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Press Releases
Curtis Stewart Announces 2025-2026 Season Highlights
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
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Curtis Stewart Announces 2025-2026 Season Highlights
World Premiere Performances of Coleridge-Taylor's Newly Rediscovered Ballade with National Philharmonic and Conductor Michael Repper, and Stewart’s own I wouldn't stop there: in the words of a KING with Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence at the Hartford Symphony Orchestra
American Public Media Commissions Four of Stewart’s 24 American Caprices to Celebrate America's 250th Birthday
Seattle Symphony’s Octave 9 Series Presents GRAMMY®-Nominated Of Love. and Selections from 24 American Caprices
Ten Violin Duo Versions of Stewart’s 24 American Caprices Commissioned by The Kayden Music Commissioning Program at Juilliard Pre-College, Plus Recording of Bass Concertante at Juilliard for American Composers Orchestra’s (Re)Loading the Canon
Seasons of Change with Sybarite5 at Music Mondays in NYC
Composer-in-Residence at URI Guitar and Mandolin Festival
Recital and Masterclass at Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s Artistry in Action Series
Keynote Speaker at 2025 a2ru National Conference at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
Awake to all that is happening around him, he gravitates to the stories of humanity, and tells them through his music, imbuing them with that sense of love and peace, experimentation and creativity that are becoming trademarks of his ever-developing style.” – Boston Musical Intelligencer
New York, NY (September 17, 2025) – Praised for “combining omnivory and brilliance” (The New York Times), six-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated violinist and composer Curtis Stewart announces an exciting 2025-2026 season, highlighted by his first public performance of Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade with National Philharmonic, the world premiere of a new work called I wouldn't stop there: in the words of a KING at Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the commissioning of all of Stewart’s 24 American Caprices by American Public Media and Juilliard Pre-College, a performance of his GRAMMY®-Nominated Of Love. presented by Seattle Symphony’s Octave 9 series, Seasons of Change with Sybarite5 in New York City, appointments as the Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s 2025-2026 Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence and Composer-in-Residence at University of Rhode Island Guitar and Mandolin Festival, and additional engagements as a composer, performer, and curator throughout the United States.
On Saturday, September 20, 2025 at 7:30 PM, Stewart appears at The Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, MD, for the first ever public performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade op. 4 with National Philharmonic, conducted by Michael Repper. The program also includes Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Toussaint L'Ouverture, Avril Coleridge-Taylor’s Sussex Landscape, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Stewart, National Philharmonic, and GRAMMY®-winning conductor Michael Repper have collaborated to release an album of works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, featuring world-premiere studio recordings of the tone poem Toussaint L’Ouverture and Ballade Op. 4 for Violin and Orchestra. The album was released to rave reviews by Avie Records on August 1, 2025, to coincide with Coleridge-Taylor’s 150th birthday.
This season, Stewart has been commissioned by American Public Media to create four of Stewart’s 24 American Caprices, virtuosic solo violin works based on recorded American music and inspired by the Blues and the railroad, as well as the building of America's infrastructure. This special commission, for America's 250th Birthday, will culminate in a call for verses, a recording, and then a national special offered to public radio stations nationwide from American Public Media in summer 2026. In addition, ten new violin duo versions of 24 American Caprices have been commissioned from The Kayden Music Commissioning Program at Juilliard Pre-College. The duos will be premiered on April 25, 2026 by students in the studio of Catherine Cho. Stewart’s 24 American Caprices are inspired by a kaleidoscope of recorded American music, with some honorary American additions; musical aspects of each inspiration are abstracted and imbued with challenging violin techniques emulating the sounds and styles of their origin. In the full meaning of caprice, these violin fragments dance and sing lightly from inspiration to ornamentation, both with flights of fantasy and fastidious settings of referenced material, creating playful musical dialogue around American lineage and individual perspective in Classical music. A recording of Stewart's 24 American Caprices is slated for future release.
On October 9, 2025, The Juilliard School will host a workshop and recording session of Stewart’s Bass Concerto Bass Concertante with bassist Kebra-Seyoun Charles for (Re)loading the Canon. American Composers Orchestra partners with The Juilliard School and other organizations for (Re)loading the Canon, a commissioning consortium to develop a series of eight-minute violin, viola, cello, and bass concertos by Black and Latino composers.
