Month: March 2023

Meet the Student: Q&A with Conductor Micah Gleason (Part I)

Date

Micah Gleason, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in 2022 and is the conductor of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat (The Solder’s Tale) and the world premiere engagement of Nick DiBerardino’s Darmok & Jalad. The work receives its Philadelphia premiere on March 21 at the Philadelphia Film Center, part of the 2022–23 Curtis Presents series. As a conducting fellow, she works closely with Curtis mentor conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera. All students at Curtis receive merit-based, full-tuition scholarships, and Ms. Gleason is the Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow.

 

 

When did your musical journey begin, and what compelled you to pursue careers in conducting, classical voice, and chamber music?
My journey began quite late compared to many; I didn’t start seriously studying music voice until I was 16, but I fell in love with it pretty fast and very deeply! I was unbelievably lucky to receive a scholarship to attend Interlochen Arts Camp and subsequently Interlochen Arts Academy for my last two years of high school. Within my first three days at Interlochen I knew that this was it for me, and I would have no choice but to pursue music for the rest of my life. It was my first time singing in a really great choir, singing with orchestra, hearing an orchestra up close, and the whole thing felt unbelievably special and meaningful.

After my two years at Interlochen I continued on to study voice in college, and while living in Chicago during my undergrad, I had the opportunity to work as a singer in multiple capacities, both solo and ensemble, and I started to conduct here in there, mostly in choral settings. I was totally in love with the symphonic repertoire, but it was too late for me to start seriously pursuing playing an instrument in the orchestra, and I also had had enough experiences in opera as a singer to make me wonder if a singer might in fact be well-suited to conduct opera—so, when I auditioned for graduate school, I auditioned for both vocal and conducting programs, having really no idea if I was any good at conducting, but knowing it was something I really wanted to try to pursue.

I was lucky enough to be able to pursue Master of Music degrees in both Vocal Arts and Conducting at Bard College Conservatory of music. During my time there I started seriously studying orchestral conducting and working in opera more as a conductor. I am extremely lucky now to be continuing my conducting studies at Curtis, as I also continue to study and perform as a singer.

This is your first time conducting L’Histoire du Soldat, and you’re uniquely positioned to collaborate with legendary artist John de Lancie. What has been your experience working with this ensemble as you breathe new life and expression into such a beloved work, one that has been performed countless times since its premiere in 1918?
It is my first time! And what a treat to work with these artists for my first time doing this monumental work. This piece is an interesting one because it is really a chamber work, but due to the theatrical nature of the piece, and the difficulty of the music, it is sometimes necessary (or at least helpful!) to have a conductor. In this particular iteration of the performance, I think of myself more as a big band leader in a way—bringing my colleagues in and out, conducting when it’s helpful, and stepping back to let the music breathe when that’s what’s called for. Doing it with Soovin Kim and David Shifrin, both legendary chamber musicians who have done this piece countless times has been a real treat and a wonderful learning experience for myself and the others in the ensemble as well, I’m sure.

We only have one actor, and the piece technically has several different characters, but John de Lancie is doing an unbelievable job embodying all of them! I know I speak for all of the musicians when I say that we are having an absolute blast hearing him bring these characters to life, creating new implications for the characters’ motivations purely using the inflection of his voice.

Working with a living composer is a gift for any musician. Can you describe the rehearsal process as you prepare to unveil the world premiere of the new Star Trek-themed chamber work, Darmok & Jalad, by Nick DiBerardino?
It certainly is a gift to work with any living composer, and working with Nick is a distinct treat! So often when we perform the works of composers who are no longer living, we rely on scholarly research and hearsay to try to understand their influences and inspirations, and wonder at how that information might change the way we perform it. In this instance, I had the privilege of meeting with Nick and getting to hear straight from him what his inspirations were; what musical and textual (and textural!) elements of the piece he drew from outside sources, how they relate to each other, etc. Nick is a joy to be around any time, and it’s been great that he’s gotten to be around for the rehearsals and premiere of this piece. Anyone who’s played his music will tell you that it is not easy, but it’s very exciting and I think we all really get a thrill out of playing it.

What do you relish the most about conducting and performing, and what are your favorite aspects of conducting an orchestra versus a chamber ensemble like L’Histoire?
Wonderful question, they really are different skill sets in a way! One of the things that I love about doing chamber music myself is the riskiness of it; everyone has to be so tuned into each aurally in order to pull it off. One of my great fears about conducting chamber music is that I will interfere with the magic of listening and reacting in the moment that comes with chamber music. For this reason, as I mentioned earlier, in a lot of chamber works I try to have the conducting take a backseat in a way that it wouldn’t necessarily with larger ensemble music that really requires one person driving the car, so to speak! A piece like this Stravinsky is tricky because the players are conceptualizing the meter in different ways, but in a piece that is less rhythmically driven, one of the most important things I would think about is allowing the music to breathe and making sure that my conducting didn’t ever prevent that.

