In addition to performance, Tori is passionate about arts administration. She has worked with organizations including Kids’ Orchestra in Baton Rouge, LA, the Marlboro Music Festival, and the Seven Hills Chamber Music Festival. She now serves as the Development Coordinator with the Albany Symphony, combining her artistic background and administrative expertise to support the orchestra’s mission.

Andrea Abel is a versatile NYC-based fl utist, composer, multimedia artist and artistic director from Hungary. Praised by the Millbrook Independent for their "complete command of technical and emotional registers,", a standout moment in her career was performing Joan Tower’s virtuosic fl ute concerto, conducted by Tower herself, touring Asia with Academy Award-winning composer Tan Dun, as well as solo performances with the Prague Philharmonic and the Budapest String Orchestra.

Alongside their busy concert schedule as a performer of contemporary and classical works, they are an active composer of electro-acoustic and interdisciplinary works. In 2019, they premiered "From Ictus to Raptus," an immersive multimedia show, where they served as a visionary force behind its conception and execution as a writer, composer, choreographer, lighting and sound designer and director.

Andrea is the founder and director of COPE Collective @cope_collective, an artist-led, mutual aid not-for-profi t organization of 35 East-Coast based composer-performers, composers, musicians, visual artists, presenters, and other interdisciplinary artists, working together to create new works without the fi nancial and creative restrictions of the music industry and foster a sense of community in the experimental arts.

Praised for her “smooth fluency” by The Millbrook Independent Noémi Sallai is a Hungarian clarinetist and Cultural Attaché (cultural diplomat) at the Liszt Institute Hungarian Cultural Center New York. Recognized for her expressive artistry, she was selected as the sole clarinet fellow of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect program (2018–2020), where she refi ned her voice as a chamber musician and educator. A prize-winning soloist, she has appeared at major venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, David Geffen Hall and The Kennedy Center. Her orchestral experience includes appearances with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, as well as performances with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the New Juilliard Ensemble, Juilliard’s AXIOM ensemble, and the Juilliard Orchestra. A dedicated chamber musician, she has participated in the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Sarasota Music Festival, and is a member of the Altalena Young Artists’ Collective. Ms. Sallai holds a Bachelor of Music and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bard College and the Bard Conservatory of Music, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School, where she was the recipient of the of the Irene Diamond and R. & H. Gold Woodwind Award.

Dávid Ádám Nagy is a Hungarian-born bassoonist, protodisciplinary artist, and creative entrepreneur based in New York City. A graduate of Bard College and The Juilliard School, he is currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of Maryland, where his research explores protodisciplinary art: an emerging practice concerned with the conditions from which experience, meaning, and form arise. He is a core member of Contemporaneous, a bold new music ensemble known for interdisciplinary projects, close collaboration with living composers, and performances that expand the possibilities of contemporary music.

His performances and collaborations span leading cultural and research institutions, including MoMA, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bang on a Can, Prototype Festival, Bard Music Festival, The Clark Art Institute, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Columbia University, NYU, the University of Texas, the Liszt Institute, and the John Cage Trust, as well as the Budapest Spring Festival, White Nights in St. Petersburg, and Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival. Across music, performance, writing, visual art, objects, and curiosity, his work traces the hidden structures through which vibration to attention, where attention becomes experience, and experience becomes art, encounter, and fi nally, ritual.

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