Ian Buruma’s New Book Stay Alive Reviewed in the Forward
Julia M. Klein writes that Buruma’s work is “at once panoramic and intimate, dispassionate and deeply moving.”
Ian Buruma’s New Book Stay Alive Reviewed in the Forward
Ian Buruma. Photo by Pete Mauney ’93 MFA ’00
The Human Rights Program at Bard is a transdisciplinary program involving such diverse fields as literature, political studies, history, anthropology, economics, film and media, and art history. It emphasizes integrative historical and conceptual investigations, and offers a rigorous background that can inform meaningful practical engagements. The program seeks to orient students in the intellectual tradition of human rights and provide them the resources with which to appreciate and criticize its contemporary status.
Post Date: 03-24-2026
Bard College and PEN America Announce the Launch of the Central America Independent Media Archive
CAIMA was built in partnership with the Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA) team, and is the latest project under the umbrella of Kronika.Bard College and PEN America Announce the Launch of the Central America Independent Media Archive
Ramón Zamora. Photo by Bernardo Díaz
Founded in response to the escalating criminalization and persecution of journalism in Central America, CAIMA’s mission is to empower journalists, researchers, and civil society actors to deepen investigative work across the region. The collection currently preserves archival publications from 12 media outlets, including the complete editorial history of elPeriódico, a Guatemalan publication internationally recognized for its decades of investigative reporting on corruption and abuse of power.
In 2022, elPeriódico’s founder and director, José Rubén Zamora, was arbitrarily detained after the newspaper published 144 consecutive weeks of investigative reporting on corruption during the administration of former Guatemalan president Alejandro Giammattei. Following his arrest, the newsroom faced political, legal, and financial pressure, forcing nine journalists into exile. In May 2023, the publication was forced to shut down, cutting off public access to decades of investigative journalism. To protect their father’s legacy and the work of the newsroom, Zamora’s sons, Ramón and José Carlos, secured a complete digital copy of elPeriódico’s archive, an effort that laid the groundwork for CAIMA.
“Our goal is to preserve the first draft of Central America’s history and ensure that the work of courageous journalists is never erased,” said CAIMA coordinator Ramón Zamora. “CAIMA is both a shield against censorship and a tool for journalists and researchers committed to exposing corruption and understanding how power operates across borders.”
The archive is designed to grow by continuously incorporating collections from other independent media organizations across Central America that face censorship, shutdowns, or forced exile. In a region where authoritarian practices increasingly restrict access to information, CAIMA strengthens journalism’s ability to hold power accountable and supports deeper, evidence-based regional analysis. To access CAIMA, please visit elarchivo.media/en
Post Date: 03-23-2026
Bard Alumna Sonita Alizadeh ’23 Profiled in Forbes
“Today, Sonita’s message is simple but profound: never underestimate the power of your voice.”Bard Alumna Sonita Alizadeh ’23 Profiled in Forbes
Sonita Alizadeh ’23, Bard College alumna and human rights activist.
Post Date: 03-17-2026
M. Gessen Spoke with WMCU’s Here and Now About Kronika, Joint Civic Tech Project of Bard College and PEN America
Gessen outlined how Kronika has gone from being an archive to a set of tools in response to worldwide threats to free speech.M. Gessen Spoke with WMCU’s Here and Now About Kronika, Joint Civic Tech Project of Bard College and PEN America
M. Gessen.
Post Date: 02-16-2026
Upcoming Events
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3/29Sunday
Signs, Games, and Messages 2026: A Kurtág Festival
Wednesday, March 11, 2026 – Saturday, April 4, 2026
Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
2026 marks the centenary of Hungarian composer György Kurtág, whose music is distinguished by precision, clarity, and deep emotional and cultural resonance. The seventh season of Bard Conservatory of Music’s annual Kurtág Festival celebrates this occasion with an expanded program featuring Bard faculty, students, and international artists connected to Kurtág. The festival places Kurtág’s music in dialogue with composers who shaped or reflect his artistic world - from Bach and Bartók to Abrahamsen and Adès.
Artists performing in the festival include Benjamin Appl (baritone); James Baillieu (piano); Sydney Cornett (mezzo-soprano); Lucy Fitz Gibbon (soprano); Kayo Iwama (piano): Benjamin Hochman (piano); András Kemenes (piano); Alexandra Knoll (oboe); Ryan McCullough (piano); Erika Switzer (piano); András Szalai (cimbalom); and additional faculty and students of the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Artistic Director: Benjamin Hochman.
This festival has been permanently endowed through the generous support of László Z. Bitó '60 and Olivia Carino.
All festival events are free and open to the public. Rolling festival updates will be posted on this webpage and in our weekly eblasts.
View Press Release
Contact: Concert Office
E-mail: [email protected]
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3/29Sunday1:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Signs, Games, and Messages 2026 - Program Five (lecture and concert)
Preconcert Lecture with Gergely Fazekas at 1:30 PM
Kurtág, Mozart, and the Bach Family at 3:00 PMSunday, March 29, 2026Free and open to the public.
1:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Bitó Conservatory Building, Performance Space
PROGRAM
Preconcert Lecture with Gergely Fazekas
"I compose to seek the truth": The Musical Universe of György Kurtág
Sunday, March 29 at 1:30 pm
Conservatory Performance Space
“The final masterpiece of twentieth-century music.” Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, so described György Kurtág’s first opera, Fin de partie, which premiered in 2018 at La Scala in Milan. What makes Kurtág one of the most important voices in contemporary music in the 21st century, despite his reluctance toward fame and recognition, and despite a career that was restricted for decades behind the Iron Curtain in communist Hungary? How does he think about music, and how does he frame the “truth” he seeks in composing? These are the questions that musicologist Gergely Fazekas, associate professor at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, seeks to answer.
Coffee/tea social
Sunday, March 29, 2:20pm-2:50pm
The László Z. Bitó ’60 Conservatory Building, Lobby
Kurtág, Mozart, and the Bach Family
Sunday, March 29 at 3 pm
Conservatory Performance Space
C. P. E. Bach
Rondo in G Major, Wq. 59, No. 2
András Kemenes, piano
György Kurtág
Three Chorale Preludes for piano four hands
J. S. Bach
Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr, BWV 711
Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 687
Das alte Jahr vergangen ist, BWV 614
András Kemenes, piano
Benjamin Hochman, piano
György Kurtág
Selections from Játékok (Games)
András Kemenes, piano
György Kurtág
Wind Quintet, Op. 2 for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon
Christian Middy, flute
Kai O’Donnell, oboe
Mohammad AbdNikfarjam, clarinet
Dominik Kovács, horn
Adelaide Braunhill, bassoon
INTERMISSION
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Andante with Five Variations for piano four hands, K. 501
András Kemenes, piano
Benjamin Hochman, piano
Quintet for Piano and Winds, K. 452
Alexandra Knoll, oboe
Noemi Sallai, clarinet
Dominik Kovács, horn
Philip McNaughton, bassoon
Benjamin Hochman, piano
Free and open to the public. Livestreaming on the Conservatory YouTube Channel HERE
View Press Release
Contact: Concert Office
E-mail: [email protected]
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3/29Sunday2:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Sight & Sound: Mozart and Raphael
Presented by The Orchestra Now (TŌN) at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC
Sunday, March 29, 2026Mozart Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter”
2:00 pm – 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC
Artwork by Raphael and others
Leon Botstein conductor
In the popular series Sight & Sound, TŌN explores the parallels between orchestral music and visual art. Each performance includes a discussion with conductor and music historian Leon Botstein accompanied by on-screen exhibition images and live musical excerpts, and a full performance of the works.
Raffaello di Giovanni Santi (1483–1520)—better known as Raphael—was one of history’s most beloved and influential artists. A true titan of the Italian Renaissance, Raphael matched ambition with lyricism to create works with both intellectual heft and emotional depth, a necessary skill in the complex political landscape of Renaissance courts. In his short life of only 37 years, he achieved such profound success as a painter, designer, and architect that he was regarded as the pinnacle of artistic perfection for centuries after his death. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was himself one of the most prolific and influential artists of the Classical period. He gave piano concerts starting at age five and wrote his first opera at age 11. He composed more than 800 works by the time of his death at age 35. Mozart wrote dozens of symphonies, composing the final three over six weeks in the summer of 1788. The 41st, his last, puts on full display the extraordinary compositional technique he mastered over the course of his career. Both of these prodigies were driven by their quest for perfection, earning great acclaim for their skillful technique early in their short lives and leaving a legacy to which artists would aspire for centuries thereafter.
The exhibition Raphael: Sublime Poetry will be on view at The Met Fifth Avenue March 29 – June 28, 2026 in gallery 899.
Phone: 212-570-3949
Website: https://ton.bard.edu/events/mozart/
E-mail: [email protected]
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3/30Monday6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
The Why of What We Do
A Reading and Conversation with Ayana Mathis
Monday, March 30, 2026On Monday, March 30 at 6pm in the Campus Center North Multipurpose room, writer Ayana Mathis will read and discuss her work. This event is free and open to the public.
6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
North Campus Center, Multipurpose Room
Ayana Mathis is the author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Knopf, 2012) and most recently, The Unsettled (Knopf, 2023), the inaugural winner of McSweeney’s Gabe Hudson Prize. The book was named a New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book of 2023, a best of 2023 by The New Yorker, Publisher’s Weekly, an Oprah Daily Best Novels of 2023, and a Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2023. Her first novel, THE TWELVE TRIBES OF HATTIE, was a New York Times Bestseller, the second selection for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0, a 2013 New York Times Notable Book, NPR Best Book of 2013, and was long listed for the Dublin Literary Award and nominated for Hurston/Wright Foundation's Legacy Award. Mathis’s essays and criticism have been published in the The New York Times, The Atlantic, T Magazine, The Financial Times, RollingStone, Guernica and Glamour. She currently teaches at Hunter College in the MFA Program.
Contact: Megan Brien
E-mail: [email protected]
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3/31Tuesday5:30 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Plato's Harmonic Cosmos
Professor Daniel Newsome, Bard Mathematics program
Tuesday, March 31, 2026"The Myth of Er," located late in Chapter X of Plato's Republic, introduced much of the world to the idea of a musically motivated cosmos. In his Timaeus a bit more detail is given on how this harmonic world was constructed. The description is extremely evocative but like a dream, when you wake up, things don't always fit together. For the next 2000+ years astronomers, astrologers, philosophers, mathematicians, musicians, and music theorists tried to get the universe to fit into some sort of harmonic scheme. This is their story.
5:30 pm – 7:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Olin Humanities, Room 201
Contact: James Romm
E-mail: [email protected]