Violinist and composer Curtis Stewart will train a Mentor Session on Feb. 27 with college students from the Lucy Moses College and the Particular Music College on the Kaufman Music Middle (KMC), the place he’s an artist-in-residence this season.
In line with its web site, KMC is a non-profit performing arts and schooling group in NYC that “stimulates appreciation of and participation in music by way of music efficiency and schooling in ways in which awaken creativity, advance innovation, and create a way of marvel amongst performers, college students, lecturers, and the general public at giant.”
Many individuals could also be shocked to study that Stewart was born in Helsinki, Finland, though he grew up in New York Metropolis.
Discussing his household background, Stewart shared that his mother, Elektra Kurtis, was of Greek ethnicity however was born in Poland, and his grandmother was an opera singer on the Warsaw Nationwide Opera.
“My mother went to high school on the Sibelius Academy in Finland. My dad, Bob Stewart, is a jazz tuba participant with household based mostly in Louisiana, and was on tour and occurred to be enjoying with my mother’s brother (and now my uncle!),” he mentioned.
He was always hanging out with all his dad and mom’ wild, touring, cool, improvising pals, and he wished to be identical to them. “I beloved the ideas behind composition and the fun of creating music within the second. I discover that making moments for that sort of creation on “Classical” levels challenges the norms of what we consider as Classical music, and who can do what in these areas,” he defined.
Rising up in NYC, Stewart is grateful his dad and mom made area for him to be a traditional child. “I used to be such a nerd. I practiced, performed video video games, aggressively inline skated (I broke my collarbone doing a flip at a skatepark…), and went to after-school orchestra rehearsals. I had a good neighborhood of different youngsters to be round,” he added.
Stewart has been composing music since he was slightly child. He beloved that he might disguise from my dad and mom, dream about music, nerd out on enjoyable sounds, and be alone.
Not till a number of individuals publicly introduced on worldwide media shops that Stewart was not a classical composer that he noticed composition as rise up. Now, I see it as my mission to make it identified that every one creativity has the kernels of ‘excellence’ inside it. All of it belongs so long as the one creating brings their soul and coronary heart and curiosity and pleasure to it,” he said.
Stewart at present has six Grammy nominations. The primary two, “Freedom and Religion” (2019) and “What’s American” (2022), had been along with his longtime collaborators, PUBLIQuartet, an improvising new music string quartet. On working with the group, Stewart says, “It’s a problem, pleasure, and soul search making music with them and discovering the authenticity between our 4-way Venn diagram.”
“OF POWER“ (2021) and “Of Love“ (2023) had been each recorded in his front room. They had been a deep expression of private want – one concerning discovering my very own voice as a black classical musician, the opposite mourning the passing of my inspiring mom,“ he continued.
The latest nominations had been for the Julia Perry violin concerto. Perry was an inspiring composer who would have been 100 years previous in 2024.
Stewart desires these taking part within the session on Thursday to have enjoyable! He additionally desires them to know:
“That classical music is alive – that engaged on a bit of music means being in dialogue with that composer, not simply executing their musical will. That enjoying music pertains to the music of our time, and ourselves.”
Stewart may even be performing his unique, 24 American Caprices, throughout its World Premiere, at Kaufman Music Middle’s Merkin Corridor on April 25. It’s a part of his upcoming undertaking, Seasons of Change, which displays on the each day existential impact of local weather and local weather change on the unhoused.
“It focuses on the recorded voices of the unhoused neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona, whose lives, as a consequence of redlining and an financial system/lack of shaded space, are in jeopardy on daily basis from Could by way of September. These of us make local weather change actual, a human challenge, and never an idea. I hope this work additionally makes them human to the eyes of these not at present experiencing homelessness,“ he said.
As well as, Stewart emphasised, “The instant results of local weather change are distinct in each area of the globe – in NYC, it means flooding; in LA, it means hearth management. I hope that the truth this work expresses helps encourage these with the desire and energy to make slight modifications to our infrastructure to guard its residents from the oncoming hazard.“
Stewart additionally teaches on the Juilliard College and serves because the creative director of the American Composers Orchestra (ACO).
He mentioned each locations are inspiring and intimidating as a result of they pressure him to do his greatest in each interplay. Probably the most inventive, particular, hardworking of us move by way of each organizations — individuals who wish to have an actual impression. “All of them carry me as much as be my very greatest,” he mentioned.
He works with college students on improvisation in classical settings, in the end creating music that references and expresses their very own musical inheritance. He then brings that music to live performance levels and contextualizes its which means for classical audiences.
“If each classical musician introduced their complete self to the stage, these levels would by necessity be related and very important for the expression of latest instances. It could be a mirror, a spot for catharsis, a spot for actual empathy – along with a spot to attach with our historical past and the historical past of different international locations and eras,“ he mentioned.
Discussing his legacy, Stewart says he desires to maintain creating, inspiring others to be courageous, to create within the face of oppression and hardship, to take away the layers of historical past’s burden by way of data of craft and of self, and thru the act of creation.
“I hope that can assist us launch a few of the dangerous patterns of interplay we’ve got developed as people. I hope it brings pleasure and possession of the pains and hardships in our lives and celebrates the held instances,“ he continued.
The session will probably be at 1 p.m., and tickets begin at $15. These excited by attending can buy them right here: https://tickets.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/5750/5835.
