Gary Graffman working with his student Daniel Hsu (Piano ’19) in 2018. 

Step inside 1726 Locust Street, and you enter the wood-panelled, high-ceilinged Common Room where musical luminaries have been gathering for a century – whether during their formative years as students or as teachers shaping the next generation. Just a block away from leafy Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia’s historic Center City, this expanded Beaux Arts style mansion serves as the main campus of the Curtis Institute of Music.

It was in this space, framed by a fireplace and a grand staircase, that Leopold Stokowski led the fledging Curtis Orchestra during the school’s first year; later generations would mingle with Leonard Bernstein before he became ‘Leonard Bernstein’ or, in the first decade of this century, with a teenage Yuja Wang on her way to give a recital.

In the century since Mary Louise Curtis Bok founded the conservatory that bears her name, some 510 piano alumni have emerged from this intimate crucible, where individuality is highly prized alongside musical excellence. The 2024-25 academic year counted just 13 piano students – with another five focused on organ. (The most recent graduate in harpsichord graduated in 2022.) Guided by the seasoned hands of a small faculty responsible for the Piano Studies majors, all of whom are also alumni – Yefim Bronfman, Michelle Cann, Robert McDonald and Ignat Solzhenitsyn, with Amy Yang as director of the chamber music division – Curtis operates on a scale that fosters intense, personalised mentorship.

Since around 2000, when he was about 10, alumnus Haochen Zhang (class of 2012) recalls the rapid expansion of Curtis’s popularity among his peers who were studying music. ‘Juilliard had been the bigger name, but Lang Lang’s superstardom helped make Curtis even more famous among young musicians in China,’ he tells me. ‘Curtis was known as a small school with an exceptionally low acceptance rate that admitted only the best students, with full scholarships, and Steinways for every pianist. We also knew about some of the teachers at Curtis, especially Gary Graffman, who was then the director and Lang Lang’s teacher and later became my teacher.’

Pedagogical heritage

The Curtis Institute’s piano legacy is rooted in the distinctive vision of its founder and the esteemed figures she chose as its faculty. Mary Louise Curtis (1876-1970), heiress to a publishing magnate, grew up in a highly musical atmosphere and studied piano and organ from an early age; by the age of 13, she was writing about music for the Ladies’ Home Journal, the enormously popular magazine edited by her mother, Louisa Knapp Curtis.

Like Jeannette Thurber – who a generation earlier had founded the National Conservatory and invited Dvorˇák to lead it – Mary Louise Curtis envisioned a forward-looking institution that could reshape music education in America. From 1928 a key component became the guarantee of free tuition for all students admitted to Curtis, to ensure that exceptionally promising young musicians could refine their talents free of financial constraints.

Unsurprisingly, given the founder’s deep-rooted connection with the keyboard, pianists played a central role in the school’s leadership. Josef Hofmann was enlisted to head the piano department and hand-picked keyboard colleagues from a variety of American and European backgrounds, such as the Pittsburgh-born David Saperton; George Boyle, a student of Busoni; harpsichordist Wanda Landowska; and Isabelle Vengerova, the stern, at times terrifying Russian from the St Petersburg Conservatory, among others.

Students, aged six to 14, in front of the main entrance in the 1938–39 school year. 

Left to right: unidentified, Elliott Fischer, Nathan Goldstein (Violin ’47), Seymour Lipkin (Piano ’47), Gary Graffman (Piano ’46), Bianca Polack, Diana Steiner (Violin ’49, ’57), Rudolf Favaloro (Piano ’39), Charles Libove (Violin ’40), Hyman Bress (Violin ’51), Robert Cornman (Piano ’41), Margot Ros (Piano ’40)

Starting in 1927, Hofmann also began serving as the conservatory’s director. That his responsibilities did not preclude maintaining an active performing career set a precedent for such subsequent directors as the pianists Rudolf Serkin and Gary Graffman (who, faced with focal dystonia, turned to left-hand repertoire). Viola-player Roberto Díaz, who has helmed the Curtis Institute since 2007, continues this tradition.

