Month: February 2024

Matthew Christakos Appointed Associate Principal Cello of the New York Philharmonic

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Curtis congratulates cellist Matthew Christakos, Joseph Druian Fellow and student of Peter Wiley and Gary Hoffman, who has been appointed associate principal cello of the New York Philharmonic as of January 2024. Mr. Christakos entered Curtis in 2019, studying with Peter Wiley and Gary Hoffman, and has served as principal cello of the Curtis Symphony Orchestra. 

The Toronto native won first prize at the 2019 Canada Council for the Arts Michael Measures Prize, second prize in the 2019 Canadian Music Competition’s Stepping Stone, and first prize at the 2017 Toronto Kiwanis Music Festival President’s Trophy Competition. CBC Music included him in their 2019 edition of “30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians under 30.”

Before coming to Curtis, Mr. Christakos studied in Toronto at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists, where he won the concerto competition and performed as a soloist with the Academy Chamber Orchestra. In 2019 he toured Canada and Spain as a featured soloist with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. He is an alumnus of the Morningside Music Bridge program in Boston. He began playing cello at age four and previously studied with David Hetherington and Hans Jørgen Jensen.

Read more at The Violin Channel and view the current New York Philharmonic roster.

Photos of Mr. Christakos courtesy of David DeBalko and Micah Gleason Photography.

Celebrating Black History: Theresa Green Coleman (Voice ’50)

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“Theresa Green possesses a beautiful voice and combines it with artistic maturity and intelligence. Miss Green proved that she has a real gift of communication besides considerable imagination.”—New York Post

Renowned soprano and Curtis alumna Theresa Green Coleman (Opera ’50) grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. The daughter of Rev. Dr. Joshua Henry Green and church organist Goldie Ianthia Green, Ms. Coleman rose to national and global acclaim during the late 1950s through the early 1970s. She began studying voice at age 12 with a private teacher, then moved to New York City to work with Canadian mezzo-soprano and voice teacher Éva Gauthier before coming to Curtis, where she graduated in the spring of 1950. Here, she was notably selected by Efrem Zimbalist to represent the school in its 25th anniversary program at the Academy of Music, where she sang, in Russian, the role of Tatiana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Ms. Coleman coached with noted soprano Winifred Cecil before completing her studies at the Juilliard School.

Winner of numerous prizes, Ms. Coleman received the prestigious Marian Anderson Award, a John Hay Whitney Fellowship, and the annual award of the JUGGS, a private foundation for the advancement of outstanding young musical talent. At the JUGGS ceremony, fellow Curtis alumnus Gian Carlo Menotti (Composition ’33) said, “I believe that in Theresa Greene, we have a rare combination of a rich, flexible voice and an exciting temperament.” As a result of winning the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout TV program, she was presented three times by Mr. Godfrey, who was immensely impressed with her talent and performances.

Following her New York debut recital at Town Hall—the result of her JUGGS prize—which elevated her reputation in the classical music world and catapulted her to stardom as “a voice of real beauty” and “a new artist of importance” (New York Times) Ms. Coleman toured throughout the United States, from Boston and Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. and her hometown of Baltimore, garnering rave reviews at each stop. In 1965, she was invited to appear at the White House to sing at the Inaugural Concert of President Lyndon B. Johnson, joining pianist Van Cliburn, baritone Todd Duncan, violinist Isaac Stern, and the National Symphony Orchestra for this significant moment.

When she made her European concert debut, critics in Germany, Austria, Holland, and Sweden were unanimous in their praise, heaping superlatives on the young artist. “A gracious beauty, and what a voice!” exclaimed one Stockholm critic. Under Columbia Artists Management, Ms. Coleman went on to perform under the batons of renowned conductors including Leonard Bernstein; Erich Leinsdorf; and violinist, composer, conductor, and director of the Curtis Institute of Music Efrem Zimbalist, during an international career that lasted many decades.

Theresa Green Coleman passed away at age 95 in Minneapolis on June 25, 2020.

Please visit the Curtis Institute of Music Open Archives and Recitals (CIMOAR). Learn more about Curtis’s library and archives HERE.