Conducting an orchestra is exhilarating, but also terrifying because at times I can really feel like driving a big Mac truck down a mountain- it’s a beautiful and gigantic beast, and once you push it in a certain direction, it is hard to pull and push unless the orchestra knows the music really well, and there’s a lot of mutual trust between the orchestra and the conductor. However, for this reason also, it is an unbelievably special experience to have a large orchestra that feels like one being, moving and breathing together.

You are taking this program out on eight stops around the U.S. with Curtis on Tour (March 10-26) with a performance here in Philadelphia on March 21. What excites you the most about taking it out on the road?
I think this is exactly what Stravinsky intended when he wrote the piece, and I’m so excited that the first time I am doing it is in this setting! He wrote it for a small, nimble group with the intention of it taking on characteristics of thêâter ambulant, or a traveling theater troupe. Every time we do the piece it will be slightly different, evolving and learning from each past performance. I am excited by the fact that we get to do it enough times that we will really see the piece evolve and grow as we hopefully grow more and more comfortable with it and with each other!

Interview with Micah Gleason by Ryan Scott Lathan.

CURTIS PRESENTS: L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT (A SOLDIER’S TALE)

Tuesday, March 21, 2023 at 8 p.m.
Philadelphia Film Center
1412 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia

John de Lancie, narrator
Soovin Kim (’99), violin
William McGregor (’21), double bass
David Shifrin (’71), clarinet
Luis Marquez Teruel, bassoon
James Vaughen, trumpet
Derek Gullett, trombone
Tae McLoughlin, percussion
Micah Gleason, conductor

PROGRAM

VIET CUONG Well-Groomed
FRANCIS POULENC Sonata for Clarinet & Bassoon
KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI Duo Concertante for Violin & Double Bass
NICK DIBERARDINO Darmok & Jalad
IGOR STRAVINSKY L’Histoire du Soldat

 

Click HERE for more information.

Single tickets for L’Histoire du Soldat ($29) and are available at Curtis.edu. Seating is general admission.

Photos of Micah Gleason: 1, 2, 3, & 5.) Courtesy of Micah Gleason Photography. 4.) Left to Right: William McGregor (’22), double bass, Soovin Kim (’99), violin,  David Shifrin (’71), clarinet, John de Lancie, narrator, Micah Gleason, conductor, James Vaughen, trumpet, Tae McLoughlin, percussion, Luis Marquez Teruel, bassoon, and Derek Gullett, trombone. Photo by Jeff Reeder.

Stars Aligned: John de Lancie & Nick DiBerardino in the Philadelphia Inquirer

Date

Beloved actor, director, producer, writer, and comedian John de Lancie and Nick DiBerardino (Composition ’18), Ensemble 20/21 director, acclaimed composer, chair of composition studies, and senior associate dean of performance studies at Curtis, recently spoke with the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Peter Dobrin about the upcoming Curtis Presents performances of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat and Mr. DiBerardino’s Star Trek-inspired piece, Darmok & Jalad.

Mr. Dobrin asks Philadelphia-born John de Lancie: Why Curtis? “Well, it’s the Curtis,” he responds, “and that pretty well says it all.” Mr. de Lancie adds: “Nick has musically captured both the beauty and frustration of an alien language that can only communicate in metaphors. The musical dialogue is riveting. I invited two friends who know Star Trek far better than I and they were thrilled. It’s such accessible music, and knowing the story behind it makes it even more special.”

Read the interview and watch a clip of John de Lancie’s performance with the L’Histoire du Soldat septet HERE.

 

CURTIS PRESENTS: L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT (A SOLDIER’S TALE)

Tuesday, March 21, 2023, at 8 p.m.
Philadelphia Film Center
1412 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia

John de Lancie, narrator
Soovin Kim (’99), violin
William McGregor (’22), double bass
David Shifrin (’71), clarinet
Luis Márquez Teruel, bassoon
James Vaughen, trumpet
Derek Gullett, trombone
Tae McLoughlin, percussion
Micah Gleason, conductor

PROGRAM

VIET CUONG Well-Groomed
FRANCIS POULENC Sonata for Clarinet and Bassoon
KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI Duo Concertante for Violin and Double Bass
NICK DIBERARDINO Darmok & Jalad
IGOR STRAVINSKY L’Histoire du Soldat

TICKETS
Single tickets for L’Histoire du Soldat ($29) and are available at Curtis.edu. Seating is general admission.

