The Fisher Center at Bard is celebrating the holidays with two seasonal classics — freshly interpreted by world-renowned artists with deep connections to the college. Leon Botstein leads the Bard Conservatory Orchestra in a symphonic concert performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker on Saturday, Dec. 3, and the Fisher Center presents the world premiere of SITI Company’s reimagining of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, co-directed by Bard alumna Anne Bogart and Tony Award-winner Darron L West. The work, commissioned by the Fisher Center, is the final production in SITI Company’s 30th anniversary “Finale Season,” and runs for three performances from Dec. 16-18.

In its special holiday performance on Dec. 3, the 80-piece Bard Conservatory Orchestra, with a 24-member children’s chorus, will take on Tchaikovsky’s score for perhaps the most widely performed holiday classic: the two-act ballet The Nutcracker. The concert will showcase the skill of the exceptional young players comprising the orchestra. It will offer audiences a world-class rendering of the music, which Bard visiting associate professor of music Peter Laki contends in a program note is “the only thing critics liked about the piece from the start,” and is “what has ensured The Nutcracker’s place in the repertoire for 130 years, and is likely to keep it there.”

After fruitful work-in-progress performances last year, SITI Company returns to the Fisher Center to premiere a uniquely SITI A Christmas Carol. They conjure the ghosts of the past, present and future to speak to our society’s immediate need for gratitude, charity, fairness, justice and equity. The cast includes Akiko Aizawa, Will Bond, Gian-Murray Gianino, Leon Inguslrud, Ellen Lauren, Kelly Maurer, Barney O’Hanlon and Stephen Duff Webber, and special guests Violeta Picayo and Donnell E. Smith. The production features costumes and scenery by James Schuette, lighting by Brian H Scott and sound by Darron L West.

Performance Schedule and Tickets

Bard Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Leon Botstein, performs The Nutcracker on Saturday, Dec. 3 at 8 p.m., in the Fisher Center’s Sosnoff Theater. In-person tickets are available for a suggested donation of $15–20, and livestream access is pay-what-you-wish.

Fisher Center presents SITI Company’s A Christmas Carol Friday, Dec. 16, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 17 at 6 p.m.; and Sunday, Dec. 18 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25-65, with $5 tickets for Bard students made possible by the Passloff Pass and a 20 percent discount for groups of six or more.

Tickets for both events can be reserved at fishercenter.bard.edu, by phone at 845-758-7900 (Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.), or by email at boxoffice@bard.edu.