Facilities

Buildings
Library Collections
Instrument Loans

BUILDINGS
The Curtis Institute of Music is located in Center City Philadelphia on Rittenhouse Square, a historic residential area with a full range of amenities nearby. Most students live alone or with roommates in nearby high-rise or brownstone apartment buildings, as there are no dormitories at Curtis.

Life for students, while rigorous and demanding, is informal, relaxed, and remarkably noncompetitive in a field known for intense rivalry. The traditional Wednesday-afternoon Teas attract students, faculty, and staff, and lessons at that hour are often interrupted for refreshments and a few moments of conversation. The Gary and Naomi Graffman Common Room, with its richly paneled walls and elaborately carved mantelpiece, is a gathering place for students at all times. Downstairs, the Student Lounge provides computers
that have Internet access.

Curtis occupies four stately mansions that retain their wood-paneled walls, high ceilings, decorative ironwork, Oriental rugs, and ornate moldings, but have been adapted over time to serve the conservatory’s needs without sacrificing their nineteenth-century charm.

Two of the buildings—the Drexel and Sibley mansions—have been
connected and are primarily used for teaching and practice purposes. Among the rooms is a computer studio for classes. The third building, the Milton L. Rock Resource Center, houses the John de Lancie Library and the Orchestra Library. The fourth, adjacent to the Resource Center, houses liberal arts classrooms and offices, studios, and administrative offices. In addition Curtis’s development office, which runs a $2.3 million annual giving campaign and raises funds for endowment and special projects, is located one block away at 1701 Walnut Street.

In 1928 a 250-seat auditorium was added to the Drexel mansion. Field Concert Hall, with splendid acoustics and facilities for video- and audio-recording, is used for student recitals, alumni and
faculty concerts, organ lessons and practice, master classes, school assemblies, orchestra rehearsals, and recording
sessions. The hall is easily accessible, with an elevator lift at street level.

Directly above Field Concert Hall is the Curtis Opera Studio, a black-box theater that seats approximately 125. This intimate and flexible performance space, which also has recording capabilities,
is used primarily by the vocal studies department for opera performances, dance and movement classes, rehearsals,
and master classes.

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LIBRARY COLLECTIONS
The John de Lancie Library in the Milton L. Rock Resource Center contains more than fifty-five thousand volumes of music scores and books, including over one hundred scholarly sets of composers’
complete works, authoritative editions of the standard repertoire, and more than thirty thousand recordings. Through the generosity of Dr. Rock, a former chairman of the Curtis Board of Trustees, the Rock Online Catalog provides access to all holdings. The library also maintains a full range of audiovisual equipment and photocopiers, plus computers for Internet access by students.

The Orchestra Library of The Curtis Institute of Music is equal to those of the major symphony orchestras of the world and contains over one thousand sets of parts.

The riches of the library also include many gifts of music, manuscripts, and memorabilia from faculty, alumni, and friends. Important collections include Lynnwood Farnam, Josef Hofmann,
William Kincaid, Sylvan Levin, Arthur Bennett Lipkin, Max Rudolf, Carlos Salzedo, Calvin Simmons, Anton Torello, and Efrem Zimbalist.

The library serves Curtis students, faculty, staff, and local alumni; outside research access is limited to special collections and archival material and must be applied for in writing.

Students must provide their own music for major lessons and for secondary piano classes. Music for ensemble and orchestral classes is supplied by the library.

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INSTRUMENT LOANS
The Curtis Institute of Music lends Steinway grand pianos to students who major in piano, harpsichord, organ, composition, or conducting for the duration of their enrollment. Students make a security deposit and pay the cost of moving the piano to and from their apartments. Curtis pays for the first tuning, and the students cover the costs of repairs and tunings thereafter. String and wind majors may borrow an instru­ment from Curtis's collection with a $100 security deposit. Students also cover any costs resulting from negligence or willful damage.

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