Curtis celebrates with a Higdon commission

Synopsis

One of the finest music schools in the world opened its doors in Philadelphia on today’s date in 1924.

The Curtis Institute of Music was founded with a $12 million dollar grant from Mary Louise Curtis Bok. For many decades that initial grant provided full scholarships for all Curtis students. According to Mrs. Bok, “The aim is for quality of work rather than quick, showy results."

From the start, Mrs. Bok assembled a stellar faculty for the new school, including the conductor Leopold Stokowski, who predicted that Curtis "will become the most important musical institution of our country, perhaps of the world."

Distinguished Curtis alumni have included performers like Peter Serkin, Richard Goode, and Hilary Hahn. And here’s an impressive statistic: today Curtis alumni occupy nearly 25% of the principal desk positions in the top five American symphony orchestras.

Curtis also graduated many famous composers as well, including Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, and Ned Rorem.

To help celebrate its 75th anniversary in 1999, the Curtis Institute commissioned a new orchestral work from the American composer Jennifer Higdon, who had joined the school’s faculty. Her “Blue Cathedral” was premiered by the Curtis Symphony in the spring of 2000. Higdon says her music is like “a story that commemorates living and passing through places of knowledge and of sharing—and of that song called life.”

That description seems to fit the Curtis Institute as well.

Music Played in Today's Program

Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962) Blue Cathedral Atlanta Symphony; Robert Spano, cond. Telarc 80596

On This Day

Births

• 1832 - American composer Henry Clay Work, in Middletown, Conn.; A printer by trade, he wrote some famous popular songs, including "Grandfather's Clock," "Father, Come Home," and "Marching Through Georgia";

• 1865 - French composer Paul Dukas, in Paris;

• 1931 - Italian composer Sylvano Bussotti, in Florence;

Deaths

• 1708 - British composer John Blow, age c. 59, in London;

• 1964 - Austrian-born American composer Ernst Toch, age 76, in Santa Monica, Calif.; He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for his Symphony No. 3;

• 1979 - American composer Roy Harris, age 81, in Santa Monica, Calif.;

Premieres

• 1733 - Rameau: opera, "Hippolyte et Aricie," in Paris at the Palais Royal Opéra;

• 1913 - Elgar: symphonic poem, “Falstaff,” at the Leeds Festival, with the composer conducting;

• 1937 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 18, in Moscow, Alexander Gauk conducting;

• 1961 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 12 ("The Year 1917"), by the Leningrad Philharmonic, Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting;

• 1967 - Sessions: Symphony No. 7, in Ann Arbor, Mich., by the Chicago Symphony, Jean Martinon conducting;

• 1975 - Shostakovich: Viola Sonata, in Leningrad, by Fyodor Druzhinin (viola) and Mikhail Muntyan (piano);

• 1992 - Michael Torke: “Chalk” for string quartet, at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (U.K.), by the Balanescu Quartet;

• 1998 - Ives (arr. David G. Porter): "Emerson Overture," for piano and orchestra, with soloist Alan Feinberg and the Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph von Dohnányi conducting;

• 2005 - John Adams: opera "Dr. Atomic,," in San Francisco by the San Francisco Opera, Donald Runnicles, cond;

Others

• 1880 - John Philip Sousa, age 25, is appointed 17th Leader of the U.S. Marine Band, a post he would hold for 12 years; During this time, the band made its first concert tour, premiered many of Sousa's most famous marches, and produced some of the first phonograph recordings ever made;

• 1924 - Opening of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, funded by a gift of $12.5 million from the American patroness Mary Louise Curtis Bok, who had inherited her fortune from the Curtis Publishing Company; The faculty, providing instruction for 203 students, includes Leopold Stokowski and Josef Hofmann heading conducting and piano departments, respectively; Polish-born coloratura Marcella Sembrich; Hungarian violinist Carl Flesch; French-born harpist/composer Carlos Salzedo; and Italian composer Rosario Scalero.