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Facilities and Student Life
Rock Resource Center
Instrument Loans
 Facilities and Student Life
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 conversation.
Curtis occupies four stately mansions that retain their wood-paneled
walls, ornate moldings, high ceilings, decorative ironwork, and
Oriental rugs but have been adapted to serve the conservatory’s
needs—without sacrificing their nineteenth-century charm.
The main building comprises the Drexel and Sibley mansions,
which were connected long ago. They are used primarily for classes,
practice, performance, and receptions. The Gary and Naomi
Graffman Common Room brings grandeur of the past into today’s
comfortable world, as students gather there. Downstairs, the Student
Lounge provides a place to eat, relax, use the Internet, and
play table tennis. A computer studio is equipped with Macintosh
systems, and the main building features wireless Internet access.
In 1928 a 240-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 most often by the Vocal Studies department for
opera performances, dance and movement classes, rehearsals,
and master 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 classrooms,
studios, and administrative offices.
In addition Curtis’s development office, which runs an annual
giving campaign of nearly $3 million and raises funds for endowment
and special projects, is located two blocks away at 1520 Locust Street.
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Rock Resource Center
 Composed of the John de Lancie Library, the Orchestra Library,
the Orchestral Instrument Collection, and the Curtis Archives,
the Rock Resource Center aims to provide Curtis students, faculty,
and staff with the best possible collection of printed music, books,
periodicals, recordings, and electronic resources needed to fulfill the
Institute’s mission. The Curtis Archives endeavors to preserve and
make accessible the Institute’s past for the greater Curtis community.
The John de Lancie Library in theMilton L. Rock Resource Center
contains more than fifty-seven 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-three thousand recordings. The Rock Online
Catalog—named in recognition of the generosity of Dr. Rock,
a former chairman of the Curtis Board of Trustees—provides
access to all holdings. The library also maintains a full range of
audiovisual equipment, card-operated photocopiers, laptops for
reserve use, and open wireless Internet access for use 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
piano, organ, harpsichord, composition, or conducting majors 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 must cover any costs resulting from negligence
or willful damage.
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