A Masterclass with Curtis Stewart, violinist

The American Recital: The Blues is a distinctly American Classical Music, from which nearly every composer in America has been influenced and elevated – from Jazz to Gershwin and Bernstein, Appalachian Music to Copland, and Adams, the Blues is our essential music. Its influence extends from Rock and Roll to Funk, hip hop to Minimalism – Ives, to Cage, Price, Barber, and Jessie Montgomery. As Americans, the Blues is our musical “homeland” – a place to be vulnerable, expressing our deepest woes and comic highs with artful shades in between.

This recital is a dynamic reflection on music directly tied to that spirit – the tradition of composers working from their Blues, their folk or popular roots – broadening, amplifying, and sharpening their art-form and sharing truth + relevance. It features composers that honor tradition and meaningfully invent an American Classical aesthetic.

Stewart/Vivaldi Seasons of Change:
“Who will climate change erase first?”

“Seasons of Change,” a recomposition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is the frame for an Afrofuturist meditation / dreamscape on climate change, class and the nature of digital memory.

I. Recent.Summer (12 min)
II. Fallback (12 min)
III. Again (8 min)
IV. Life Times (10 min)

Including public conversation and recorded interviews with the unhoused population around the heavy impact of climate change on their daily lives.

Praised for “combining omnivory and brilliance” (The New York Times), six-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated violinist and composer Curtis Stewart translates stories of American self determination to the concert stage. Tearing down the facade of “classical violinist,” Stewart is in constant pursuit of his musical authenticity, treating art as a battery for realizing citizenship. As a solo violinist, composer, Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, professor at The Juilliard School, and member of award-winning ensembles PUBLIQuartet and The Mighty Third Rail, he realizes a vision to find personal and powerful connections between styles, cultures and musics. He has been awarded a 2025 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, in recognition of extraordinary leaders in the classical music field who are transforming lives while addressing systemic obstacles within Black and Latino communities.

As a soloist, Curtis Stewart has been presented by Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cal Performances, Washington Performing Arts, Virginia Arts Festival, The Juilliard School, and the 2022 GRAMMY® Awards, among many others. He has made special appearances with Los Angeles Opera and singer-songwriter Tamar Kali; as curator and guest soloist with Anthony Roth Costanzo and the New York Philharmonic “Bandwagon,” touring performance installations from NYC’s Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, and Museum of Modern Art; to MTV specials with Wyclef Jean; and sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden with Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and Seal. Both Stewart’s 2021 album of quarantined song cycles and art videos, Of Power (Bright Shiny Things), and his 2023 album, of Love.—a tribute to his late mother Elektra Kurtis-Stewart—were nominated for GRAMMY® Awards for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. His recording of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with the Experiential Orchestra (Bright Shiny Things) is nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

Stewart has been commissioned to compose new solo, chamber, and orchestral works by the Seattle Symphony, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall’s Play/USA, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and members of the New York Philharmonic, The Knights, La Jolla Music Society, Sybarite5, the New York Festival of Song, Newport Classical Festival, the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Eastman Cello Institute, Orlando Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and more. In 2022, he was named Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, a national organization dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by diverse and innovative American composers.

An enthusiastic educator, Curtis Stewart currently teaches at The Juilliard School and the Perlman Music Program, and for ten years led all levels of music theory and orchestra at the LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts in NYC. Learn more at www.curtisjstewart.com.

Award-winning pianist Donna Weng Friedman enjoys a distinguished career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, curator, producer, and filmmaker. Donna was selected as one of Musical America’s Top 30 Professionals of 2024 for her outstanding contribution to the performing arts. In the special January issue featuring these top professionals, Musical America will announce her latest initiative: Heritage and Harmony: BRAVA Maestra! This project, in partnership with the International Alliance for Women in Music, and WNET/PBS multi-media platform All Arts, aims to spotlight women conductors of color, further demonstrating Donna’s commitment to promoting diversity and inclusivity in the classical music world.

 Donna was inducted into the Steinway & Sons Teacher Hall of Fame in 2023, for her “passionate commitment to teaching and inspiring young people in music” – Gavin English, President of Steinway & Sons Americas.

