Month: September 2019

The Curtis Institute of Music and Jonathan Biss Release Part 5 of Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas

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PHILADELPHIA—September 30, 2019—The Curtis Institute of Music and Jonathan Biss launch Part 5 of the popular online course Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, available now on Coursera. Free and available on demand, the new lectures are the latest in a series offering an in-depth look into the Beethoven piano sonatas from a performer’s point of view. Jonathan Biss is an alumnus and a member of the piano faculty at Curtis, where he holds the Neubauer Family Chair in Piano Studies.


Access the courses at Coursera.org/Curtis:

Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

 

Curtis was the first conservatory to offer a massive open online course (MOOC) on Coursera. Since the course launched in 2013, it has reached a global music community of more than 150,000 people in 185 countries.

“It has been six years, to my astonishment, since the first set of lectures for Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas launched,” says Mr. Biss. “Preparing those lectures was one of the most challenging things I had ever done, and one of the most enriching. The experience has only grown more rewarding—while remaining just as challenging—as it has continued. I’m particularly excited about sharing these new lectures, first of all because two of them focus on the ‘Hammerklavier’ sonata—one of the works that has had the profoundest impact on me—but also because they are going live just as I’m embarking on a year of almost total immersion in Beethoven’s music. He looms larger in my life every day.”

What began as a broad overview of all the sonatas and their place in musical history has evolved into a closer look at individual sonatas, examining each movement and its technical and emotional characteristics. In Part 5, Jonathan Biss addresses three piano sonatas: No. 13 in E-flat major, Op. 27, No. 1; No. 16 in G major, Op. 31, No. 1; and Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 (“Hammerklavier”). Each lecture includes examples on the keyboard and in-depth historical, theoretical, and artistic analysis of the major musical developments represented by each sonata.

The sixth and final course in this series is set for release in early January 2020.

No prior musical knowledge is necessary to take the courses. The lectures are designed for students of any background who want to learn more about classical music. Just as Curtis educates students for careers in the 21st century, the school also strives to educate modern-day audiences, building a public that is enthusiastic and appreciative of classical music through increased opportunities to learn and listen.

These latest releases coincide with global celebrations of Beethoven’s 250th birthday, and Mr. Biss further deepens his familiarity with the composer and his 32 piano sonatas this season through a variety of projects including the final release in his recordings of the complete sonatas in November 2019 and full cycles of the works in the United States and abroad. Additionally Mr. Biss performs Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 (“Emperor”) with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra for their regular season at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and as part of a seven-city U.S. tour from January 30–February 8, 2020.

In the 2019–20 school year, the Curtis Institute of Music celebrates 95 years of educating and training exceptionally gifted young musicians to engage a local and global community through the highest level of artistry. With a small student body of about 175, Curtis provides each young musician with an unparalleled education alongside musical peers, distinguished by personalized attention from celebrated faculty and a “learn by doing” philosophy. To ensure that admissions are based solely on artistic promise, Curtis makes an investment in each admitted student so that no tuition is charged for their studies. Curtis students hone their craft through more than 200 orchestra, opera, and solo and chamber music offerings each year in Philadelphia and around the world.

Jonathan Biss has appeared as a soloist with the world’s foremost orchestras—including the New York Philharmonic; the Philadelphia, Cleveland, Philharmonia, and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras; and the Chicago, Boston, London, and NHK symphony orchestras—and has given recitals in such renowned venues as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Théâtre du Châtelet, and the Berliner Philharmonie.

An enthusiastic chamber musician, Mr. Biss has collaborated with many of today’s finest players, including Richard Goode, Mitsuko Uchida, Midori, Mark Padmore, the Elias String Quartet, and Miriam Fried. He is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award, the Andrew Wolf Memorial Chamber Music Award, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and the 2003 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, among other honors.

Mr. Biss is recording the complete Beethoven piano sonatas for Onyx Classics and previously made four CDs for EMI Classics, as well as one for Wigmore Hall Live. He is also a prolific writer and is the first classical musician to publish two Kindle Singles, A Pianist Under the Influence and Beethoven’s Shadow.

He studied at Indiana University with Evelyne Brancart and at the Curtis Institute of Music with Leon Fleisher. Mr. Biss joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2011, where he holds the Neubauer Family Chair in Piano Studies.

In 2013 Mr. Biss launched one of two inaugural Curtis-Coursera courses, Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, which had an initial enrollment of over 35,000 students. He continues to add lectures to the course periodically.

Coursera has registered a total of 40 million users since its launch in 2012, and its over 150 partners include international institutions from Switzerland to Mexico to Hong Kong. The hundreds of free courses it offers are from top-tier universities and cover a broad range of disciplines, including medicine, literature, history, and computer science, among others. Coursera is backed by leading venture capital firms such as Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates, GSV Capital, Learn Capital, and SEEK Group.