Ensemble 20/21 Presents a “Portrait of Aaron Jay Kernis”

Date
Press Contacts:
Patricia K. Johnson | patricia.johnson@curtis.edu | (215) 717-3190
Ryan Scott Lathan | ryan.lathan@curtis.edu | (215) 717-3145

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PHILADELPHIA, PA—March 16, 2023—Ensemble 20/21 presents a “Portrait of Aaron Jay Kernis,” the contemporary music ensemble’s final program for the 2022–23 season, on Saturday, March 25, 2023, at 8:00 p.m., in Gould Rehearsal Hall at the Curtis Institute of Music. Hailed by The New York Times for his “fearless originality [and] powerful voice,” the work of Pulitzer Prize- and GRAMMY Award-winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis is known for its eclectic scope and influences that draw on a broad spectrum of inspirational sources from cantorial music to jazz, salsa, hip-hop, and disco. Under the baton of renowned Curtis alumna Sarah Ioannides (Conducting ’98), music director of Symphony Tacoma, Ensemble 20/21 celebrates the dramatic breadth and beauty of Kernis’s exquisite vocal writing. The concert opens with the East Coast premiere of his recent 2022 opus, Earth, featuring a performance by acclaimed young tenor Laurence Kilsby, currently a member of the Académie at Opera National de Paris. “Portrait of Aaron J. Kernis” concludes with a clever setting of Christina Rossetti’s 1862 poem Goblin Market, featuring a lush, proto-Romantic score and a spellbinding recitation of the text by first-year Curtis vocal student, soprano Ashley Marie Robillard (Voice ’18, Opera ’20).

“I am thrilled to be returning to Curtis Institute and Philadelphia, my hometown, for this special portrait concert,” says Aaron Jay Kernis. “It’s especially gratifying to have these two works programmed together, which center on my love of text and the voice.”

“It is a great honor to welcome Aaron, one of the world’s leading composers, back to his native Philadelphia,” says Nick DiBerardino (Composition ’18), Ensemble 20/21 director, acclaimed composer, chair of composition studies, and senior associate dean of performance studies at Curtis. “We are delighted for our composers to learn from him, for our performers to engage with his work, and for our audiences to hear these spectacular pieces of vocal chamber music.”

Praised by Classical Voice North America as “a rich work whose urgency must be heard,” Kernis’s Earth grapples with one of the most important, yet polarizing issues of our time—the global environmental crisis. Written in collaboration with poet and agricultural researcher Kai Hoffman-Krull, the work’s first movement, entitled “Seasons,” follows the life of a farmer as it explores how those who depend upon the land must adapt to the rapidly shifting threats of climate change. In movement two (“Farewell”), he draws inspiration from the 1798 poetry of William Wadsworth’s Tintern Abbey, a powerful ode to childhood and the wonders of nature. Earth opens with the line, “Why are seasons no longer the seasons of before?” Throughout this mesmerizing work, Kernis draws the audience in, inviting his listeners to reflect upon their daily actions in hopes that this compelling work might motivate positive and impactful environmental behavior.

Christina Rossetti’s 1862 poem Goblin Market has long been analyzed, dissected, and discussed by literary and social critics alike. While contemporaries of the Victoria-era writer might have regarded her audacious poem as a simple fairy tale or moral fable, this inventive story about two sisters, Laurie and Lizzie, who find themselves propositioned by goblins and tempted with luscious, “forbidden” fruit, continues to spark debate. Composer Aaron Jay Kernis joins the throngs of interpreters across the ages with an inspired setting of the poem for narrator and chamber orchestra.

“At the time of writing the work the AIDS epidemic was at its height,” says Kernis. “Certainly the parallels between the poisoning at the heart of the text made the urgency to set it feel even more palpable. As I read more in the growing body of post-Freudian scholarship about the Goblin Market poem, it became far less possible to read the text purely as a children’s story. The 20th century readings of the text I explored viewed it as suffused with elements of latent sensuality and sexuality, issues of male and female power and control, tensions between free and religious morality, freedoms for women within a straitjacketed society, and a whole host of metaphors related to Christina Rosetti’s sheltered life within the context of Victorian social mores.”