Donna wrote, directed and produced the award winning documentary short, NEVER FADE AWAY  featuring  Chun Wai Chan, the first principal dancer of Chinese descent in New York City Ballet’s 75-year history. NEVER FADE AWAY  is the true story of how a radio and a waltz changed her immigrant father’s life.  History-making dancer Chun Wai Chan  portrays her father as a young man and dances a riveting pas de deux -choreographed exquisitely by Ariel Grossman- with  Xiaoxiao Cao.  The short film premiered at  NYU”s Jack Crystal Theater in celebration of AAPI and Immigrant Heritage Month in May, and has since won forty-four  laurels from film festivals worldwide.  Here is the teaser for Never Fade Away. 

Never Fade Away is archived at the Bob Hope Memorial Library at Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island in perpetuity by the National Park Service for use in permanent and temporary exhibits, for loan to other institutions, and for research by historians and others interested in the Statue of Liberty and American immigration.

A short clip of Never Fade Away was shown on the big screen at Times Square on May 1st in honor of AAPI Heritage Month. Donna has since been featured on CBS Morning Newscast with Cindy Hsu, ABC Eyewitness News, NBC News 4 NY, WPIX 11 News with Magee Hickey, WCBS News Radio and Asian American Life.

Donna is the inaugural winner of the Women Who Innovate Grant 2023, awarded by the International Alliance for Women in Music, Global Initiatives committee for her “impactful and meaningful” work.

 Her album Heritage and Harmony: Silver Linings, featuring exclusively AAPI/BIPOC artists, garnered two Silver Medals at the 2022 Global. Music Awards. Intended as a response to the wave of violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) individuals, her pandemic EP aims to promote understanding and tolerance among people of all backgrounds.

In collaboration with WQXR, Donna created and produced Heritage and Harmony, a virtual concert series in celebration of Asian Pacific Heritage Month.  Her story was featured on  Asian Americans of New York & New Jersey | WLIW21, a segment of which has been aired on PBS numerous times.

Donna was awarded a 2022 New York Women Composer’s grant. She is the co-creator and co-host of HER/MUSIC;HER/STORY with soprano Allison Charney, a mini-series on WQXR as well as a concert series that shines a light on women composers, past and present.  She was the guest speaker on TEDx Santa Barbara’s series Making Waves: Conversations with Influencers and Disruptors. Donna is the Artistic Advisor of Ariel Rivka Dance, an all-female dance company.

Donna was the featured guest artist on the National Women’s History Museum’s series NWHM Presents: Sundays@Home, honoring women whose activism and talents serve to inspire others.  On March 8th, 2022, she launched a virtual education program in collaboration with the National Women’s History Museum called Heritage and Harmony: Her Art, Her Voice, featuring leading female BIPOC role models in the arts who share their stories of heritage, their challenges and their triumphs, as they seek to inspire and empower future generations of groundbreaking young women.

Donna has performed in concert halls worldwide, and appeared as soloist with major symphony orchestras, including the Atlanta, Philadelphia and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras. She has collaborated with world-class artists including Carter Brey, Anthony McGill, Elizabeth Mann, Ani Kavafian, David Shifrin, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Paul Neubauer, Marya Martin and Kelly Hall-Tompkins.

The curator of the Donna Weng Friedman ’80 Master Class Series at Princeton University, she is also a member of Princeton University Music Department’s Advisory Council.  Donna is currently serving as Vice Chair to the Friends of Thirteen Advocacy Board/WNET.  She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University where she was a University Scholar and a Master’s of Music Degree from the Juilliard School where she was a winner of the highly coveted Gina Bachauer Piano Competition as well as the William Petschek full scholarship award. Donna had the honor and privilege of studying with the great pedagogue  Nadia Boulanger and the inimitable pianist Radu Lupu. She is on the piano faculty of the Mannes School of Music.

Donna was the music supervisor and recording artist for the award-winning film documentary “Frames of Life” as well as for the documentaries “Living Liberty” and “Morris Engle: The Independent”.  Ms. Weng Friedman created “The Music Bee Club” interactive classical music app series for children ages 2-8 featuring principal cellist of the NY Philharmonic Carter Brey and flutist Elizabeth Mann, produced by twenty-five-time Grammy Award winner David Frost.

https://www.donnawengfriedman.com/