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New Traditions Curtis’s forward-looking vision for contemporary music has deep roots. BY DAVID LUDWIG “You know, Gian Carlo, your music is not only written by your mind, and not only by your heart. The music must “Composers in their formative years must build an internal repository of be written with your whole body. You knowledge and writing—‘practicing’ their art by doing it again and again, and growing in have to breathe with your music.” the awareness of their own clear, and personal voice.”—Richard Danielpour, Curtis faculty, 2012 —Rosario Scalero, Curtis’s first composition teacher, as recalled by The first student recital in Field Concert Hall was a concert of contemporary music that Gian Carlo Menotti featured works by a composer who had passed away just a few decades before. The year was 1927 and the composer was Johannes Brahms. As Curtis nears its tenth decade, its association with the cutting edge is evolving rapidly. The school is making deep investments in technology, facilities, and—very notably—new music, which has become central to the musical life of the school. Today Curtis commissions more new works than ever before, and the contemporary music ensemble Curtis 20/21 is thriving. Composition students regularly receive commissions outside the school, and their fellow students actively embrace the experience of playing music written by their peers. Residencies with renowned composers are on the rise, and this fall the renowned new-music ensemble eighth blackbird begins a three-year residency at Curtis—made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation—that will touch every student at the school. New as all this may sound, contemporary music is a meaningful part of the school’s Above left: The contemporary music ensemble eighth tradition. Curtis founder Mary Louise Curtis Bok supported composers that showed promise, blackbird begins a three-year residency at Curtis this with a particular devotion to the careers of two favorites, Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo fall. PHOTO: LUKE RATRAY Menotti. Mrs. Bok was an investor of sorts, believing that this new conservatory and the Above right: Rosario Scalero took his students from students in it were the future of music—and she was not alone. Many early faculty members, Curtis to his home country, Italy, in July 1929. He is pictured here with (back row) Carl Bricken and Gian including the great conductor Leopold Stokowski, were important musicians who believed Carlo Menotti; and (front row) Eleanor Meredith, Samuel deeply in performing the music of living composers. One can only imagine the clamor and Barber, and Jeanne Behrend. PHOTO: CURTIS ARCHIVES OVERTONES FALL 2012 11 excitement around Stokowski’s premiere of Alban Berg’s new opera Wozzeck with Curtis students in 1931. This was indeed music on the cutting edge. (Three years ago, Wozzeck returned to Curtis as a part of the all-school project focusing on the music of the Second Viennese School.) In fact some of the most adventurous programming in the school’s history has come from the vocal studies department under Mikael Eliasen’s direction. These days, opera Gian Carlo Menotti (right) with students at and voice students regularly appear on the Student Recital Series performing new music. Commencement, 1949 PHOTO: CURTIS ARCHIVES The Curtis Opera Theatre’s annual collaboration with the Opera Company of Philadelphia and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts has brought many current works to the stage. The department has recently offered operas by Dominic Argento, Osvaldo Golijov, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Hans Werner Henze, to name just a few. GROUP DYNAMIC There have been several contemporary music groups at Curtis over the years. The current iteration is Curtis 20/21, which faculty member Don Liuzzi founded in 2006 (and which I am now privileged to direct). The group has presented concerts at Curtis and in some of the premiere venues for new music in the country, including the Miller Theater in New York and Washington’s Kennedy Center. Curtis 20/21 has served as a performance focal point for the all-school projects of recent years, including the Second Viennese School, France Between the Wars (when was the last time you heard a piece by Durey?), and the Appassionato season just past, which celebrated Curtis and Philadelphia composers. It has also offered special programs, such as centenary concerts for Samuel Barber, Elliot Carter, and Olivier Messiaen. “Menotti taught very much in the Along the way we’ve developed a new composer-in-residence position at the school. Scalero style. For a whole year he would The first distinguished composer to fill that spot was John Corigliano in 2009. Since then not look at any of our creative work. It we’ve hosted Joan Tower, whom Curtis 20/21 presented at the Miller Theatre’s Portraits was counterpoint and more counter- series