Ensemble 20/21 brings to life Kernis’s intoxicating score, capturing the frightening bustle of the fruit seller’s market, the menacing, grotesque goblins, and the plight of the two sisters. Is this an allegory of protofeminism, an allusion to Genesis and the Garden of Eden, a critique of advertising in pre-capitalist England, a discussion about the psychology of the divided self, or a commentary on feminine sexuality in the nineteenth century? The inspiration for Rossetti’s original poem might remain somewhat of a mystery, but its themes of desire and repression continue to resonate in the twenty-first century.

Winner of two 2019 GRAMMY Awards (including “Best Contemporary Classical Composition” for his violin concerto for James Ehnes), a Pulitzer Prize, Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, and Nemmers Award, Aaron Jay Kernis is one of America’s most performed and honored composers. His music appears prominently on concert programs worldwide, and he has been commissioned by America’s preeminent performing organizations and artists, including the New York and Royal Liverpool Philharmonics, San Francisco, Toronto, and Melbourne (AU) Symphonies, Los Angeles and Saint Paul Chamber and Minnesota Orchestras, Walt Disney Company, The Knights, San Francisco Girls and Brooklyn Youth Choruses, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Renee Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, and Sharon Isbin to name a few.

His works have been recorded on Nonesuch, Naxos, Phoenix, Onyx, Signum, Virgin Cedille, and Argo, with which Mr. Kernis had an exclusive recording contract, and many other labels. Recent and upcoming are discs including his new flute concerto with flutist Marina Piccinini and Leonard Slatkin/Marin Alsop conducting the Peabody Symphony; his third string quartet (“River”) as part of the Jasper Quartet’s The Kernis Project; the Grammy-winning recording of his violin concerto for James Ehnes with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot; and the Nashville Symphony and Giancarlo Gurrero of recent orchestral music.

He is the Workshop Director of the Nashville Symphony Composer Lab and, for 15 years, served as New Music Adviser to the Minnesota Orchestra, with which he co-founded and directed its Composer Institute for 11 years. Kernis teaches composition at Yale School of Music and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Classical Music Hall of Fame. Leta Miller’s book-length portrait of Kernis and his work was published in 2014 by University of Illinois Press as part of its American Composer series.

Flexible in size and scope, Ensemble 20/21 performs a wide range of music from the 20th and 21st centuries, including works by Curtis students and alumni. The ensemble has appeared at major U.S. venues such as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Miller Theatre, as well as international venues. The ensemble has also presented concert portraits of iconic composers in residence Tania León, Alvin Singleton, Unsuk Chin, John Corigliano, George Crumb, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Chen Yi, among many others.

Ticketing Information
Subscriptions are available for Curtis’s 2022–23 season. The flexible Choose Your Own subscription option offers 25% off ticket prices when purchasing tickets to two or more performances. For the 2022–23 season, Curtis is also offering a new Season Pass, with access to all remaining performances in the 2022–23 season for $99. To order a subscription, visit Curtis.edu/Subscribe, call (215) 893-7902, or email tickets@curtis.edu.

Single tickets for Ensemble 20/21 performances and the 2022–23 season start at $19: Curtis.edu/Ensemble2021

Visit Curtis.edu/Calendar to view Curtis’s entire season of performances and events.

About the Curtis Institute of Music
The Curtis Institute of Music educates and trains exceptionally gifted young musicians to engage a local and global community through the highest level of artistry. For nearly a century Curtis has provided each member of its small student body with an unparalleled education alongside musical peers, distinguished by a “learn by doing” philosophy and personalized attention from a faculty that includes a high proportion of actively performing musicians. With admissions based solely on artistic promise, no student is turned away due to financial need. Curtis invests in each admitted student, ensuring no tuition is charged for their studies and they enter the profession free from educational debt. Each year Curtis students hone their craft through more than 200 orchestra, opera, and solo and chamber music offerings in Philadelphia and around the world. Learn more at Curtis.edu.

 

ENSEMBLE 20/21: A PORTRAIT OF AARON JAY KERNIS

Saturday, March 25, 2023, at 8 p.m.
Gould Rehearsal Hall, Curtis Institute of Music, 1616 Locust Street, Philadelphia

Sarah Ioannides (’98), conductor
Laurence Kilsby, tenor
Ashley Marie Robillard (Voice ’18, Opera ’20), narrator

PROGRAM

AARON JAY KERNIS Earth
Goblin Market

TICKETS

Single tickets for Ensemble 20/21 performances and the 2022–23 season start at $19: Curtis.edu/Ensemble2021. Season subscriptions are also available.

