The Bard Music Festival is an annual classical music festival held during the month of August on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
To this end, each year the festival selects a single composer to be its main focus and presents performances in tandem with presentations on biographical details on the subject and links to the worlds of literature, painting, theater, philosophy, and politics that would have influenced the life and works of the featured composer.
Concerts are frequently presented with informative preconcert talks, panel discussions by renowned musicians and scholars, and other special events.
In addition, each season a book of essays, translations, and correspondence relating to the festival’s central figure is published by Princeton University Press.
The festival is currently led by Artistic Directors Leon Botstein, and Irene Zedlacher.