Bryan Anderson (’15) Wins Gold Medal at Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition

Bryan Anderson (Organ ’15) has been announced as the top prize winner at the prestigious Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition, receiving the $40,000 Pierre S. du Pont First Prize, a 2023–24 performance at Longwood, and a highly coveted contract with Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists. Mr. Anderson, who entered Curtis in 2010 and studied with Alan Morrison (’93), Haas Charitable Trust Chair in Organ Studies, also won the AGO Philadelphia Chapter Prize of $1,000, which recognizes the outstanding performance of the judges’ chosen piece.

“Bryan exemplifies all that the Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition is about,” said Longwood Gardens Director of Performing Arts Tom Warner. “He created magnificent music that expertly showcased the Longwood Organ and his extraordinary talent.”

Read the official announcement HERE and visit Bryan Anderson’s website HERE.

Portrait of Mr. Anderson courtesy of Tam Photography. Photo of the top three finalists in the Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition, (left to right) Ádám Tabajdi, Bryan Anderson, and Colin MacKnight, courtesy of Longwood Gardens.

Alumna Interview: Jazimina MacNeil (Opera ’14)

Hailed as “brilliant” by the Berliner Morgenpost and “clearly a singer to watch” by the New York Times, mezzo-soprano Jazimina MacNeil (Opera ‘14) is a creative producer, writer, actor, and wild blueberry picker rooted in the artistically fertile Monadnock region. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and Manhattan School of Music, she spent some of her most glorious summers singing and studying at Marlboro Music Festival, the Tanglewood Music Center, Ravinia Steans Music Institute, the Aspen Music Festival, SongFest, and the Schubert Institute. As a company member of the award-winning Firelight Theatre Workshop, she regularly performs and devises immersive, experimental, and community-based works. Ms. MacNeil frequently sings with her dear friends at the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Around Hear, Ashuelot Concerts, the Caroga Arts Collective, Electric Earth Concerts, and Music on Norway Pond.

Highlights from her recent performances include Mason Bates’s Passage for mezzo-soprano, electronics, and orchestra conducted by Eric Jacobsen and the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, the role of the Subdominant Chord in Steven Stucky’s opera The Classical Style with the Aspen Music Festival, the role of Ruby in a workshop of Jennifer Higdon’s (Composition ‘98) opera Cold Mountain with Opera Philadelphia, the alto solo in Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony at Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony, concerts of John Harbison’s music with the Pro Arte Quartet, chamber music collaborations with the Aureole Trio, a Mozart Requiem with the Albany Symphony, and a solo recital at the Curt Sachs Saal in the Berlin Philharmonic. She has also collaborated with the DreamYard Project and Brooklyn Art Song Society to create Frozen Tears, a concert of artwork and spoken word inspired by the alienation in Schubert’s Winterreise as it resonates with young artivists from the South Bronx.

While studying here in Philadelphia, she performed the title role in Rinaldo, Kate in Owen Wingrave, Third Lady in The Magic Flute, Carolina von Kirchstetten in Elegy for Young Lovers, and Siebel in Faust with the Curtis Opera Theatre. She also sang the title role of Carmen in La tragedie de Carmen, Dog in The Cunning Little Vixen, the Newspaperwoman in Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Idamante in Idomeneo, Charmian in Antony and Cleopatra, Teresa in La sonnambula, and Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress.

Ms. MacNeil, a recipient of Curtis’s second annual Daniel W. Dietrich II Young Alumni Fund, recently discussed the inspiring, site-specific, and eco-conscious projects she has created in collaboration with various organizations in New Hampshire, along with exciting new projects in the pipeline. She also talks about the Firelight Theatre Workshop and the pursuit of excellence and offers pearls of wisdom to current Curtis students and recent alumni.

 


 

There is an over-arching element of environmentalism in your work—a deep love and respect for the natural world. From site-specific pieces to eco-fairytales, tell us about some of your past projects and how you choose your collaborative partners.

Two organizations that I’ve done a number of collaborations with are the Harris Center for Conservation Education and Electric Earth Concerts, which are two organizations in the Monadnock Region that care deeply about the natural world. Electric Earth Concerts is a chamber music series, but they’re always trying to find ways to weave in deeper connections to the outside world through their music-making and the way that they structure their concerts.

The first project that we did together was Danika the Rose. I commissioned master storyteller Odds Bodkin to weave a bespoke fairytale out of the texts of the Dvořák Moravian Duets. The lyrics are nature-infused folk poetry from Moravia, and Dvořák actually took the texts of these folk songs and wrote his own melodies. We decided to take his lead in using the texts to create our own story, rooted in their connection to the natural world. I have long admired Odds Bodkin and the spell he casts over his audience through story and song; it was a joy to work with him on crafting this new work.

