Faculty

At Curtis, the world’s finest performers attract, educate and train the next generation, perpetuating a tradition of excellence. Curtis’s small size, familial culture, and personalized approach to musical training provide a nurturing relationship between teacher and student that prompts loyal, prominent alumni to return, whether to join the faculty or to give master classes.

Ensuring the ideal combination of faculty in all areas is a continuous process. The very excellence of today’s faculty challenges the school to find worthy successors to guide the students of tomorrow. Curtis cultivates and evaluates potential future performance faculty through master classes, residencies, and guest-artist engagements. The school also aims to ensure a fuller integration of the Musical Studies and Liberal Arts curricula with the performance curriculum.  

Among the strategic steps Curtis took in FY 2011 to perpetuate and reinforce its unique faculty and teaching traditions:

• appointed four new performance faculty members, all leaders in their disciplines, who will begin teaching at Curtis in September 2011: Jonathan Biss, Hsin-Yun Huang, David Starobin, and Jason Vieaux
• assessed faculty compensation and drafted a multi-year plan for salary adjustments
• completed revision of the Faculty Handbook, incorporating contract language
• endowed a head-of-department chair (the Gie and Lisa Liem Artistic Chair of Performance Studies) in response to the $17 million Lenfest Faculty Challenge

 Photo: David Katzenstein