in 2011, and George Crumb, whose music the group played at the Kennedy Center. point. I found he was a man of great In the coming season we have asked Steven Stucky to join us for chamber and orchestral craft, although he didn’t sweat over it. performances of his works. Our students have reveled in the opportunity to work with these I was impatient to start showing him towering figures in contemporary music. (I recall one of our violinists marveling, “we were my compositions, but he wouldn’t look just in a room with George Crumb for an hour!”) at them. He would say, ‘Anyone who Other guest artists collaborate regularly with our student performers as well. In 2010 has a gift—a real gift—is not going to Matthias Pintscher worked with Curtis 20/21 to prepare and perform his own Songs from be destroyed by craft.’” Solomon’s Garden, paired with the Neapolitan Songs by his teacher, Hans Werner Henze. This —Stanley Hollingsworth, a student season Mr. Pintscher will return to present an exciting concert of new music in Gould Rehearsal of Menotti’s at Curtis, quoted in John Hall. He’ll work with students and with members of eighth blackbird, one of the most Gruen, Menotti: A Biography (MacMillan exciting ensembles in music today. Publishing, 1978) Having enjoyed two successful collaborations with Curtis already, eighth blackbird will bring its individual brand of electric performance to Curtis for the next three years. The group’s members will coach and play alongside our young musicians, and provide expert guidance to help the students invent their 21st-century careers. And the “birds” have recently added a new violinist, Curtis alumna Yvonne Lam, who will steer them in the right direction to Wednesday Tea! CREATING THE FUTURE The early composition program at Curtis was somewhat academically based; Menotti noted that students of his time had to demonstrate mastery of harmony and counterpoint before being permitted to “experiment freely.” For the past few decades, though, the program has been aligned with the Curtis tradition of “learning by doing.” Six student composers study in rotation with each member of the composition faculty: Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon, and myself. Along with classes and seminars, the students are expected to write one significant chamber work and one full orchestra piece a year. Creating new pieces on a deadline is the best kind of training students can get for the 12 OVERTONES FALL 2012 “What I would like to bring about in Curtis, which has so many skilled young performers, is a real liaison between the composition students and the performers. I would like to convey to those young performers how important it is for them to play the music being created in their own time. Even more specifically, I would like the young composers who are working with me not merely to think about a work in the abstract, but to follow through on it, bring it to the Faculty member Jennifer Higdon’s Violin Concerto was co-commissioned by Curtis for Hilary Hahn, point of being performed.” who performed it with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and conductor Juanjo Mena in February 2011. —Ned Rorem about teaching at Curtis, PHOTO: PETE CHECCHIA quoted in the Saturday Review, 1980 real world of commissions and performances. In return for their efforts, the young composers hear their music played by the best young performers in the world—their fellow students. Student composers at Curtis also enjoy the opportunity to work with outside groups and resident ensembles—as last year, when the PRISM saxophone quartet offered a unique residency. To many, the medium of the saxophone quartet is a perfect canvas for a young composer, an ensemble with a homogenous sound and a history of exploring new sonorities and extended techniques. The composition students wrote new pieces for PRISM this year, workshopping their music last fall and participating in performances in Philadelphia and New York in the spring. In addition, the students took an active role as producers in the recording of their works. Curtis has had much success in encouraging new pieces, from Mrs. Bok’s support of Barber’s earliest publications to the school’s participation in the commissioning of Jennifer Higdon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning violin concerto for Hilary Hahn. Last season we commis- sioned four alumni composers—Chia Yu Hsu, Daniel Kellogg, Daniel Shapiro, and Zhou Ned Rorem PHOTO: CURTIS ARCHIVES/JOYCE CREAMER Tian—to write works to celebrate milestone events in our Appassionato year. Curtis On Tour has also played a key role in this endeavor; nearly every year since the program’s inception in 2008, we have commissioned new pieces for the spring domestic tour and the summer European tour from Curtis alumni, students, or faculty members. Another opportunity for our student composers has emerged in recent years.

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