Stewart was commissioned to arrange a portion of Seasons of Change for guitar and mandolin for Duo Mantar, comprised of mandolinist Jacob Reuven and guitarist Adam Levin. The piece will premiere at the 10th Anniversary of the University of Rhode Island Guitar and Mandolin Festival on Wednesday, October 22, 2025 at 7:30 PM at the Courthouse Center for the Arts. Stewart will also do a lecture on composing earlier in the day.
Stewart is a keynote speaker at 2025 a2ru Conference: “Creative Futures: Driving Interdisciplinary Innovation Through the Arts” from October 23-25, 2025 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Stewart’s keynote presentation is titled “Artful Context for Radical Identities: Exploring the Intersection of Video, Composition, Poetry, Electronics, Movement, and Improvisation.” The a2ru national conference is an opportunity for practitioners and researchers from across higher education to share innovations and perspectives in the arts. This year’s theme, “Creative Futures: Driving Interdisciplinary Innovation Through the Arts,” explores how future-thinking in the arts can reimagine and redefine disciplines, collaboration, and the academy to better meet the demands of the rapidly shifting technological, ecological, and political landscape.
On Friday, November 14, 2025 at 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM, Seattle Symphony presents Stewart’s “Of Love” in two concerts at Octave 9: Raisbeck Music Center at Benaroya Hall. In this program, Stewart will perform selections from this GRAMMY® Award-nominated album, written as a musical essay on grief and a tender tribute to Stewart’s mother, Elektra Kurtis-Stewart, a composer and violinist herself. Stewart’s original compositions for strings, electronics, and voice weave between a single poem of prayer and songs the composer learned from his mother: meditative recompositions of Alice Coltrane, Johannes Brahms, Duke Ellington, Karol Szymanowski, and Henry Purcell, as well as selected jazz standards and the Greek traditional song Thalassaki Mou.
Stewart performs Seasons of Change with Sybarite5 at Music Mondays in NYC on November 3, 2025. Seasons of Change recently released on Bright Shiny Things reimagines Vivaldi’s Four Seasons through a contemporary lens, weaving improvisation, electronics, and recorded voices to explore climate change and humanity’s evolving connection to nature. Performed by string quintet Sybarite5, alongside favorite selections from Sybarite5's repertoire, the performance also includes work by composers Gustav Mahler Marc Mellits, Jessica Meyer, Louis Levitt, and Aleksandra Vrebalov.
Stewart joins the Hartford Symphony Orchestra as this season's Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence, where he will work closely with HSO musicians, staff, and community partners to bring a unique artistic voice to a series of community-centered performances, educational events, and creative collaborations, which will ultimately engage audiences across the Greater Hartford region. The Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence program honors Joyce C. Willis, a supporter of the arts and former board member of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Similarly, the Joyce C. Willis Fund for Excellence and Equity in the Arts was established by The Roberts Foundation in late 2020 to support Black artists and enhance diversity within the arts community. As part of his residency, Stewart will perform Seasons of Change with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra on December 12 and 13, 2025 at 8:00 PM and December 14, 2025, at 3:00 PM, conducted by Carolyn Kuan. This program bridges the past and present, and also features Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1. On Friday, June 5 and 6 at 8:00 PM and June 7, 2026 at 3:00 PM, Stewart returns to Hartford to perform The Famous People, his reimagination of Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances through African American musical traditions for a special Masterworks Series presentation of The Rite of Spring On-Screen.
On Friday, January 16, 2026, at 7:30 PM, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra presents the world premiere of Stewart’s I wouldn't stop there: in the words of a KING at the Chrysler Hall in Norfolk, Virginia, commissioned by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Stewart’s new work for chorus and chamber orchestra is inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Mountaintop" Speech, a meditation on the last public words he spoke in 1968 before his assassination. “This work depicts a struggle to feel ownership of our moment in history,” Stewart says. “It explores a will to resist the impulse to fast forward, to pause, or to be stuck looking to the past for relief; the music provides moments to breathe, alongside dreamlike atmospheres—akin to nightmares, the energy of running in what feels like a quicksand of forward motion.” Conducted by Eric Jacobsen, the program also includes Jennifer Higdon’s Harp Concerto with VSO Principal Harpist Alexis Colner, George Gershwin’s An American in Paris, and Aaron Copland’s Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo. They reprise the program on Saturday, January 17, 2026 at 7:30 PM at the Ferguson Center for the Arts’ Diamonstein Concert Hall in Newport News, Virginia.
