Facilities and Instruments

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 the Milton 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, cardoperated 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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