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Direct Sensory Input, No Complications & A Token Of His Grace, Vigilance Jw Brandon

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Songs For Strings, Jayla Kai Smith

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Songs for Strings is a series of songs by Jayla Kai arranged for string quartet and performed with quartet and vocals.

Things I Never Told You, Ayanna Battle

Senior Projects Fall 2022

I had a very interesting experience studying composition at Bard. The year that I was supposed to moderate into composition was the year that COVID hit; and because of COVID, I spent the next two of my four years at Bard studying remotely, 15 hours away in Atlanta, Ga. Though I was still able to study composition with Joan Tower through weekly virtual meetings, I never experienced the “rites of passage” that a typical young composer experiences. I never had to search for musicians to play my pieces for a moderation concert; I never had to analyze the different schedules …

An Artist, Now, Laila Rose Perlman

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College

Give To You/Fill My Cup, Madeline Damon Roisin Moneypenny

Senior Projects Spring 2022

At the core of my project is the assertion that the human voice functions as an instrument. During my time at Bard, my musical practice revolved around an exploration and desire to use singing as texture, as a solo instrument, and as storytelling. I wanted to challenge what it means to be a singer in a band setting, a setting that often illuminates gender in startling ways that limit the creativity and confidence of non-male players. Through this concert series, I wanted to show the singer as a player, an artist, and as integral to the work.

I composed 14 …

Midnight In July, Allegra Ondine Berger

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project Statement Allegra Berger

The collection of songs that I created for my senior project were all written some time in the past year. It was only in the past two weeks that I came to realize that a unifying theme had emerged. It is not something obvious- nor did I intend for it to be- but there were enough hints throughout to lead me this realization. Originally, my plan for the project was to compose choral pieces meant for a children’s choir to sing, which I would then teach to a group of children in the Bard area, …

Francesca's Sweet Lament: An Operatic Adaptation Of Canto V From Dante's Inferno, Javen Cristina Lara

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College

Pull2 And Wish2, Nicolas Roman Fopeano

Senior Projects Spring 2020

My senior project consists of two individual parts, completed at the ends of both semesters.

The first project, titled “Pull2”, is a fully composed piece written for piano, violin, cello, and live processed 4 channel electronics. It was performed on December 13, 2019 in Bard Hall. The players were Maeve Schallert on violin, Kate Gonzales on cello, Clay Hillenburg controlling the electronics, and I played piano. The playing was sparse and spacious, and the electronics held certain tones for long periods of time. This was achieved with a MAX patch which loops short moments of the audio from the instruments …

Black And Grey: An Audio-Visual Tribute To The Undefined, Jewel Evans

Senior Projects Spring 2018

The Process:

My project was originally called Seven Stages of “Griffe.” The term “griffe” was a racial category describing people who are three quarters black and one quarter white, which is my actual genetic makeup. My original plan was to analyze the history of the term and reference it in seven songs representing the seven stages of grief, and create a long music video to open up dialogue about the racial definitions we ascribe ourselves to. The project changed when I reached an impasse in my historical research, given that the term was obsolete by the 18th century and had …

Everything Is An Experience & A Seat In The Shop: Hair Follicles, Rickey W. Waddell

Senior Projects Spring 2018

As a music major at Bard a part of my requirement to graduate was to produce two forty minute presentations for an audience. At Bard I moderated into the classical music department as a vocalist. During my time here I developed an interest in jazz voice, electronic composition, cello performance, and percussion performance. Since my moderation concert in live performance, I always make attempts to connect ideas from books I’ve read including: evolution, human rights, and world peace.

My first senior project concert “Everything is an Experience” happened on the night of the seventh of December, 2017 in the László …

Ostinato My Ass: Finding A Voice In The 21st Century, Richard Luke Koenig

Senior Projects Spring 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Slash: Call And Response Composition In Jazz Music, Miles Taylour Sweeny

Senior Projects Fall 2017

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Senior Concert I: A Quiet Departure/Senior Concert Ii: 6 Statements, Matthew Charles Dowden

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College

Algorithmic Music Composition And Accompaniment Using Neural Networks, Daniel Wilton Risdon

Senior Projects Spring 2016

The goal of this project was to use neural networks as a tool for live music performance. Specifically, the intention was to adapt a preexisting neural network code library to work in Max, a visual programming language commonly used to create instruments and effects for electronic music and audio processing. This was done using ConvNetJS, a JavaScript library created by Andrej Karpathy.

Several neural network models were trained using a range of different training data, including music from various genres. The resulting neural network-based instruments were used to play brief pieces of music, which they used as input to create …