Photo Credits: 1 & 5.) Portraits of Theresa Green Coleman courtesy of the Detroit Public Library digital collections; James Abresch. 2.) Louise Parker (Filipjevna) and Theresa Green (Tatjana) in a January 6, 1949 performance of Eugene Onegin, Scene II, Act I, presented alongside a performance of Franco Leoni’s one-act opera L’Oracolo at the Academy of Music; Curtis Institute of Music Archives. 4.) Promotional photo issued by Columbia Artists Management; photographer uncredited.

Elise Arancio (Composition ’23) Awarded Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters

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Curtis congratulates prize-winning composer and recent Curtis alumna Elise Arancio (’23) on being awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ms. Arancio is one of 20 established and emerging composers receiving awards totaling $465,000 this year from the academy. Founded in 1898, the academy is an honor society composed of the country’s preeminent architects, artists, composers, and writers.

Ms. Arancio is one of many notable figures throughout Curtis history to be honored with awards from the American Academy and Institute for Arts and Letters. These winners include composers such as Marc Blitzstein (’26); Samuel Barber (’34); Gian Carlo Menotti (’33); Vincent Persichetti (Conducting ’39); Lukas Foss (Conducting and Composition ’40, Piano ’42); longtime faculty member Ned Rorem (’44); George Walker (Composition and Piano ’45); Daron A. Hagen (’84); former faculty members Jennifer Higdon (’88),  Jan Krzywicki, and David Serkin Ludwig (’01); and current faculty Steven Mackey and Amy Beth Kirsten.

Elise Arancio—a native of Tucker, Georgia—is a composer whose musical language is driven by conversation. Her music is often composed of animated dialogues between and within different instruments and mediums, with energy and impulse acting as central impetuses. A lover of words, much of her music draws inspiration from poetry and literature, and she is always playing with the sounds of objects around her. Some of her recent accolades include winning the 2022 Les Écoles D’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau Ravel Prize, the 2020 Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra’s Call for Scores, the 2019 NorCal Music Festival Orchestra Composition Competition, 2018 American Composer’s Forum NextNotes Composition Awards, and the 2016 and 2017 National Young Composers Challenge.

Learn more about Ms. Arancio on her website.

Read the official announcement HERE, and learn more about the American Academy of Arts and Letters HERE,

Photos of Elise Arancio courtesy of Nichole MCH Photography and the artist.

Celebrating Black History: Gwendolyn Bradley (Opera ’77)

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Internationally acclaimed soprano, vocal instructor, and Curtis alumna Gwendolyn Bradley (Opera ’77) grew up in Bishopville, South Carolina, and became one of the foremost operatic artists of the 1980s and 1990s. The daughter of public school educators and civil rights activists, she began voice lessons at Coker College in Hartsville after her high school music teacher recognized her remarkable gifts. From there, she continued her training at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. She graduated in 1974 and attended Curtis from 1974 to 1977, followed by additional studies at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia.

In 1976, Ms. Bradley made her operatic debut as Nannetta in Giuseppe Verdi’s comic opera Falstaff with Lake George Opera (now Opera Saratoga). She became a finalist in the National Metropolitan Opera Competition and, subsequently, the youngest singer on the roster. In 1981, she made her MET debut as the Nightingale in L’Enfant et les sortilèges and gave 108 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. For nine seasons, the coloratura soprano was heard in leading roles such as Gilda in Rigoletto, Blondchen in Die Entführung auf dem Serail, the title role of Igor Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol, Clara in Porgy and Bess, Fiakermilli in Arabella, and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos. She also appeared as the mechanical doll Olympia in Les contes d’Hoffman, which was aired on a PBS special broadcast.

Gwendolyn Bradley performs the dazzling, acrobatic aria, “Les oiseaux dans la charmilles” from Jacques Offenbach’s opera, Les contes d’Hoffman at the Metropolitan Opera in 1988. 

Ms. Bradley made her European debut in the title role in George Frideric Handel’s opera Rodelinda in 1983 with the Netherlands Opera. From there on, she performed roles such as Zerbinetta, Susanna, Pamina, Blondchen, Adina, Despina, and Rodelinde in opera houses in cities across Europe, including Paris, Montpellier, Nice, Monte Carlo, Madrid, Barcelona, Munich, Hamburg, Vienna, and Amsterdam.

