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Press Releases
Victoria Bond returns to Conductor's Institute of S. Carolina, world premiere performance, and more
Victoria Bond returns (virtually) to the Conductor's Institute of South Carolina
Ms. Bond writes article for the Journal of IAWM
"Victoria Bond at the Cutting Edge" - Berkshire Fine Arts profiles Ms. Bond
The Conductors Institute of South Carolina goes online
This July 12-25, Victoria Bond returns to the Conductors Institute of South Carolina as a guest composition and conducting faculty member. Student participants will also be conducting four scenes from Ms. Bond's opera Mrs. President, receiving valuable feedback from working directly with the composer.
Founded 41 years ago by Director Dr. Donald Portnoy, the Institute is one of America’s premiere summer conductor training programs. However, because of the continuing pandemic, the 2020 Institute is moving online. There are still spots available so visit The Conductors Institute of South Carolina's website or Facebook page.
Bond reflects on the premiere of her opera Clara for the Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music
Last April in Baden-Baden, Germany, Victoria Bond’s opera Clara, about the life of Clara Schumann, premiered to critical acclaim at the Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival. The performances celebrated the 200th anniversary of Clara Schumann's birth.
In the Spring 2020 edition of the Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music, Ms. Bond wrote an article reflecting on bringing this piece to life and the thrill of seeing the premiere in Germany:
"To have this astounding opportunity to see and hear my opera performed with such commitment and passion was a transcendent experience. The ovation was overwhelming, and Barbara (librettist Barbara Zinn Krieger) and I were asked to come on stage with the cast and take our bows. We all celebrated far into the night, having witnessed the evolution of what had once been just a fragile idea develop into a living, breathing creation."
Read the entire article on IAWM.org
"Composer, Conductor, and Musical Polymath" - Berkshire Fine Arts profiles Victoria Bond
"Victoria Bond was born to be a musician. Her grandfather was a composer and conductor. Her father was an operatic bass, and her mother, a concert pianist. She found the piano herself. When her kindergarten teacher scolded her mother for pushing Bond too hard, her mother explained that she was trying to hold her back, but could not.
Bond has never stopped. She has explored various instruments, including her own voice. Conducting seemed natural to her. Yet she was also compelled to compose. The brutal schedule demanded of conductors was not suited to dual career paths. She chose composing and now starts each day transferring what she has heard in dreams and errant thoughts of the night before into notes. She dreams not only in visual images but in tones."
Read the whole article at Berkshire Fine Arts.
A major force in 21st century music, composer Victoria Bond is known for her melodic gift and dramatic flair. Her works for orchestra, chamber ensemble and opera have been lauded by The New York Times as "powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding."
Victoria Bond's most recent CD, "Instruments of Revelation", includes world premiere recordings of Bond's most recent chamber works, and features performances by the Grammy award winning ensemble Chicago Pro Musica, "dynamic pianist" (NYTimes) Jenny Lin, and "dramatic tenor" (Toronto Star) Rufus Müller among others. Another recent release, "Soul of a Nation: Portraits of Presidential Character", features soloists from the Chicago and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras. Released on Albany Records in 2018, each of the four works include narration taken from the presidents' own words.
In addition to Clara, highlights of Ms. Bond's catalogue include the operas Mrs. President and The Miracle of Light; ballets Equinox and Other Selves; orchestral works Thinking like a Mountain, Bridges and Urban Bird; and chamber works Dreams of Flying, Frescoes and Ash and Instruments of Revelation, among many others. Her compositions have been performed by the New York City Opera, Shanghai, Dallas and Houston Symphonies, members of the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic, American Ballet Theater and the Cassatt and Audubon Quartets.
The New York Times praised Victoria Bond's conducting as "full of energy and fervor." She has served as principal guest conductor of Chamber Opera Chicago since 2005. Prior positions include Assistant Conductor of Pittsburgh Symphony and New York City Opera and Music Director of the Roanoke Symphony and Opera, Bel Canto Opera and Harrisburg Opera. Ms. Bond has guest conducted throughout the United States, Europe, South America and Asia. She is the first woman awarded a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Juilliard School.
Ms. Bond is Artistic Director of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival in New York, which she founded in 1998, and is a frequent lecturer at the Metropolitan Opera and has lectured for the New York Philharmonic. The Wall Street Journal, NBC's Today Show, The New York Times and other national publications have profiled Ms. Bond. For more information about Victoria Bond and her upcoming projects, visit VictoriaBond.com.
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