Overtones: Spring 2017

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
A Bridge to Professional Life
Roberto Díaz PHOTO: LEE MOSKOW
More Inside and Online
Learn about the conducting fellows
program beginning on page 12 and
at www.curtis.edu/Conducting.
Details about the string quartet program
are at www.curtis.edu/Quartet, and
information about ArtistYear fellowships
is at www.curtis.edu/ArtistYear.
As each spring semester gathers steam
and accelerates toward the end of the
school year, I find myself musing on the
students who are near the end of their time
at Curtis. Their aspirations point them
in multiple directions. Some will take up
apprenticeships at opera companies or
positions in symphony orchestras. Others
will launch their solo, chamber music, or
composing careers right away, perhaps with
an important competition win as a boost.
Many will head to graduate school to
pursue advanced degrees. For nearly all
of them, life after Curtis involves a mix
of those activities and more: teaching,
community service, auditions. Soon our
2017 graduates will be inventing their
careers in a distinctly 21st-century way.
This transition from student to
professional interested us greatly as we
crafted Curtis’s strategic direction a few
years ago. One of the pillars of our
planning involved the full life cycle of
a Curtis musician. We aimed to create
value and opportunities for Curtis
musicians before their entry, during
their student years, and beyond. Among
other strategies, this led us to pilot several
graduate-level programs in targeted
disciplines. We designed fellowships to
develop sophisticated skills in a supportive
environment where fellows could take
risks and let their individual artistic voices
emerge. We were looking to create new
bridges to professional life in the modern
musical world.
These programs are now well
established. Our third class of ArtistYear
fellows is bringing music to city schools,
health care facilities, and other community
settings. Through the Nina von Maltzahn
String Quartet Program, our third resident
quartet, the Zorá Quartet, is immersing
itself in an infinitely rich repertoire whose
interpretation requires deep commitment
and considerable sacrifice. And the
conducting fellows program, now in its
fourth year, is offering something rare
and powerful to young conductors on the
threshold of their careers: a “curriculum”
that blends podium time, performance
opportunities, and mentoring from a worldrenowned
maestro, Yannick Nézet-Séguin
(the latest in a lineage of Philadelphia
Orchestra music directors who have
engaged substantively with Curtis musicians).
Curtis is uniquely suited to this
fellowship model. Its small size ensures
a personalized approach, so we can give
our fellows the tools they need to grow and
to position themselves for fruitful careers
in music. Curtis is supportive, but not
sheltering; the fellows perform and work
at a fully professional level, both inside
and outside our walls, and are exposed to
extraordinary opportunities in the process.
Curtis can offer its fellows the chance to
tour and to teach, so that these critical
real-life skills are not simply developed on
the fly, but are in firmly in place before they
embark on full-fledged careers. And Curtis’s
advantageous location in Philadelphia—
with its vibrant musical life and easy access
to other major musical centers—allows
fellows to spread their wings in the real
world, while enjoying the intimacy of
an artistic family.
As our fellows traverse the bridges
we have built, I watch their progress with
pride and pleasure, knowing they will move
confidently into 21st-century musical lives
of great promise.
Roberto Díaz
President
2 OVERTONES SPRING 2017