In 1987, she made her Deutsche Oper Berlin debut as Gilda, becoming one of their leading international stars for 15 years from 1988 to 2003. In the United States, she performed roles with Memphis Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre (now Detroit Opera), Central City Opera in Colorado, Cleveland Opera, and LA Opera. A renowned concert singer, performing works that spanned from Baroque to the 20th century, she also appeared as a soloist with many distinguished orchestras and as a recitalist, working with such conductors as Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, André Previn, and Lorin Maazel, from Carnegie Hall to Tokyo. Praised by the New York Times for a voice with a “distinctly radiant timbre,” Ms. Bradley performed for Queen Elizabeth II and queens of Spain and Sweden throughout her illustrious career.

An audio recording of Gwendolyn Bradley performing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s florid concert aria, “Sol nascente” K.70 in Paris, France, 1987.

Throughout the early to mid-2000s, Ms. Bradley made numerous appearances at the International Music Festival Krystyna Jamroz in Busko-Zdrój, Poland, and in 2004, began teaching at The Masters School, a private, coeducational boarding school and day college preparatory school in the Hudson River Valley north of New York City. A year later, in September 2005, she joined the faculty of Alliance University (formerly Nyack College), where she continues to teach voice and coach the next generation of talented young classical singers.

Please visit the Curtis Institute of Music Open Archives and Recitals (CIMOAR). Learn more about Curtis’s library and archives HERE.

Photo Credits: 1.) Portrait of Gwendolyn Bradley courtesy of the South Carolina African American History Calendar. 2.) Gwendolyn Bradley on May 19, 1994 as a soloist with the L’Orchestra Symphonique Français, courtesy of the Festival D’Auvers. 3.) Ms. Bradley as Fauno in Mozart’s pastoral opera, Ascanio in Alba in Paris (left), and a promotional photo as Olympia in Le conte d’Hoffman with the Metropolitan Opera (right); courtesy of the Gwendolyn Bradley fan club page. 4.) Ms. Bradley as Zerlina in Don Giovanni with LA Opera (left) and as Fiakermilli in Arabella with the Metropolitan Opera; courtesy of the Gwendolyn Bradley fan club page. 5.) Image courtesy of Ms. Bradley’s official X account (formerly known as Twitter). 6.) Ms. Bradley at the XIV. International Music Festival of Krystyna Jamroz, Poland, Busko-Zdrój, July 2008; courtesy of Jarosław Roland Kruk/wikipedia.org.

Robert Spano (Conducting ’85) Appointed Music Director of Washington National Opera

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Robert Spano (Conducting ’85) has been appointed music director of Washington National Opera (WNO), beginning in the company’s 2025–26 season. Effective immediately, he becomes the music director designate until his initial three-year term begins in September 2025. Currently the music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and the Aspen Music Festival and School, Mr. Spano, was recently appointed principal conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic while the organization completes its search for a new music director. As WNO’s music director, Mr. Spano will provide musical leadership for the company, overseeing the Washington National Opera Orchestra, its chorus, and music staff. 

“I am thrilled to be joining the Washington National Opera as its next music director,” said Maestro Spano. “In 2022, I had the opportunity to work with the company and its excellent orchestra in the extraordinary commissioning project, Written in Stone. This company is well known for its vision, and I am tremendously excited to collaborate with both Timothy O’Leary and Francesca Zambello in what I know will be an exciting future.”

Maestro Spano returns to Philadelphia on March 9 at 3:00 p.m. to lead the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in Ra, Mackey, and Tchaikovsky, featuring two world premieres and a late-Romantic era classic. Don’t miss James Ra’s (’04) Te Deum and Steven Mackey’s Aluminum Flowers for solo electric guitar and orchestra, featuring virtuosic guitarist and Curtis alumna Jiji (’15). The concert concludes with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s impassioned Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 (“Pathétique”).

Read the announcement from WNO HERE, and in the New York Times.

Visit Robert Spano’s official website.

Photos of Robert Spano courtesy of Jason Thrasher.