Happy New Year... 1929!?

Happy New Year… 1929!?

At Curtis…

• The mission was: “to hand down through contemporary masters the great traditions of the past; to teach to build on this heritage for the future.”
• Curtis established a new affiliation with the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company.
• Students could participate in radio concerts broadcast nationally by the Columbia Broadcast System (now known as CBS).
  
• The library consisted of 10,000 items, including books, music, and scores (today it holds over 100,000).
  
• Campanology was offered as a course of study.
  
• Student Samuel Barber won the Joseph H. Bearnes Prize for Musical Composition.
• The Opera Department performed Tiefland by Eugen d’Albert.
• Students came to Curtis from such countries as Belgium, Hungary, Palestine, Latvia, Cuba, and Colombia, as well as from 43 states.

In the larger world…

• Mickey Mouse became the first talking cartoon character.
• The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York opened.
• Both All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque and A Farewell to Arms by Earnest Hemingway were published.
• Vatican City was founded.
• The word “zombie” was introduced into the Western vocabulary.
• The first demonstration of a color TV was held at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City; the images were a bunch of roses and the American flag.
• The Philadelphia Athletics won the World Series.
• The biggest artists in popular music were Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, Ethel Waters, and Cliff Edwards.

Kristina Wilson

Archivist / Curtis Archives
For more information on Curtis history, visit the Curtis Archives.