Generous support for Ensemble 20/21 is provided by the Daniel W. Dietrich II Foundation

Photos of Aaron Jay Kernis by Richard Bowditch. Photo of Sarah Ioannides by Thomas Concordia. Photo of Laurence Kilsby by Eoin Schmidt-Martin Photography. Photo of Ashley Robillard courtesy of artist’s website. Image of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s frontispiece and title-page for Goblin Market and Other Poems by Christina Rossetti, published in 1862; public domain.

 

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Curtis Presents: “L’Histoire du Soldat” on March 21 at the Philadelphia Film Center

Date
Press Contacts:
Patricia K. Johnson | patricia.johnson@curtis.edu | (215) 717-3190
Ryan Scott Lathan | ryan.lathan@curtis.edu | (215) 717-3145

Download PDF

PHILADELPHIA, PA—March 14, 2023—The 2022–23 Curtis Presents series continues on Tuesday, March 21, 2023, at 8:00 p.m. at the Philadelphia Film Center with Igor Stravinsky’s exhilarating L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) featuring iconic actor John de Lancie as the narrator, award-winning performer David Shifrin (Clarinet ’71), acclaimed recitalist Soovin Kim (Violin ’99), and Curtis’s extraordinarily talented young musicians under the baton of Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow Micah Gleason. The program also features the Philadelphia premiere of Darmok & Jalad, a Star Trek-inspired work by Nick DiBerardino (’18), Ensemble 20/21 director, acclaimed composer, chair of composition studies, and senior associate dean of performance studies at Curtis, alongside works by Viet Cuong (’19), Francis Poulenc, and Krzysztof Penderecki. This eclectic concert of intergalactic firsts and innovative favorites is proudly presented as part of Curtis on Tour, the school’s Nina von Maltzahn Global Touring Initiative, for its March 2023 tour across the U.S., beginning on March 11 in Irvine, California, and ending on March 26, in Overland Park, Kansas.

Top Clockwise (Left to Right): David Shifrin (’71), clarinet, James Vaughen, trumpet, Derek Gullett, trombone, Tae McLoughlin, percussion, William McGregor (’22), double bass, Micah Gleason, conductor, John de Lancie, narrator, Soovin Kim (’99), violin, Luis Marquez Teruel, bassoon

The concert kicks off with American composer Viet Cuong’s Well-Groomed for solo snare drum, hair comb, and card. Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by the New York Times, the award-winning young musician is known for his whimsical compositions, and this ingenious piece redefines any perceived boundaries of the snare drum, drawing unexpected, innovative sounds from the instrument. Building in intensity as the tempo shifts from a slow-burning groove to explosive bursts of energy, this inventive piece mesmerizes with it tongue-in-cheek sound palette, finding quirky inspiration in everyday objects.

The program continues with Francis Poulenc’s vivacious Sonata for clarinet and bassoon. Noted for its jazzy, bitonal passages and lively rhythmic counterpoint, this sparkling three-movement work has become a popular staple in the woodwind repertoire since its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1923. Poulenc’s playful Sonata is followed by Krzysztof Penderecki’s rhapsodic Duo for violin and bass. This lively, lyrical showpiece underscores the stark contrast between the two stringed instruments as they engage in an emotionally charged, delightfully spirited dialogue within its short, seven-minute timespan.

The first half of the concert concludes with composer Nick DiBerardino’s Darmok & Jalad, an exciting new work for the L’Histoire septet. The theatrical L’Histoire du Soldat is full of vibrant dance forms. It marches, waltzes, ragtimes, tangoes, and even dances with the Devil. Inspired by this visionary chamber work, the “weird, rusty machines” underlying the vocabulary of tonal composers, and one of his favorite Star Trek episodes, Mr. DiBerardino’s original composition takes up Stravinsky’s emphatic focus on rhythm, finding a slinking, syncopated new way for this septet to dance.

“Darmok & Jalad is an unabashedly nerdy piece of music,” says Mr. DiBerardino. “Fellow nerds may recognize that the title refers to an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In that episode, Patrick Stewart’s Captain Picard encounters a spacefaring civilization called the Tamarians. We quickly learn that it isn’t possible for humanity to communicate with these intelligent aliens—a strange and concerning fact, since the “universal translator” in the ship’s computer magically solves this problem most of the time.”

Mr. DiBerardino continues: “This piece atomizes and twists standard grammar from Mozart and Beethoven, revealing once-familiar patterns as slightly strange, only partially translated bits of musical material. A delightful squealing of gears, even—music that is made of a mashing up of familiar moves. I hope the slinking, slithering result brings you some of the same suspenseful enjoyment the Tamarian language first brought me.”

