The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College is a performance hall located in the Hudson Valley of Annandale-on-Hudson, Dutchess County, New York. The center provides audiences with performances and programs in orchestral, chamber, and jazz music, and in theater, dance, and opera.
Designed by architect Frank Gehry, the 110,000-square-foot center houses two theaters, four rehearsal studios for dance, theater, and music, and professional support facilities. The total cost of the project reached $62 million. The New Yorker calls it "possibly the best small concert hall in the United States."
The Sosnoff Theater, an intimate, 900-seat theater with an orchestra, parterre, and two balcony sections, features an orchestra pit for opera and acoustics designed by Yasuhisa Toyota, including an acoustic shell that turns the theater into a concert hall for performances of chamber and symphonic music.
The flexible 200-seat Theater Two, houses Bard's Theater and Dance Programs during the academic year. The Fisher Center is also the home of the Bard Music Festival, hosting companies from around the world during Bard SummerScape, a festival of opera, theater, and dance.
The Performing Arts Center is primarily devoted to teaching and college events during the academic year and used as a public performing-arts facility and venue for the college's graduate programs in the arts during the summer months.
Bard College, founded in 1860 as St. Stephen's College, is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Bard's rural main campus is located near the town of Red Hook. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District, a National Historic Landmark.
The institution consists of a liberal arts college, a conservatory, as well as 8 graduate programs offering over 20 graduate degrees in the arts and sciences. The undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 10:1. The college has a network of over 35 affiliated programs, institutes, and centers, spanning 12 cities, 5 states, 7 countries, and 4 continents.
Bard's Annandale campus serves as an important regional cultural institution. Both the CCS Hessel Museum of Contemporary Art and the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts are located on campus. The college also hosts two acclaimed annual arts festivals, Bard SummerScape, and the Bard Music Festival.
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