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Shaping a century of music: Curtis Institute centenary

2024-08-16T11:57:00

2024 03 09_CSO3_Margo Reed Studio-190

As it celebrates its 100th anniversary this autumn, the Philadelphia-based Curtis Institute retains its unique status as a centre not only for high-level training but for the education of the whole artist. Thomas May discovers the revered conservatoire’s rigorous standards and personalised approach

Amid the practice rooms on the third floor of 1726 Locust Street – the Curtis Institute of Music’s main building in the historic heart of Philadelphia, on Rittenhouse Square – is a cabinet of framed group portrait photos that represent graduating classes through the years. As one glimpses at generations of extraordinary figures – among them Leonard Bernstein, Anna Moffo, Julius Eastman, Hilary Hahn, Yuja Wang – just setting out to conquer the world, a sense of Curtis’s enormous and ongoing impact on the musical landscape becomes immediately tangible…

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