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Alumni Spotlight: Anna Moffo

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Curtis alum Anna Moffo (Voice ’54) was, in her heyday, an opera singer on par with contemporaries Maria Callas and Beverly Sills. Born on June 27, 1932 in Wayne, Pa., Moffo was an accomplished athlete and excellent student before winning a place at the Curtis Institute of Music to study voice in 1950. Following her graduation, she traveled to Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship. Her operatic career soon took off after a televised appearance as Cio-Cio-San in Madame Butterfly.

By the early 1960s Moffo had cemented her reputation as a leading lyric-coloratura soprano, performing at the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Teatro di San Carlo, the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, among others. Celebrated as much for her beauty as for her voice (she was known in Italy as “La Bellisima”), Moffo dominated the operatic stage for nearly a decade, particularly in her signature role as Violetta in La traviata.

However, a grueling opera schedule coupled with weekly appearances on her namesake variety show led, in 1968, to serious injury to her voice from which she never fully recovered. After formally retiring from singing in 1983, Moffo served as a board member of the Metropolitan Opera Guild and taught master classes around the world until her death in 2006 at age 76.

The Curtis Archives was fortunate to receive Moffo’s extensive personal collection in 2015, and it is now available to the Curtis community and general public for use and research.

Kristina Wilson, archivist
For more information on Curtis history, visit the Curtis Archives.

Meet the Students: Maya Miro Johnson

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Maya Miro Johnson is a member of the 2019 incoming class. A composer, she studies with Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon, and David Serkin Ludwig. Maya made her professional debut with a commission from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in 2019, and is active as a violinist and conductor in addition to composing. Here, Maya shares her unique and varied background, and looks ahead to her time at Curtis.

What has been your most important musical experience until now?
I made my professional debut earlier this year with a commission from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; having this very intense and high-stakes experience tempered by that particular orchestra’s sense of adventurousness was an extraordinary gift.  Standing upon the stage and realizing that I was truly being taken seriously in my work was the first time in my life that I had ever felt like a real musician.

You have a lot of interests and talents that you continue to pursue alongside composition – conducting, playing the violin, even tap dancing. How did you settle on composition as a focus? 
My current goal is to become a composer and conductor equally, but I did not start writing or performing music until I was 15. In fact, though I was deeply appreciative of music, I was not aware of a place in it for myself.

My strengths are kinesthetic and verbal, so in my early teens I was pursuing modern dance and creative writing.  When major foot injuries put my dance studies on hold, I discovered that conducting represented for me the perfect realization of the two. I taught myself to read scores by borrowing them from the library and bringing them to concerts. Eventually, the former assistant conductor of the Utah Symphony, Rei Hotoda, noticed me at rehearsals and offered to impart some of her knowledge, which led to further studies locally and abroad. Composition naturally followed when I started playing violin in a local youth orchestra that was sponsoring a composition workshop and met the fabulous Devin Maxwell, a composer, percussionist, and educator without whom I would certainly not be here today.

My current interests outside of music are philosophy, film noir, theater, poetry, literature, movement improvisation, and tap; I utilize them extensively in my work as a way of keeping them in my life and because they genuinely inspire me to create sound.

How did you hear about Curtis?
Like a lot of my classmates, I cannot recall the first time I heard the name Curtis.  It was simply and indisputably synonymous with musical excellence. In any case, I never considered it to be a feasible option or even a real place with real humans until I arrived for my audition. But as soon as I stepped foot on campus, I knew that Curtis was extremely exceptional and that it would be a privilege to be invited into this family.

What are you looking forward to most about attending Curtis?
Having access to the cultural network of both Curtis and the entire east coast is probably the most exciting thing for me. I’ve also admired Yannick Nézet-Séguin for a long time, so I’m terribly excited to see him rehearse and conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra.

And of course, I’m so looking forward to meeting and working with all my classmates and colleagues.  It’s amazing to think that I am spending my time now among the great soloists, composers, conductors, chamber musicians, singers, orchestral players, theorists, writers, pedagogues, and interdisciplinary artists of the future!

Student Recitals at the Curtis Institute of Music Begin October 11 with New Start Times

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WHEN:  Every Monday at 6 p.m. and every Wednesday and Friday at 8 p.m. during the school year, with additional performances in the winter and spring. Check Curtis.edu/Calendar for the most up-to-date information, including exceptions and additions to the regular schedule.

 

WHERE: Field Concert Hall at the Curtis Institute of Music, 1726 Locust Street, Philadelphia

COST: Free, no tickets required.

Discover new talent before the world does through the Student Recital Series. Since Curtis was founded in 1924, some of history’s most important musicians have performed on the stage of Field Concert Hall. The Student Recital Series continues its celebrated legacy as a platform for exceptional young musicians. Students perform solo and chamber works most Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings in Field Concert Hall, as well as on many weekends. World-renowned faculty and guest artists also join Curtis students for special residency recitals throughout the season. Highlights are featured year-round on WHYY-TV’s On Stage at Curtis and WWFM Radio’s Curtis Calls.