I also wrote a more modern eco-fairytale for the orchestral version of this project, Love Like Water, which is a love story between a common cuckoo named Canoris and a plastic shopping bag named Polyethylene. Lembit Beecher orchestrated the duets and wrote some interstitial music to weave underneath the storytelling. We performed this version in 2019 with the conductor Eric Jacobsen, just before the pandemic hit.

During the pandemic, I created two musical hikes with the Harris Center for Conservation Education and Electric Earth Concerts: The Singing Stream and In Fine Feather. Schubert is one of my closest friends, and there is so much nature in his music. So, for the first musical hike, I set Die schöne Müllerin along a path beside an old mill stream. I wrote a new translation, and we had a companion booklet with supplementary material highlighting things to pay attention to along the trail— sights and smells, sensations, and the natural music of the woods and water. In the next musical hike, I pulled from the bevy of music and poetry inspired by birdsong across the ages, interwoven with audio of the birds themselves.

When we’re listening to music, we’re dropped into our hearts and our internal world. When we’re listening to stories, our imagination is activated and flying. I’m interested in inviting people when they are in that space to have even deeper experiences with the natural world. The hope is that the more we can connect our deepest selves beyond the human world, the more we will be inspired to engage and care for it and think of ourselves as integrated with each other and with all of the life that’s around us.

Jazimina MacNeil and violinist Marji Gere discuss The Singing Stream, which brings nature, music, and local history together into a unique musical experience. Video courtesy of Ms. MacNeil’s website. 

As an alumna of Curtis, what has been the school’s most enduring impact on your life and development as a musician?

The pursuit of excellence. That’s really the most enduring thread from my time at Curtis. The experience of being surrounded by such excellence and learning how to strive for it every single day has carried through into everything that I do in life.

Curtis helped me become part of a network of fantastic musicians who are doing wonderful things out in the world in various ways. Being a part of that community has opened doors and made collaborations possible, which I’m very grateful for.

Watch Jazimina MacNeil’s world premiere performance of Ramsey Lewis’s “Quiet Moments,” commissioned to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, on August 12, 2013, in Bennett Gordon Hall. Video courtesy of Ms. MacNeil’s website. 

Congratulations on being a recent recipient of the second annual Daniel W. Dietrich II Young Alumni Fund at Curtis. The funding will assist in developing a site-specific performance blending storytelling and live music to bring to life Dr. Suzanne Simard’s research on the community-centric function of forests. What inspired this project?

In her book, Finding the Mother Tree, Dr. Suzanne Simard often uses musical metaphors to describe the ways a forest functions as one harmonious entity comprised of many individual parts, all sharing resources and communicating through mycorrhizal networks underground for the good of the whole. I had this idea: what if we tried to make audible what’s happening under our feet- we can’t see it, but maybe we could hear it? I’m excited to try! It will be a combination of storytelling and a musical piece performed in national forests and botanical gardens, guided by Dr. Simard’s scientific research. This will be the culminating piece in a year-long tree festival with the Harris Center for Conservation Education, which I will be project managing.

It’s still in the early stages of development, and I’m really grateful for the grant from Curtis because that was the first domino, shall we say, to get the project moving. I am, like so many of us are, deeply inspired by Suzanne Simard’s work as a woman in this male-dominated field and how brave and strong she’s been to stick to her guns and to what she knows to be true, even against great resistance and backlash from the forestry community. What she’s saying means that policies need to change, and that’s always hard. Part of what I hope to do with this project is to help spread her message. The more it becomes common knowledge, the more pressure will be put on the people worried about the bottom line and the dollars in their pockets, who are creating these incredibly destructive policies, both now and for the long term.

What other projects do you have in the pipeline?

I am also honored to be working with Guantanamo survivor Mansoor Adayfi on a project to turn his stories into an immersive theatre piece in collaboration with the incredible composer and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh. In 2021, I joined the ensemble of the award-winning experimental theatre company Firelight Theatre Workshop; with Firelight, I regularly perform, direct, and devise immersive theatrical experiences, and I have many exciting projects in development with them.

What pearls of wisdom do you both have for students currently attending Curtis and recent alumni of the school?

After I graduated from Curtis, I knew I had to turn the volume up on my internal impulses and pay attention to the things that made me light up—the things that excited me. I became fearless and followed them. There are so many individuals out there who are talented in a specific way as classical musicians, but all of us have skills and gifts that maybe are not apparent in ourselves as performers. It’s so important to value, recognize, and invite all our gifts to the table. When we do that, you never know what amazing things will get cooked up.

