The Bard Chinese Ensemble pays tribute to its longtime artistic director Shutong Li 李梳曈 after his sudden passing in February. US-China Music Institute director Jindong Cai will conduct.
More program details to follow.
In Olin Hall in 2023. Photo by Karl Rabe.
Conducting the ensemble in 2024. Photo by Aya Rebai.
With the Bard East/West Ensemble at Jazz at Lincoln Center in 2025. Photo by Fadi Kheir.
Shutong li — remembering a life in music
Shutong Li was born in 1990 in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China. A devoted musician and conductor, he dedicated his life to building musical bridges between cultures and communities. He served as Music Director of the Chinese Ensemble at the US-China Music Institute of the Bard Conservatory of Music, and as Assistant Conductor of the China Now Music Festival and the Bard East-West Ensemble, where he championed dialogue between Eastern and Western musical traditions.
After earning an undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering from Dalian Minzu University, Li followed his lifelong passion for music to the United States, receiving a Bachelor of Music from the University of New Mexico. There, he founded Musicians For Musicians (2017–2019), organizing 19 projects and 38 concerts that created meaningful opportunities for more than fifty young artists. In 2021, he earned a Master’s degree in Conducting from the Bard College Conservatory of Music. He joined the US-China Music Institute at Bard as a conductor the following year.
At Bard and in the New York region, he conducted nearly 40 concerts and opera productions. He collaborated with numerous professional ensembles across Asia, Europe, and the United States. Li believed deeply in music’s power to connect people, and his kindness, vision, and artistry will live on in the music and the lives he touched.
ABOUT THE BARD CHINESE ENSEMBLE
The Bard Chinese Ensemble is the Bard Conservatory’s large mixed ensemble of Chinese and Western instrument players. Every year the instrumentation changes so that students of various different Western instruments have the opportunity to experience the unique technical and artistic challenges of playing alongside traditional Chinese instruments.
Each performance features specially arranged music from China. In addition to re-arranging traditional works from the Chinese orchestral repertoire, Music Director Shutong Li worked with contemporary living composers to adapt new works to the ensemble’s unique instrumentation, offering audiences the opportunity to hear some of the finest and least often performed orchestral music of our time.