The evening closes with a riveting performance of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat (The Soldier’s Tale). For over a century, this Faustian tale of trickery, desire, temptation, and magic for chamber orchestra and narrator has captured the imagination of audiences worldwide. Inspired by Stravinsky’s discovery of American jazz, the disillusionment caused by World War I, and a Russian folk tale based on Alexander Afanasyev’s The Runaway Soldier and the Devil, L’Histoire marks the composer’s final break with the Russian orchestra school in which he had been fostered. This masterful, rhythmic piece follows a soldier who trades his fiddle to the Devil in return for limitless wealth and power—and the tremendous cost the soldier must ultimately pay.

Left to Right: Micah Gleason, conductor, John de Lancie, narrator, David Shifrin (’71), clarinet, William McGregor (’22), double bass, Derek Gullett, trombone, James Vaughen, trumpet, Tae McLoughlin, percussion, Soovin Kim (’99), violin, and Luis Marquez Teruel, bassoon. Photo by Jeff Reeder.

 Conceived by Stravinsky and Swiss writer C. F. Ramus in 1917 as a traveling piece to be toured and performed in villages across Switzerland, this celebrated work calls for an intimate ensemble of seven musicians—two instruments selected from each instrumental family, as well as a percussionist. Curtis’s performance features internationally beloved actor, director, producer, writer, and comedian John de Lancie as a soldier, the devil, and a narrator. He is joined by two renowned Curtis alumni—clarinetist David Shifrin and violinist Soovin Kim—alongside five of Curtis’s remarkable emerging professional artists. One of the great musical masterpieces of the twentieth century, L’Histoire du Soldat reminds audiences around the world that, in the end, none of us can truly have it all.

Tickets to L’Histoire du Soldat ($24) are available at Curtis.edu. Seating is general admission.

 

About Curtis Presents
Past and future meet through Curtis Presents, which features a diverse collection of artists—alumni, faculty, students, and contemporary creators—whose musical foundations are rooted in the Curtis community. This series of intimate and innovative recitals offers a unique experience with exceptional artistry and one-of-a-kind programs.

About Curtis on Tour
Curtis on Tour is the Nina von Maltzahn global touring initiative of the Curtis Institute of Music. Grounded in the school’s “learn by doing” philosophy, tours feature extraordinary emerging artists alongside celebrated alumni and faculty. In addition to performances, musicians offer master classes, educational programs, and community engagement activities while on tour. Curtis on Tour also manages solo engagements for Curtis artists with professional orchestras and presenters. Since the program was established in 2008, Curtis on Tour ensembles have performed more than 375 concerts in over 100 cities in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

About the Artists

Micah Gleason, conductor
Micah Gleason, from Chapel Hill, N.C., a student of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, is the Rita E. Hauser Conducting Fellow and entered Curtis in 2022.

Derek Gullett, trombone
Derek Gullett, from Uniontown, Ohio, a student of Nitzan Haroz and Matthew Vaughn, is the Edwin B. Garrigues Fellow and entered Curtis in 2019.

Soovin Kim, violin
Praised by the Berkshire Review as “superb…impassioned,” Curtis alumnus violinist Soovin Kim (’99) enjoys a broad musical career. In addition to being an active performer, he is a teacher on faculties of the New England Conservatory of Music and the Yale School of Music, and he is artistic director of the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival and co-artistic director of Chamber Music Northwest.

John de Lancie, narrator
John de Lancie, known for his iconic role of Q on the Star Trek series The Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space 9, and Picard, has had an eclectic career working in genres as diverse as television, film, opera, theater, and symphonic music as an actor, director, producer, writer, educator, and comedian. He is the son of renowned oboist John de Lancie, former principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and former director of the Curtis Institute of Music.

Luis Marquez Teruel, bassoon 
Luis Marquez Teruel, from Maracaibo, Venezuela, a student of Daniel Matsukawa, is the William Curtis Bok Bassoon Fellow and entered Curtis in 2019.

William McGregor, double bass 
William McGregor, from Ann Arbor, Mich., a student of Edgar Meyer and Harold Hall Robinson, is the Shaun F. O’Malley Fellow and first entered Curtis in 2018.

Tae McLoughlin, percussion 
Tae McLoughlin, from South Orange, N.J., a student of Ji Su Jung, Don Liuzzi, and Eric Millstein, is the Carol Coe Conway Memorial Fellow and entered Curtis in 2021.

David Shifrin, clarinet 
One of only two wind players to have been awarded the Avery Fisher Prize since the award’s inception in 1974, Curtis alumnus clarinetist David Shifrin is in demand as an orchestral soloist, recitalist, and chamber music collaborator. He is on faculty at the Yale School of Music, and his storied career has included serving as artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (1992–2004) and Chamber Music Northwest (1981–2020).