Mary Louise Curtis Bok (as she was known when she founded Curtis) had initially met Hofmann during his tour of America in 1898, embarking on a longstanding friendship that would help shape the direction of her new venture. A towering figure in the international piano world, Hofmann brought with him a rich pedagogical heritage – which can be traced back through his mentor Anton Rubinstein to Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny – and a deep belief in artistic integrity and personal expression. He insisted on maintaining a small student body to reinforce the ethos of individualised mentorship that – along with free tuition – has remained a defining principle of Curtis ever since.

While Hofmann’s tenure as director was cut short by his resignation during the Great Depression, other formative figures established deep and lasting connections with the conservatory. This longevity is a hallmark of faculty dedication to the Curtis Institute, as exemplified by figures like Vengerova and Eleanor Sokoloff – each of whom fostered generations of pianistic talent. Vengerova guided more than 60 pianists during her long tenure, training such notable pupils as Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein and Gary Graffman. Sokoloff’s impact spanned an even longer reach, with her first of over 120 students graduating in 1961 and the last in 2019 (Lambert Orkis, Mei-Mei Meng and Kit Armstrong among them). Sokoloff died in 2020 at the age of 106.

Students of Isabelle Vengerov at the stage of Curtis Hall (now Field Concert Hall), c1947. 

Top: Blanche Burton-Lyles (’54), Sylvia Zaremba (’51), Isabelle Vengerova, Harriet Serr (’51); Bottom Leonard Kastle (’50), Abba Bogin (’49), Gary Graffman (’46), Joseph Rezits (’48)

The narrow path to Curtis

Graffman, a graduate of the class of 1946, embodies a cherished Curtis tradition: alumni returning as faculty to shape future generations, a tradition that includes such figures as Eleanor Sokoloff, Jorge Bolet, Seymour Lipkin and Peter Serkin, as well as all of the current faculty. His journey at Curtis began when he arrived for his audition in the mid-1930s, encouraged by his violinist father, a student of the legendary Leopold Auer.

‘At seven, you’re not really scared of anybody. I walked into the audition and immediately recognised Josef Hofmann, my idol, and just went up to him and said in Russian: “I have all your recordings”. Everyone was amused I was using the familiar tense,’ Graffman recounted in a recent phone interview from his apartment in Manhattan. ‘That was my introduction to Curtis.’

After dystonia in his right hand compelled him to shift his focus, Graffman rejoined his alma mater in 1980 to teach, remaining active there until his retirement in 2006. He took on responsibilities as director in 1986 and was named president starting in 1995 until his retirement. Particularly in his administrative capacity, Graffman is credited with modernising Curtis, guiding it towards a more outward-looking approach through encouraging a broader exchange with the music world.

Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies Michelle Cann (Piano ’13, ArtistYear ’15), performs alongside students Adrian Zaragoza, Nathanial Zhang, and Elijah Orlenko in the October 2024 ‘From Hofmann to Present: The Legacy of Piano’ concert in Curtis’s Field Concert Hall. The four pianists performed an eight-hand version of Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre

But he also continued to build on the conservatory’s distinguished legacy. ‘If you’re going to have your appendix out, you want an elite doctor doing it,’ Graffman said in an interview for National Public Radio when he retired. ‘I know it’s a maligned word these days, but yes, [Curtis] is an elite school, and I hope it will continue to be so.’

Some six decades after his own confident young encounter with Hofmann, Graffman received a video from the 13-year-old Lang Lang of his performance of the 24 Chopin Études as the first part of his application to Curtis. ‘It’s a special case when a character like that appears. It was incredible,’ he recalls. Lang Lang, travelling with his father to undergo the in-person audition before the Curtis faculty, was immediately accepted and came to feel especially at home under Graffman’s wing, encouraged to learn more about his own culture from his Sinophile mentor.

With an acceptance rate of 4 per cent, the path to becoming a Curtis piano student has remained consistently narrow. Michelle Cann, who joined the faculty in 2020 as the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair in Piano Studies, points to her own experience of having to wait for the timing to be right before she gained admittance as a student. Cann made it to the final round during her first attempt at the age of 17 but was not accepted. Curtis’s removal of its longstanding upper age limit of 21 allowed her to try again after having earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Cann obtained an artist’s diploma under Robert McDonald – now her colleague – finding what she calls her ‘second home’ at Curtis.

