Liberal Arts

The goal of the liberal arts program at Curtis is to educate musicians as broadly and deeply as possible. Great musicians should be more than technically proficient; they should be greatly literate and widely informed as well.

Specific objectives of the liberal arts program are:

  • the practice of rigorous and independent thinking
  • the pursuit of clear expression, both oral and written
  • the encouragement of creativity
  • the mastering of learning itself

Students will study major works of literature, art, and philosophy and explore the historical contexts in which those works and ideas originated.

Liberal Arts Requirements for the Bachelor of Music degree

Core Requirements (four semesters required)

  • Foundations in Reading, Writing, and Speaking (two semesters)
  • Artist in the World (one semester)
  • Ethics, Citizenship, and the Creative Life (one semester)

Curricular Pathways (six semesters of electives)

  • Culture, History, and Philosophy
  • Arts, Languages, and Literature
  • Environmental and Social Sciences

Core Requirements

All students in the Bachelor’s program are required to complete four semesters as noted below.

    • Meaning and Interpretation
    • The Curtis Seminar
    • Presentation and Oral Practice
    • The College Essay

  • Courses in art history and literature that consider the figure of the artist in varying contexts.

  • Courses that offer an exploration of ethics, including its history and practical applications in our lives as citizen-artists.

Curricular Pathways Electives

Students in the Bachelor of Music program must take six semesters of electives. The courses are offered in the following pathways:

  • Elective courses vary from year to year. The following courses are representative of the catalogue’s offerings from the past three academic years.

    • Aesthetics
    • The Age of Aquarius: A Survey of the Political, Literary and Musical Landscape in the Age of Revolution Between 1955 – 1975
    • Art History (Italian Renaissance, 18th C, 19th C, Modernism, Monuments)
    • Art or Propaganda? The Role of the Artist as an Agent of Change
    • Border Crossings: Cultural & Philosophical Perspectives on the “Other” America Comparative Religion
    • Ethics and the Good Life
    • Europe and the Globe
    • Kitsch: The Aesthetic, Moral, and Political Dimensions of “Bad Taste”
    • Mapping Philadelphia: Sounds, Streets, Stories
    • Media Studies
    • Modernism and Postmodernism
    • The Moral of the Story – Games, Life, and Utopia
    • Philosophy
    • Philosophy of the Self and Personal Identity
    • Plato’s Republic
    • Science Fiction & Metaphysics
    • (Some Of) Everything You Never Learned About U.S. History
    • Time Travel
    • Where Do We go From Here? Chaos or Community
    • All-School Project Seminars

  • Elective courses vary from year to year. The following courses are representative of the catalogue’s offerings from the past three academic years.

    • Creative Writing: Poetry, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Photo Essay
    • Speak Out/Speak Up: Writing Your Opinion
    • American Drama
    • American Theatre of the Sixties
    • August Wilson’s Plays
    • British and Irish Drama
    • Dickinson and the Transcendentalists
    • Don Quixote and the Rise of the Novel
    • European Theatre
    • Film Studies
    • Homer and Walcott
    • Jazz and The Civil Rights Movement
    • Modern Languages: French, German, Italian, Spanish
    • Modernism/ Post-Modernism
    • Performance Workshops: Drama, Improvisation
    • Shakespeare: Comedies, Tragedies, Major Figures, History Plays, Sonnets
    • The Short Story
    • Toni Morrison and Alice Munro: Nobel Nobility
    • Ulysses
    • All-School Project Seminars

  • Elective courses vary from year to year. The following courses are representative of the catalogue’s offerings from the past three academic years.

    • Acoustics
    • Critical Climate Studies
    • Environmental Studies
    • Food and Society: Ethics and Citizenship
    • Global Social Movements, Universal Music
    • Nature in America
    • Psychology
    • Sociology
    • Wearing our Identity: Clothing Choices & Construction of the Self
    • Web Design and Media Culture
    • All-School Project Seminars

English as a Second Language

Non-credit English as a Second Language courses are designed to improve students’ English language and literacy skills.

    • ESL: Transitions: This non-credit English as a Second Language course is designed to improve students’ English language and literacy skills. It will also introduce them to the customs and culture of the United States as well as the greater Philadelphia region. The course will help students develop the academic skills necessary for a smooth transition to the American classroom. Students will work on increasing vocabulary as they engage in conversation, reading, writing, and cultural field trips.
    • ESL: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced: This non-credit English as a Second Language course is designed to improve reading, writing, and conversational skills, as well as to increase vocabulary through reviewing how the English language is put together. The grammatical structures will be taught using not only explanations and exercises, but also through reading texts by various authors showing the use of those structures. Focused writing will be an integral part of the course as well. The course is designed to meet the needs of three different levels. In the first semester we have beginning and intermediate classes, and students will advance in the following semester (beginners become intermediate, and intermediate students go to the advanced class). Texts: L.G. Alexander, New Concept English Books 2 & 3; additional selected readings as needed.
    • Introduction to Literature: In this course we will broaden and deepen our minds and support the further development of critical, creative thought about ourselves and Western culture. We will discuss the religious overtones of writers such as Flannery O’Connor, Ernest Hemingway, as well as the function of negative space in the short stories of Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff. We will also explore contemporary writers publishing in the world of small presses, including authors such as Panio Gianopolous, Jason Arment, Elizabeth Scanlon and Nathan Alling Long. Students will be required to present oral interpretations of written works, as well as write thoughtful analyses of literary texts.