Berkshire Bach Society Music Directors

Kenneth Cooper
Harpsichordist, pianist, musicologist and conductor Kenneth Cooper is one of the world’s leading specialists in the music of the 18 century and one of America’s most exciting and versatile performers. Renowned for his improvisations and his expertise in ornamentation, long-lost 18th century arts, he has revived countless works, lending them extraordinary authenticity as well as great vitality. The possessor of a PhD in musicology from Columbia University, Kenneth Cooper is on the faculty there as well as at the Manhattan School of Music, where he is Chair of the Harpsichord Department and Director of the Baroque Aria Ensemble. As Music Director of the Berkshire Bach Ensemble since its inception, Kenneth Cooper has made a tradition of the New Years performances of the Bach Six Brandenburg Concerti and has instituted a series of Concertofests in the style of Bach’s Collegium Concerts. He is heard regularly at the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo and with the Sherman Chamber Ensemble, The Yale-Norfolk Summer Chamber Music Festival and the Little Orchestra Society’s Vivaldi Festivals at Alice Tully Hall. Dr Cooper has toured widely, most recently having appeared at the Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival, at Chamber Music Northwest and in the “Baroque Collection” concerts with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. Over the past four decades, Kenneth Cooper has made dozens of recordings, among them Bach’s Gamba-Harpsichord Sonatas (CBS, with Yo Yo Ma), the complete Bach Sonatas for Flute and Fortepiano (Bridge Records, with Susan Rotholz) and the Bach Brandenburg Concerti and Goldberg Variations (Berkshire Bach Society); his spectacular versions of ragtime and other American delights may be heard on Silks and Rags (EMI) and Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot (Musical Heritage Society). He is heard also on Mother Goose and More (UNIFEM/Classic Raps) and on the documentary Van Gogh Revisited. His most recent releases include the Bach's Six Sonatas for Violin and Fortepiano with Ani Kavafian (Helicon-Kleos), the Artist Series from Music@Menlo, and the CMS December 2006 Baroque Concert on itunes DG Concerts. In 2004 and 2005, International Music Company issued Kenneth Cooper's award-winning editions of Bach's Two and Three Part Inventions, and in 2006, his transcription for piano of the Adagio and Scherzo from Schubert’s String Quintet in C.
James Bagwell
James Bagwell maintains an active schedule throughout the United States as a conductor of choral, operatic, musical theatre, and orchestral literature. In December 2006 he conducted the Jerusalem Symphony in two concerts in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, which were broadcast throughout Israel. In March 2007 he led a subscription concert with the Tulsa Symphony, and returned in November 2008 to guest conduct a sold-out performance at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center. His next appearance with the orchestra will be in May 2010 conducting Manuel de Falla’s Three Cornered Hat. In summer 2005 he led six performances of Copland’s The Tender Land as part of the Bard Summerscape Festival, which received unanimous praise from The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Opera News. He returned to Summerscape conducting three Offenbach operettas in 2006, a production of The Sorcerer in 2007, and completed a successful sold-out run of Of Thee I Sing in August 2008. In 2008 he completed his tenth season as Music Director of Light Opera Oklahoma, conducting three new productions for the 2008 festival including a new production of Candide. In 2005, he was named Music Director of the Dessoff Choirs in New York City who, under his leadership, have made two appearances at Carnegie Hall in 2006, and in November 2007 appeared at Carnegie performing Alexander Nevsky with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. In June 2009 the Dessoff Symphonic Chorus will perform Britten’s War Requiem and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with The New York Philharmonic and Loren Maazel. The choir was most recently featured on Performance Today, performing choral works by Eliot Carter. In 2003 Mr. Bagwell was named Director of Choruses for the Bard Music Festival, conducting and preparing choral works during the summer festival at the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. Since 2004 he has prepared The Concert Chorale of New York for concerts with the American Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Mostly Mozart Festival (broadcast nationally in 2006 on Live from Lincoln Center) all in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Mr. Bagwell has trained choruses for a number of American and international orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NHK Symphony (Japan), American Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with such noted conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Louis Langrée, Leon Botstein, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Raymond Leppard, James Conlon, Yuri Temirkanov, Jesús López-Cobos, Erich Kunzel, Leon Fleischer, and Robert Shaw. Since 1997 James Bagwell has been Music Director of the May Festival Youth Chorus in Cincinnati. Under his direction, The May Festival Youth Chorus was featured in April 2007on NPR’s From the Top. From 1998-2001 he was Artistic Director and Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir and the Indianapolis Chamber Singers, a professional ensemble he formed in 1999. In 2000 he joined the faculty of Bard College where he is Director of the Music Program. He has been the conductor of the Berkshire Bach Singers since 2003.
Frank Nemhauser
Frank Nemhauser holds several prominent positions concurrently. He is Music Director of the Berkshire Choral Festival and also Music Director of the Westchester Choral Society. Formerly Associate Dean of Mannes College the New School for Music in New York City, he is currently Director of Vocal Studies and Associate Professor at Mannes. Mr. Nemhauser has held the positions of Music Director of the Hartford Chorale, Chorus Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Associate Director of the Collegiate Chorale. He has been a guest conductor with the Houston Masterworks Chorus, The Dessoff, Choirs, The Greenwich Choral Society, The Handel Choir of Baltimore. He has led workshops and clinics for the Metropolitan Opera Guild, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, The New Amsterdam Singers, The Augusta Choral Society, The Pennsylvania Music Educators Association and the Southwestern Virginia Spotlight on the Arts Festival. He was last seen on the podium of the Berkshire Choral Festival, conducting the Festival Chorus and Orchestra in a performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and the Mozart Vesperae Solennes de Confessor. In other recent appearances at BCF, he has conducted the Mozart Requiem, Dvo?ák Stabat Mater, Bach Magnificat, the Brahms Alto Rhapsody and Nänie, the Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms, the Fauré Requiem, the Lauridsen Lux Aeterna, the Britten cantatas St. Nicholas and Rejoice in the Lamb, the Rutter Gloria and Handel’s Solomon. In addition to conducting at the Festival’s home in the Berkshires, Mr. Nemhauser has led BCF performances in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Canterbury, England and Salzburg, Austria. As a singer, Mr. Nemhauser has appeared throughout the United States and Europe, appearing with The New York City Opera National Company, The Ensemble for Early Music, Chanticleer and has performed at numerous festivals, including Tanglewood, Edinburgh, Aspen and Spoleto.