Music Department

NPR’s All Things Considered calls Etienne, “a great young trumpeter…his records filter calypso, reggae and other Afro-Caribbean music into a modern jazz conception.” Critics and audiences alike continue to praise the Trinidadian’s exciting performances, thrilling compositions, and his charismatic onstage presence.

Faculty member, Dr. Ashley Jackson, harp, presents an original program that explores the impact of black women on the advancement and uplift of the African American community. Using original text, pre-recorded material, and live performances, Miss Black America challenges audience members to consider how, as pillars of remarkable strength, black women have used the freedom of movement and art to maneuver around multiple forms of racism, thus successfully laying a solid foundation for today’s generation to carry their legacies forward with pride and purpose.

“In Douglas Cleveland’s hands the organ seemed to squeeze the air into towering sculptures.” (The Chicago Tribune) Internationally acclaimed organist Douglas Cleveland gained prominence when he won first prize in the 1994 American Guild of Organists National Young Artists Competition in Dallas. Since then he has performed in 49 of the United States and in prestigious venues around the world.  He will perform works by Bach, Bruhns, Bohm, Dahl, Decker, and Mendelssohn.

Baroque band ACRONYM—an "outstanding young early-music string ensemble" (The New Yorker)—is dedicated to giving modern premieres of the wild instrumental music of the seventeenth century. Faculty member Robert Osborne, bass-baritone, joins ACRONYM in vocal works by Valentini, Rosenmüller, Capricornus, and Ebner.

James Osborn, conductor.

Music of Mozart, Duparc, Strauss, Griffes, Flaherty, and others. Assisted by Susan Brown, piano.

Eduardo Navega, conductor.

Featuring J.S. Bach's magnificent French Overture BWV 831, works by Mendelssohn, American composer, Peter Lieberson, and études by Chopin, Liszt, Abrahamsen and Ligeti. 

Music of Schumann, Tosti, Ravel, Sondheim, Tesori and others. Assisted by Susan Brown, piano.

Featuring works by Tchaikovsky with selections from Somervell's A Shropshire Lad and Schubert's Winterreise. Assisted by David Alpher, piano.

Christine Howlett, conductor.

Faculty member Moran Katz, clarinet, performs works by Richard Meares, John Philippe Rameau, and Olivier Messiaen with guests Jesse Mills, violin, Alexis Gerlach, cello, and Amy Yang, piano.

Featuring works by Persichetti, Mozart, Bernard Heiden, and others. Assisted by Thomas Sauer, piano.

An afternoon of American music by Charles Griffes, Robert Muczynski and Lukas Foss, exploring cultural influences and their effect on rhythm and lyricism. The second half of the program features Shulamit Ran’s East Wind(1988) which examines extremes in register, dynamics, and emotion. The program finishes with Cesar Franck’s glorious Sonata in A major.

Featuring works of J.S. Bach, Liszt, Reger, and Clarke. Assisted by David Alpher, piano.

Featuring works of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Debussy, and Barber. Assisted by Richard Mogavero, piano.

Featuring works by Brahms, Mozart, Kurt Weill, Richard Hageman, Ambrose Thomas, Harnick and Bock, and others. 

Assisted by Richard Mogavero, piano.

The Vassar College Chamber Singers perform compositions by Palestrina, Sowerby, Monteverdi, Harris, Byrd, Blachly, Stroope, Botti and others. Drew Minter, conductor.

Music of Debussy, Copland, Brahms, Mozart and Handel, as well as a selection of contemporary jazz and standards. With guests Ilan Korman, Ava Linvog, and Jack Reed.

Assisted by Richard Mogavero, piano.

Featuring works of Fauré, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mozart, and others. Assisted by Gregg Michalak, piano.

Featuring Dmitri Shostakovich’s final masterpiece, Suite on Poems of Michelangelo Buonarroti, op. 145 (1975), in a rarely heard edition for voice and organ reinstating Michelangelo’s sonnets in their original Renaissance Italian.  

James Osborn, director.

Featuring works by George Gershwin, Francis Poulenc, Antonín Dvořák, W.A. Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Charles Ives. 

Assisted by Richard Mogavero, piano.

Christine Howlett, conductor. 

James Osborn, conductor.

Eduardo Navega, director.

Eduardo Navega, conductor.

Join us for our 30-minute lunchtime recital series by members of the Vassar College Chamber Music Program.

At the Bridge Café in the Bridge for Laboratory Sciences building.

Save the date and plan to join us at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall for this one-night-only recital by Professor Emeritus Todd Crow.

This is a ticketed event, please check back in mid-February for more details.