Her responsibilities as part of the piano faculty include participating on audition panels. Cann has a multifaceted perspective, from the other side of the audition process, on the qualities that go into shaping the Curtis experience: ‘For many young musicians, Curtis is like a pie-in-the-sky dream. You don’t think you’ll get in – but you have to at least try,’ she says. ‘So much talent comes through. We’re not just judging how you play – we’re trying to understand the total person and ask: “Will this environment help them grow?” Sometimes, we pass on someone incredible because we sense this is just not the right fit for them.’

However unfavourable the odds, what draws these musicians to Curtis, according to Cann, ‘is this unique environment. It’s not just about the full scholarship or the legendary reputation. It’s the focus. Everyone here is aligned around the same goal, and they’re all of a certain level. And because it’s so small, that sense of shared purpose is especially intense.’

Trio Zimbalist – Josef Špaček (Violin ’09), Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin (Cello ’17) and George Xiaoyuan Fu (Piano ’16) – in concert in Field Concert Hall in January 2023

Nurturing artistic individuality

Serena Wang, a piano student from San Francisco who transferred from Juilliard last autumn and will complete her degree in 2027, describes Curtis as ‘both exclusive and inclusive’ – a refuge from the hectic pace she experienced in New York, though with an intensity of its own that places a premium on ‘enriching musicality’ through close-knit relationships with faculty and abundant performance opportunities.

Continuing her studies at Curtis with Robert McDonald, who was also her mentor while at Juilliard – he serves on both faculties – Wang describes how he has influenced her formation. ‘Robert McDonald’s approach has not changed my style much, but he has taught me a kind of concentration.’ She appreciates his approach of prizing independent thought over specific directives, trusting in her innate musicality once she’s on the right path. Often a single, guiding remark can ‘almost magically’ trigger a sense of how to find that path.

Even in retirement at 96, Gary Graffman values his enduring connections to students. ‘Lang Lang’s apartment in New York is just a two-minute walk away, and Yuja Wang is also two minutes away, in the opposite direction,’ he says. Anticipating a catch-up dinner in the week ahead, when Lang Lang would pass through town, he said conversations with his former students will touch on ‘personal things – as much as they want to tell me’.

Amy Yang (Piano ’06), director of chamber music and piano studies, performs Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op 54, with Curtis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Osmo Vänskä, in Verizon Hall (now Marian Anderson Hall), Kimmel Center, on 15 April 2023

Lang Lang and Yuja Wang might have apartments literally equidistant from his own, but the fact that their artistic personalities at the keyboard are so strikingly far apart underscores Graffman’s pragmatic philosophy of accepting – and encouraging – the differences each student would bring to the studio instead of imposing a one-size-fits-all doctrine. ‘Every student was different then, and every student is different now,’ he says. The important thing is to ‘help them find independence’.

In the case of Lang Lang, whose father maintained a highly controlling role in his musical development, this meant ‘trying to find where something was missing. I don’t think he had never heard Spanish music before he came to Curtis, for example,’ Graffman recalls. ‘I had him try out some Albéniz, and he ended up learning all 12 pieces of Iberia. It was unlike anything I had seen.’

According to Haochen Zhang, ‘the most valuable thing about studying with Mr Graffman, paradoxically, was how little he imposed. He didn’t try to make us sound like him but helped us find our own voices.’ As a practical example, when Zhang voiced his intention to compete in the Van Cliburn Competition in 2009 (in which he shared the Gold Medal with Nobuyuki Tsujii), Graffman put aside his longstanding advice to avoid competitions.

‘He believed that his own connections with conductors and orchestras offered a healthier way to advance a career than going to competitions,’ Zhang explains. ‘But things were already changing, since the Internet and then social media made competitions more visible, with people watching the various stages of a competition all across the world.’