So, it’s important not to be afraid of passions or curiosities that maybe feel a little out of bounds. Whatever skills you have in one area and whatever passions you have in another area can be seamlessly integrated into something new because you are you. If your interests feel disparate or far away from each other, trust that they can all exist in your work if you give yourself permission to explore.

Visit Jazimina MacNeil’s official website HERE

Interview with Jazimina MacNeil by Ryan Scott Lathan.

Photos of Jazimina MacNeil by Lori Pedrick. Images for Love Like Water and In Fine Feather courtesy of artist’s website. Image of Finding the Mother Tree and book trailer courtesy of Dr. Suzanne Simard’s official website.

Curtis Mourns the Loss of Carlos Villa (Violin ’58)

Curtis mourns the loss of internationally renowned Colombian violinist Carlos Villa (’58), who passed away on June 6 at age 84. Born in 1939, Mr. Villa took up the piano and the violin as a child before traveling to the United States, where he was admitted to Curtis at age 10 to study with influential violin pedagogue Ivan Galamian (faculty member from 1944–81). Upon graduation, at the invitation of a Swiss concert manager, he was invited to travel to Zurich and take private lessons with Yehudi Menuhin. Almost a decade later, in 1967, Otto Klemperer appointed him concertmaster of London’s New Philharmonia Orchestra, a post which he held for five years playing under conductors such as Sir John Barbirolli, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Adrian Boult, Carlo Maria Giulini, Otto Klemperer, Erich Leinsdorf, Seiji Osawa, Leopold Stokowski, George Szell, and many others.

In 1973, he was appointed conductor-concertmaster of Saltzburg’s Camerata Academica in Austria, touring extensively throughout Eastern and Western Europe, South America, Australia, and Asia. In 1980, he was appointed artistic director and conductor of Bogota’s Orquesta Filarmónica de Colombia and visiting professor of violin and chamber music at the National Conservatory.

Beginning in 1978, he moved to New York City and became a member of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, The Westchester Philharmonic, and the American Composer’s Orchestra. Throughout his illustrious career, Mr. Villa accrued an impressive resume with experience in commercial, studio and film, and television work, which led him to participate in recording with the Beatles (he was featured on Eleanor Rigby and A Day in the Life),  Pink Floyd, Aretha Franklin, Tom Jones, Tony Bennett, and many other notable twentieth-century musical icons.

The Curtis community extends its deepest sympathy and condolences to the family and colleagues of Mr. Villa.


Read more about Mr. Villa’s life and legacy at The Strad. Photos of Carlos Villa courtesy of Orquesta Filarmónica de Colombia, Discogs, and the Violin Channel.

Michelle Cann’s “Revival” Receives Rave Review in BBC Music Magazine

On May 5, Curtis Studio, the school’s recording label, released its second album, Revival, Music of Price & Bonds, featuring solo piano works performed by critically acclaimed Curtis alumna and faculty member, pianist Michelle Cann (ʼ13), through Apple’s newly launched platform, Apple Music Classical (offered in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos), and on all other major streaming platforms. Ms. Cann’s “breathtakingly powerful” readings of these vital 20th-century works were recently praised in BBC Music Magazine with a glowing, four-star review, highlighting “a performance from Cann that is as subtle as it is exuberant.”

Read the review of Revival, Music of Price & Bonds HERE, and learn more about the recording HERE.

The release of Revival follows Curtis Studio’s critically acclaimed first recording, Scheherazade (December 6, 2022), featuring the Curtis Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Osmo Vänskä. Both albums are distributed by Platoon.

Visit Michelle Cann’s official website.

Photo of Michelle Cann by Steven Mareazi Willis.

Midori Named Artistic Director of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute Piano & Strings Program

Internationally esteemed violinist and Curtis faculty member Midori has been appointed the next artistic director of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute Piano & Strings program, effective this fall to begin overseeing the 2024 summer season. Working in partnership with the Ravinia Steans Music Institute, she will guide and mentor the next generation of classical musicians through immersive and intensive rehearsals and coachings. The 2021 Kennedy Center honoree and GRAMMY Award-winning artist, activist, and educator succeeds acclaimed violinist Miriam Fried, who has held the position since 1994, following the tenures of the late Robert Mann (1988) and Walter Levin (1989–93).

“I am very much looking forward to being involved in RSMI in this new capacity,” said Midori of her new appointment. “Working with young musicians has been central to my career, and this program is one of the most important of its kind in the music field. It has been led for the last 30 years by Miriam Fried, and I am honored to inherit her remarkable legacy as I lead the program forward in the coming years.”

Read the official announcement HERE, and visit Midori’s official website HERE.

Photos of Midori by Nigel Parry.