James Vaughen, trumpet 
James Vaughen, from Champaign, Ill., a student of David Bilger, is the Stanley and Bertha Rogasner Fellow and entered Curtis in 2018.

About the Curtis Institute of Music
The Curtis Institute of Music educates and trains exceptionally gifted young musicians to engage a local and global community through the highest level of artistry. For nearly a century Curtis has provided each member of its small student body with an unparalleled education alongside musical peers, distinguished by a “learn by doing” philosophy and personalized attention from a faculty that includes a high proportion of actively performing musicians. With admissions based solely on artistic promise, no student is turned away due to financial need. Curtis invests in each admitted student, ensuring no tuition is charged for their studies and they enter the profession free from educational debt. Each year Curtis students hone their craft through more than 200 orchestra, opera, and solo and chamber music offerings in Philadelphia and around the world. Learn more at Curtis.edu.

 

CURTIS PRESENTS: L’HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT (A SOLDIER’S TALE)

Tuesday, March 21, 2023, at 8 p.m.
Philadelphia Film Center
1412 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia

John de Lancie, narrator
Soovin Kim (’99), violin
William McGregor (’22), double bass
David Shifrin (’71), clarinet
Luis Marquez Teruel, bassoon
James Vaughen, trumpet
Derek Gullett, trombone
Tae McLoughlin, percussion
Micah Gleason, conductor

PROGRAM

VIET CUONG Well-Groomed
FRANCIS POULENC Sonata for Clarinet & Bassoon
KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI Duo Concertante for Violin & Double Bass
NICK DIBERARDINO Darmok & Jalad
IGOR STRAVINSKY L’Histoire du Soldat

TICKETS
Single tickets for L’Histoire du Soldat ($24) and are available at Curtis.edu. Seating is general admission.

 

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Alumna Interview: Catherine Van Handel (Bassoon ’15)

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Hailed by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “assured and startlingly lyrical, [her solo] signaled an orchestra-wide philosophy” and praised by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a “polished, warm sound, full of color and nuance,” Curtis alumna Catherine Van Handel (’15) has served as the principal bassoon of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, holding the Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Bassoon Chair, since 2017. Prior to joining the Milwaukee Symphony, she was associate principal bassoon with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

While Mrs. Van Handel was studying at Curtis, she held the principal bassoon position with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra. She has performed with numerous orchestras across the country, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Grant Park Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony, Virginia Symphony, and Richmond Symphony. Catherine has worked under such world-renowned conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andris Nelsons, Fabio Luisi, Lorin Maazel, Stéphane Denève, and Osmo Vänskä, among many others.

The acclaimed bassoonist, educator, and artist advocate was recently announced as one of the recipients of the school’s second annual Daniel W. Dietrich II Young Alumni Fund, which focuses on the “musician lifecycle,” easing the transition from student to professional life as it supports innovative projects, community and nonprofit organizations founded by alumni, the commissions of new works, and the production of new commercial films and audio recordings. Mrs. Van Handel’s funding went towards the completion of her brilliant debut album, Bassoon Soirée: From Latin America to Paris, which was released in January 2023. She recently shared her musical journey, the impact of Curtis on her development as an artist, her diverse new recording, and her interest in expanding her discography and collaborating with other artists.

 

 

When did your love affair with the bassoon first blossom, and how has your relationship with the instrument progressed over the years?
I will preface by saying that the bassoon is not typically the first instrument that young people start on. For me, I started playing the piano at the age of four and the cello at the age of five. When I was first introduced to the bassoon at age fourteen, I was about to enter high school, and what I really wanted was to join my high school band program and follow in my older siblings’ footsteps. In hindsight, it must have seemed like a naïve decision on my part for choosing to play the bassoon without any prior knowledge of the instrument, but I’m glad that the bassoon ended up being the right fit for me.

While I couldn’t say that it was love at first sight with the bassoon, I found it to be interesting and unique early on. As I continued learning and developing, the connection with the bassoon deepened. This may resonate with many other young musicians out there, but the bassoon became my outlet, my purpose, and my identity. As I immersed myself in orchestral music and playing in an orchestra, that’s when I fell in love with the instrument and developed a passion and drive to become a professional bassoonist one day. There is definitely an emotional connection when I put the bassoon in my hands. The instrument is my voice, and it continues to ground me to this day as I progress and develop as a musician.