On Sunday, March 8, 2026 at 7:30 PM, Stewart presents a recital featuring selections from his 24 American Caprices as part of the String Masters Series, part of Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s Artistry in Action Series. The performance and masterclass will take place at Seully Hall at Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
On April 10, 2026, Bright Shiny Things will release a portrait album of composer Dave Soldier, featuring Stewart as soloist in Soldier’s Stuff Smith Unfinished Concerto: Music starts when words leave off, created from the great jazz violinist’s home-recorded melodies, recorded on low-fi tape from around 1963 or 1964 in Los Angeles for an unfinished concerto. Smith gave the tape to his friend Mary Lee Hester for safekeeping before leaving for Europe at the beginning of 1965, never to return to the U.S. Around 1990, Mary Lee Hester gave the tapes to Anthony Barnett, the administrator of Stuff’s estate, and Anthony sent the tape to Soldier around 2017 after learning of his work documenting Smith’s life. Soldier transcribed the violin part, finishing the concerto in the style he imagined Smith would have liked.
Curtis Stewart 2025-26 Season Calendar
Saturday, September 20, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Celebration: Coleridge-Taylor & Tchaikovsky
The Music Center at Strathmore | North Bethesda, MD
Link: nationalphilharmonic.org/event/celebration-coleridge-taylor-tchaikovsky/
Program:
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Toussaint L'Ouverture
Avril Coleridge-Taylor – Sussex Landscape
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Ballade op. 4 for Violin and Orchestra (arr. Curtis Stewart)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 5
Michael Repper, conductor
Curtis Stewart, violin
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 at 7:30 PM
URI Guitar and Mandolin Festival Presents Lone Star Strings: Texas Guitar Quartet & Duo Mantar Premiere
Courthouse Center for the Arts | South Kingstown, RI
Program
Curtis Stewart – Seasons of Change for guitar and mandolin [World Premiere]
Texas Guitar Quartet – Isaac Bustos, Jay Kacherski, Alejandro Montiel, Joseph Palmer
Duo Mantar – Adam Levin (guitar), Jacob Reuven (mandolin)
Thursday, October 23 to Saturday, October 25, 2025
2025 a2ru Conference: “Creative Futures: Driving Interdisciplinary Innovation Through the Arts”
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Link: https://a2ru.org/event/2025-a2ru-conference-creative-futures/
Monday, November 3, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Music Mondays Presents Seasons of Change with Sybarite5
Advent Lutheran Church | New York, NY
Link: https://www.musicmondays.org/november-2025
Friday, November 14, 2025 at 7:00 PM and 9:00PM
Seattle Symphony Presents Curtis Stewart’s Of Love.
Octave 9 at Benaroya Hall | Seattle, Washington
Link: seattlesymphony.org/en/concerttickets/calendar/2025-2026/25octave2
Program:
Stewart – Of Love.
Stewart – Selections from 24 American Caprices
Friday, December 12, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, December 13, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, December 14, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Hartford Symphony Presents Seasons of Change
The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts | Hartford, CT
Link: hartfordsymphony.org/portfolio-items/winter-dreams/
Program:
Curtis Stewart/Vivaldi – Seasons of Change
Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 1 Op. 13 “Winter Dreams”
Friday, January 16, 2026 at 7:30 PM (Chrysler Hall | Norfolk, Virginia)
Saturday, January 17, 2026 at 7:30 PM (Ferguson Center for the Arts | Newport News, Virginia)
Virginia Symphony Orchestra Presents Gershwin’s An American in Paris & Copland’s Rodeo
Link: https://virginiasymphony.org/gershwin-copland/
Program:
George Gershwin – An American in Paris
Jennifer Higdon – Harp Concerto
Curtis Stewart – I wouldn't stop there: in the words of a KING [World Premiere]
Aaron Copland – Four Dance Episodes from Rodeo
Eric Jacobsen, conductor
Alexis Colner, harp
Vocalists from Norfolk State University
Harlan Zackery, director
Sunday, March 8, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Artistry in Action: String Masters Series—Curtis Stewart, Violin
Seully Hall at Boston Conservatory at Berklee | Boston, MA
Link: www.berklee.edu/events/artistry-in-action-string-masters-series-curtis-stewart-violin
Friday, June 5, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, June 6, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, June 7, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Hartford Symphony Presents The Rite of Spring On-Screen
Belding Theater at The Bushnell | Hartford, CT
Link: https://hartfordsymphony.org/portfolio-items/rite-of-spring/
Program:
Strauss – Death and Transfiguration
Dvorák/Stewart – The Famous People
Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring (with film)
About Curtis Stewart
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 was 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.