Can’t make it to the campus? Curtis’s YouTube channel, Curtis.edu/YouTube, features HD performance videos on demand and live-streamed recitals on Friday nights.

New in 2019–20, patrons can earn rewards with repeated recital attendance, including Curtis merchandise, vouchers to attend ticketed Curtis performances, discounts at local restaurants, and more. Patrons may obtain a free Rewards Card and present it for scanning at any student recital.

 

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Curtis Graduates Bring Arts Access and Education to Philadelphia Communities Through Community Artist Fellowships

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PHILADELPHIA, PA—September 24, 2019— Three recent graduates of the Curtis Institute of Music are making an impact in the community this season by bringing arts access and education to underserved populations in Philadelphia through the school’s Community Artist Fellowships. Abigail Fayette, Marlène Ngalissamy, and Hanul Park will work with Penn Memory Center, Phoenix prison, three Philadelphia public schools, Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission, and other community partners. Throughout their year of service, each fellow will take leadership of a specific project and participate in the work managed by the other fellows, while continuing their vital performance careers.

Community Artist Fellow Marlène Ngalissamy (Bassoon ’19) will manage projects at the Penn Memory Center, where the fellows will teach weekly classes for Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers, exploring the effects of music-making on cognitive facility and quality of life and providing opportunities for social interactions.

Hanul Park (Bassoon ’18) will work closely with Sunday Breakfast Rescue Mission and other organizations serving the homeless population to create interactive musical performances. Ms. Park’s service is part of Curtis’s sustained activities with groups that provide for the emotional and physical needs of homeless and disadvantaged people in the Philadelphia area, bringing music to a significant percentage of Center City’s homeless population.

Abigail Fayette (Violin ’17) will manage a teaching effort in three Philadelphia public schools, providing 30 promising student instrumentalists with twice-weekly coaching and mentoring focused on effective practice, as well as access to Curtis performances and the opportunity to perform in recital at Curtis in Spring 2020. This mentorship program continues to build on the success of past fellows’ involvement at the William Cramp School (which has reintroduced a string program to elementary-level students) and South Philadelphia High School (which has invested in a full-time music teacher and is committed to using the arts to accomplish its goals). In 2019–20 the fellows will work with students at George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science, William H. Hunter Elementary School, and Cayuga Elementary School.

In a related effort that is new in the 2019–20 school year, Curtis will collaborate with the School District of Philadelphia to provide additional mentorship and professional development and strengthen existing instrumental education programs. Three music teachers from the participating schools will receive one-on-one mentoring from Mary Javian, chair of career studies at Curtis, and regular sessions in musical and entrepreneurial skills from other Curtis faculty.

Additionally, all three fellows will assist with music-making at Phoenix prison outside Philadelphia, under the supervision of former Community Artist Fellow Emily Cooley (Composition ’17). Ms. Cooley has led songwriting workshops for prison populations since October 2016 and will lead a weekly music class at the new Phoenix facility as adjunct faculty for Villanova University.

All the fellows will also be assisted by students taking Curtis’s Social Entrepreneur course. Part of Curtis’s artist-citizen curriculum, the Social Entrepreneur course is required of all students in the bachelor’s program, teaching them to create and sustain social value through faculty-led, community-based service opportunities.

Community-Based Projects and the Artist-Citizen Curriculum at Curtis

The most inspiring professional musicians of today conceive and realize projects rooted in their art, and understand how to engage audiences of all kinds, deeply and fully. At the Curtis Institute of Music, students develop these skills by leading community-based projects that meaningfully affect the lives of others. In the process they become artist-citizens who are committed to deploying their world-class artistry to engage audiences and transform lives.

This work is embedded in the very mission of Curtis—to educate and train exceptionally gifted young musicians to engage a local and global community through the highest level of artistry—and in the school’s celebrated “learn by doing” culture. Community-based projects are an essential part of a Curtis education, informing students’ development as artists, citizens, and advocates, and empowering them to invent careers with impact after their graduation.

Community engagement has been part of the Curtis student experience since 1998. In 2014 the school launched a new artist-citizen curriculum to equip students with the essential skills they will need as musicians in the 21st century. At each stage of this curriculum—the Social Entrepreneur course, the Community Artist Program, and the Community Artist Fellowship—Curtis students work with their peers and community partners in Philadelphia to provide rich artistic experiences through performance.

In a typical school year, Curtis musicians reach more than 1,500 members of the community—students and schoolchildren, hospital patients and hospice residents, the homeless, prison inmates, and more—through social entrepreneurship and community artist programs with community partners including Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Play On, Philly!, Broad Street Ministry, and others.

More information can be found at Curtis.edu.

 

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