As an alumna of Curtis, what do you believe is the school’s most enduring impact on your life and your development as a musician?
Curtis has left a significant imprint on my life. Curtis’s culture of “learn by doing” instilled in me the values of curiosity and the pursuit of the highest artistry. I learned not only to be a well-trained bassoonist but to be a well-informed musician. Being surrounded by incredible teachers and talented classmates during the most formative years of my life opened my eyes and my ears quite literally to all different perspectives of what can be musically possible. My studies at Curtis were truly impactful and life-changing, and for that, I am eternally grateful.

When you graduated from Curtis in 2015, what were your aspirations, and how have they changed or evolved over time?
Upon graduating from Curtis, my goal was to be principal bassoon of a major U.S. orchestra. When I graduated, I had trial weeks lined up for associate principal bassoon with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. I was fortunate to win that position a couple of weeks later, and I played with the TSO for one and a half seasons. When the principal bassoon position opened up in Milwaukee during my second season in Toronto, I took that and won it. Now, seven seasons later at the MSO plus a pandemic, my aspirations continue to evolve. My dreams started out small, but with consistent efforts every day, I was able to create a website, form an LLC, start a reed-making business, release my solo debut album, and I now currently teach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

On January 31, 2023, you released your debut album, Bassoon Soirée: From Latin America to Paris, with pianist Eduard Laurel. How did this collaboration arise, and what led you to curate this diverse collection of works?
If you had asked me five years ago if I would be releasing my first album, I probably would have laughed. I never really anticipated recording an album, but when the world went into lockdown in March 2020, the disruption caused by COVID-19 was real for musicians, and it really made me reflect on my love for music. It showed me how lucky and what a privilege it was for me to be able to play music week in and week out. But it also showed the fragility of what I do. As I dealt professionally and emotionally with the pandemic early on, I decided that I wanted to attempt to stay positive by focusing on how I could continue to engage and emerge from this tough environment as a better musician.

I am an extremely goal-oriented person, and this was my goal to put my stake in the ground as a reminder of my love for music and my passion for the bassoon in a way that nothing could ever take it from me again. No pandemic is going to take away my album. I hope to look about thirty, fifty, to a hundred years from now and have many more albums, but also remind myself of the strength, the courage, and the discipline to take an idea and turn it into a reality. It was not just me. I had many friends and colleagues who helped me along the way. I have made mistakes along the way. I was not perfect. This was not easy, but I am very proud that I am at this point and that I get to share this with all of you.

Catherine Van Handel’s debut album is available for purchase HERE and through Apple Music HERE.

Listen to Bassoon Soirée: From Latin America to Paris on Spotify HERE.

As a devoted advocate for the arts, principal bassoon of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and adjunct professor of bassoon at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, you are busy inspiring the next generation of classical musicians and helping them fulfill their potential. What do you hope your lasting impact will be as an artist and educator?
I hope to continue to move and inspire people with my music and share my love and passion for the bassoon throughout my career. I want to be the best ambassador I can be for classical music and for the bassoon and make a positive impact to the people around me.

What are the most challenging aspects of playing this instrument and forging a career as a bassoonist?
The bassoon is an extremely challenging instrument to play. It is the only other instrument besides the piano that requires all ten fingers. Fun fact: there are nine keys just for the left thumb! For almost every note on the bassoon, there are multiple alternate fingerings for it. For example, there are six or more fingerings for an F-sharp above middle C. It is up to the player to determine which fingerings to use depending on the mood and context of the piece he/she is playing. On top of that, another huge part of playing the bassoon is mastering the art of reed-making. Reed-making is a lifelong process.

Are there any future projects or collaborations you are interested in pursuing?
Absolutely! I would love to continue building my discography collection. I learned so much about myself throughout the recording process when I did my first album, and I hope to continually improve with each recording project I do. I have many ideas, one of which is to perhaps record solo bassoon works with a chamber orchestra. Additionally, I am passionate about celebrating female Asian composers and would like to commission new works and record an entire album of just that. I am also interested in collaborating with other artists and possibly recording a few chamber music albums, as well. At the moment, there are no big projects on the horizon, but I am excited about what the future may hold. If you’re interested in collaborating, please do not hesitate to reach out via the contact form at catherinevanhandel.com/contact.

What advice do you have for current Curtis students and recent alumni?
Everybody has their own path. What I have learned on my personal journey is to trust my instincts, to fully embrace what makes me different, and to not let how others may perceive me dictate who I am. Identify what you want, figure out how to get there, and stay consistent and true to yourself.

Visit Catherine Van Handel’s official website HERE.

Photos of Mrs. Van Handel by Jennifer Brindley.