Stewart's 2025-2026 season includes his first public performance of Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade with National Philharmonic; the world premiere of his I wouldn't stop there: in the words of a KING by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra; the commissioning of more of his 24 American Caprices by American Public Media and Juilliard Pre-College; a performance of GRAMMY®-Nominated Of Love., presented by Seattle Symphony’s Octave 9 series; Seasons of Change with Sybarite5 in New York City; appointments as the Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s 2025-2026 Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence and Composer-in-Residence at URI Guitar Festival; and more.
In the summer of 2025, Stewart released a solo album, Seasons of Change—Stewart’s own recomposition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which incorporates audio interviews from unhoused individuals and serves as the frame for an Afrofuturist meditation on climate change, class, and the nature of digital memory, on Bright Shiny Things. Later that summer, Stewart was featured as soloist on an album of world premiere orchestral recordings by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor on AVIE Records, performed by National Philharmonic under Michael Repper. Stewart’s works Drill and Double Down were also featured on Sphinx Virtuosi’s summer 2025 album, American Mirror, out with Deutsche Grammophon.
In his 2024-2025 season, Stewart’s performances included appearances at the Music in the Morning series in Vancouver; at his program, The American Recital, at Princeton University alongside masterclasses with students; in Bernstein's Serenade with the Maryland Symphony Orchestra; and with Mak Grgic at the St. Louis Classical Guitar concert season. He also held residencies at Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Cleveland Institute of Music, and served as Resident Artist at Kaufman Music Center, during which he performed in the world premieres of his own 24 American Caprices and Seasons of Change with the Gateways Festival Orchestra at Eastman School of Music and The Kaufman Center’s Merkin Hall.
Among many others, Stewart’s compositions have recently been featured by the Sphinx Virtuosi, which performed his Drill on a nationwide tour with Stewart as the group’s Composer-in-Residence; the American Composers Orchestra, which commissioned his Embrace as part of New Virtuoso: Borders and premiered it at Carnegie Hall; and by violin and cello duo Catherine Cho and Amy Sue Barston in a new work commissioned by Juilliard Prep. Stewart has also been commissioned to compose new solo, chamber, and orchestral works by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall’s Play/USA, Seattle Symphony, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, the New York Festival of Song, Newport Classical Festival, the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Eastman Cello Institute, Orlando Philharmonic, The Knights, La Jolla Music Society, Sybarite5, members of the New York Philharmonic, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, and more. He composed The Famous People, five recompositions of Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances, for a premiere by violinist Gil Shaham with the Virginia Symphony in March 2023, followed by a performance by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2024.
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.
The world premiere recording of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with the Experiential Orchestra on Bright Shiny Things was nominated for a 2025 GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. 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.
Curtis Stewart is a member of award-winning ensembles, PUBLIQuartet (Chamber Music America Visionary award, winner Concert Artist Guild, 2023 GRAMMY® Award Nomination) and The Mighty Third Rail (Best Music, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Comic Book Theater Festival). PUBLIQuartet’s album What Is American (Bright Shiny Things) was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY® Award. He has held chamber music residencies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Sawdust, and made return appearances at the Newport, Detroit, Vision, NYC Winter Jazz Festivals. Curtis Stewart has worked with many of today's forward-thinking musicians, including Henry Threadgill, SilkRoad Ensemble, Jessie Montgomery, Alicia Hall-Moran and Jason Moran, Mark O’Connor, Julia Bullock, members of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Billy Childs, Alarm Will Sound, Linda Oh, JACK Quartet, members of Snarky Puppy, Don Byron, Matt Wilson, among many others.
An enthusiastic educator, Curtis Stewart teaches “Performance Practice of the Blues” and “Improvised Chamber Music” as well as regularly coaching Chamber Music at The Juilliard School; directs the Contemporary Chamber Music program at the Perlman Music Program; served on the board of Concert Artist Guild; conducted several orchestras and opera pit orchestras; and for ten years led all levels of music theory and string orchestra at the LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City. 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.
Stewart was born into a musical family – his father is avant jazz tuba pioneer Bob Stewart and mother Elektra Kurtis, a soulful Greek jazz violinist – who formed the framework of his sound world through daring improvisation, rigorous Western classical training, and conceptual composition. Learn more at www.curtisjstewart.com.
*Photo Credit: Titilayo Ayangade
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