‘Since I came to Curtis from China when I was 15, the school has been my musical home,’ says Yuja Wang. Her 2024 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo on The American Project, recognising a new piano concerto written for her by fellow Curtis alumnus Teddy Abrams, attests to the lasting bonds that take root at the school. ‘Curtis’s intense focus on artistry, on awakening insatiable curiosity – and the encouragement to take risks – helped me become the musician and person I am today.’

Piano student Serena Wang performs Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 21 in C major, ‘Waldstein’, during an October 2024 concert titled ‘From Hofmann to Present: The Legacy of Piano’ in Curtis’s Field Concert Hall in October 2024 for the school’s centennial. The concert began with a recording by Joseph Hofmann of that same work, and transitioned seamlessly into Serena Wang’s performance

Chamber music interplay and Curtis Studio

The emphasis on individual artistic growth at Curtis is complemented by a strong insistence on chamber music within the curriculum. Every student is required to participate in, at a minimum, one chamber group (apart from organists and bassists – although even they often take part). Each ensemble receives coaching from at least two faculty members representing contrasting disciplines – for example, a piano quintet would be coached by faculty from both the piano and string departments.

‘That is something unique to Curtis, and it’s possible because of our size,’ explains Amy Yang, who since 2024 has been director of Chamber Music and Piano Studies. The students learn rehearsal techniques from faculty who regularly perform in chamber music ensembles of their own – and even embed themselves sometimes within the student formations. Visiting teachers who give master classes also enhance their practical chamber music training.

Chamber music is so valued, according to Yang, because of ‘the rich dialogue that happens when we focus on forgetting ourselves for a moment and becoming empathetic to other ways of making a musical conviction come alive. It takes us out of the context of our own instrumental needs to become aware of timbre that is not pianistic. These moments are revelations, because they develop our inner ear.’

When asked to look back at his most significant reforms as director, Graffman pivots to the topic of chamber music, adding: ‘I wish I had done more with singers at Curtis, not just strings and winds’. He recalls his first time playing for Vladimir Horowitz – a friend of Isabelle Vengerova, his fiercely loyal teacher – and being loaned a stack of LPs featuring bel canto singers. ‘Horowitz thought it was important to learn where a singer would have to take a breath in a phrase on the piano. That makes a big difference’.

Gary Graffman at the school’s beloved tradition of Wednesday Tea in October 2014, here with Eleanor Sokoloff (Piano ’38)—who served on the Curtis faculty from 1936 until her death in 2020—and Betty Matarese, a member of the board of trustees from 2007 to 2020

‘From one-third to one-half of the student recitals were chamber music,’ says Zhang about his years as a student. ‘We also had reading sessions, where people just walked in and sight-read unfamiliar pieces together. Curtis has such a strong culture around chamber music, and its being so small made it easy to form deep musical partnerships.’ As a corollary, Zhang asserts that ‘there was no sense of competition, even though the school is so elite. Everyone knew everyone’s name. That kind of intimacy made collaboration – and friendship – natural.’

Serena Wang also notes the social dimension of chamber music at Curtis. ‘People randomly pick out a piece and start reading,’ she says. ‘That’s how I made friends when I started here. People are so curious and so open to new things.’

Field Hall, Curtis’s intimate, 240-seat auditorium connected to the expanded mansion on Locust Street, is the primary venue for regular student recitals given weekly, along with concerts by faculty and alumni, master classes and recording projects. The school preserves audiovisual recordings of all student performances as part of the historical record and features highlights from student recitals throughout the year on YouTube and social media.

In 2022, the conservatory established its own record label, Curtis Studio, dedicated to showcasing performances by its alumni, faculty and in-house ensembles and students. Among its five releases to date are Michelle Cann’s debut solo album ‘Revival’ (2023), featuring piano music by Florence Price and Margaret Bonds, and the recent ‘A Century of New Sounds’ (2024), a centenary compilation of music by Curtis alumni spanning from Samuel Barber to Gabriella Smith.

As for what should be the focus of the next century, Gary Graffman’s advice is characteristically concise: ‘To continue! Not to become a larger school, but to continue with the kind of faculty that it has always had, in all instruments.’

This feature originally appeared in the SUMMER 2025 issue of International Piano – Subscribe Today